Movie Night

28 May, 2009 Catholic Homeschool, Frugal Family, Movies, Recommended Resources, Videos

Many of us can’t resist a good movie. Are you ready to watch movies but not sure if about finding a good movie and how will you know if it’s a good movie?

Going to the video rental store and looking around for a movie is a thing of the past. It usually ends in disaster too, if you have kids with you. They don’t give you the luxury of remembering why you are there and which movie you are trying to rent. Usually before you know it your faced with options you did not expect to encounter. That’s one of the reason why I decided to go online for movie rentals such as Netflix, PiusMedia, and Graboid.

If you haven’t rented movies like this before you should consider it. You’ll find arguing about which movie to watch can be pretty much eliminated. These movies can generally be rented in two ways, by mail, or watch them instantly online.

The nice thing about Netflix style movie watching, is the way each person in the family can browse through the movies at their leisure. Put them in an instant que or a mail out que. Then you can go in and rearrange them, remove or add movies. Controlling movie watching in your house will be a little easier than watching a movie the television stations thinks you should watch.

These movie rental programs are also great if you sign up your elderly parents or grandparents; give it as gift – many of movie rental companies offer great movie classics. Take it from me, my parents love it! At first, they were very reluctant, saw no purpose in it and now can’t wait to go to the que and rent another movie. Older children can even help grandma and grandpa to show them how it works. Help discuss and learn about the movies (movie reviews) with one another.

I discovered a new site (to me) in the past few months. This movies by mail site is one of the best websites out by far for families who like to watch movies It called Faith and Family Flix their values are high. You may end up paying a little more for the basic plan but the regular plans are very competitive. Their selection on finding good Catholic and/or wholesome movies is also great. Plus you receive One Free Month if you join at this time. I understand it’s run by a Catholic Family. Pius media is also a Catholic based videos by mail organization who offer for rent, the largest selection of Catholic centered videos I have seen! I think every homeschool should should belong to this company to gain access to their collection for teaching purposes. I love the way you can search for saints by the feast days during any given month, that really helps with lesson planning.

Blockbuster is holding it’s own with their Total Access. You can download movies from their site, or by mail or exchange within their store. And they have branched in the UK. My friends and daughter who live in the London as I understand can now go to Blockbuster.co.uk where blockbuster offers a free unlimited DVDs for one month.

`Graboid Video`

Graboid is not necessarily family oriented it offers all type of movies. You should supervise kids when selecting a movie. However, they have a good selection of with 60,000 Movies & TV Shows Basic version is completely free. If you already know which movies you plan to watch, this site can be very nice. You download movies directly to your computer for later or watch it immediately. The cost per usage is determined by bandwidth downloaded. It’s clearly marked and easily understood. They offer a free month and I mean really free , Graboid does not make you put in any credit card info before your trial, just an email (and they don’t bug you.) At the end of the month or when you have used up like 10,000 gigs of download bytes then you decide if you want a monthly rental agreement. They do not mail movie to your house. depending on the amount of download bytes your interested in. Full access only $1.97/month Get it now for FREE Personally, I think it’s worth the trail and the quality is great.

One other Movie access that deserves to be mentioned is RED BOX they look like vending machine at Walmart and other convenience store movies can be rented for $1.00. They began to offer a Free Monday Movie night that was scheduled to end during May. However, recently they extended the promotion you can receive as a text message.

The Free Movie Monday monthly code will be distributed via text on the first Monday of every month, beginning June 1. To register or view promotion details, go to www.redbox.com.

Movie Reviews

Now that you know where to go to watch movies, let me show you where to find a good movie review source.

US Catholic Bishops Conference offers detailed movie reviews with the following codes.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ratings
A-I General patronage
A-II Adults and adolescents
A-III Adults
A-IV Adults, with reservations
L Limited adult audience
O Morally offensive

Motion Picture Association of America ratings
G General audiences
PG Parental guidance suggested
PG-13 Parents strongly cautioned
R Restricted
NC-17 No one 17 and under admitted

Before you watch movies here’s another place to go for a review. It’s called Decent Films they even have a fact checker too. Most everything else will just lead you back to the Bishops website.