Movie reviews

Review by me, of course! Movies we've seen recently:

If you haven't yet seen Amazing Grace (the true story of William Wilberforce), you MUST!! Great movie and I just love the version of "Amazing Grace" sung by Chris Tomlin. It's called "My Chains Are Gone" and can be found on his CD called "See The Morning", which I also give a hearty 2-thumbs up!

Last week, we watched We Are Marshall, also based on a true story -- the 1970 plane crash that killed the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, it's coaching staff, and some football boosters. The movie focuses on the rebuilding of the team. The coach that comes in to rebuild the team is played by Matthew McConaughey (probably my favorite actor). One word of caution -- although I loved the story line, I'd give this movie a grade of "C" because McConaughey's characters likes to curse, especially the s-word. Not bad enough to where I felt compelled to turn it off, as I have with other movies, but enough to leave a little sour taste in my mouth, so to speak. I believe it's rated PG but I'm not sure.

One movie I give an A- that we watched last night is No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as a chef who is left with custody of her niece after her sister dies. Catherine's character has to kind of allow a new person into the kitchen of the restaurant where she works and she doesn't take kindly to letting anyone in -- not in the kitchen, and not in her heart. It's a romantic comedy but I honestly can't remember even 1 curse word and there was no s*x scenes although we are left with the notion that the cute guy chef spends the night at one point. This one is rated PG.

On a related note, we use www.PluggedInOnline.com as a must go-to source whenever we're considering watching a movie with the kids. This is an outreach of Focus on the Family and we love it. It has caused some problems for us in the past because we've read reviews on it and haven't allowed our kids to see certain movies that our families think they should have been allowed to see. But, this website is obviously reviewing movies from a Christian stand point and gets so technical that it counts the curse words in many of its reviews! Their reviews will tell you what spiritual content a movie had, what and how much violence is in the movie, what the drug and/or alcohol content of a movie is, and if there is any nudity or s*xual scenes, with a conclusion at the bottom. (I've been known to just read the conclusion 'cause their reviews are kinda long sometimes!) However, Plugged In does review movies based on family friendliness so movies such as No Reservations don't get a good review 'cause it's obviously not something you're going to set down and watch with your children. Still, I read the reviews for what Jonathan & me watch by ourselves, too. Our minds might not be as impressionable as our kids' minds but things still get "stuck" in our minds, wouldn't you agree? And if you're looking for a good family movie to watch, the one we've watched recently that surprisingly kept our kids attentions at least for the majority of the movie is Evan Almighty. A take on Noah's Ark that Plugged In gave a glowing review by James Dobson himself! Enjoy!