Are You Plugged In?

Our family loves watching movies.  We need to make decisions about which movies to allow ourselves or our children to watch and be influenced by, and ratings don't help very much.  There is one resource that I use frequently and am so thankful for, and that is http://www.pluggedinonline.com/ by Focus on the Family.  This website reviews new movies coming out, older movies, tv, and music from a Christian perspective.  The reason the reviews are so helpful is that they don't just give you thier opinion, but they break down the movie into specific content areas so that you can make an educated decision.  Instead of merely knowing a movie might have "foul language", the review will tell you exactly which foul words are spoken and how often they occur.  You can know what the sexual or violent scenes consist of in detail.  The reviews sum up positive elements and negative elements of the film.  It's the first place I go before deciding what to see at the theater, what to reserve from the library, and what to say when asked the question "Mom, can I watch this?". 

Normally the only theater we see the inside of is the dollar theater because I refuse to pay top dollar for a new movie.  I've learned to wait.  But every now and then a movie comes out that I REALLY want to see!  Recently the movie Courageous fell into that category, and it didn't let us down.  As I was trying to decide if we should indeed spend the money, a friend of mine told me about a way to get cheaper tickets!  So this tip is for my frugal friends: http://www.halfpricemovieticket.com/.  You enter in your zip code and the movies playing in your area come up.  Select the movie/time that you want.  The tickets are 50% off, plus $1 each processing fee.  (So instead of $8.25 per ticket, you pay ~$5.12.)  You pay with a credit card and within an hour they email you a Pick-Up number.  You can go up to the cashier or the kiosk, enter the number, and out come your tickets.  I was nervous about trying it, but it worked!  Got to see a great movie and save money at the same time...woo hoo!  The one thing we had forgotten though was to show up earlier than the start time of the movie.  Being given the choice of the first or second row in a movie theater was not so great...