We love movies. LOVE THEM. Before the housing market crashed, my husband had a full-time Custom Home Theater business. Now, it has to squeeze between home and his "part time" 40 hour a week post office job.
However, because of that business, we ended up with some pretty nice home theater equipment. We don't have it properly installed yet, but we couldn't wait any longer. We had to try it out for our first family movie night since moving into our new house!
I love love love having a nice big living room where we can all fit to watch a movie and we even have room for guests! Not that we've had any for a movie night yet, but we'll get there someday.
Temporary and hokey, and yes, barely set up without duct tape, but it works for now! Look at that nice big picture! We have a theater at home:)
Easy A Review
Anyway, for our first movie night, we watched "Easy A" with Emma Stone. I had already told my aspiring actress daughter Paris that she reminds me a lot of Emma Stone when she's playing a quirky, goofy type character, because that is SO Paris' personality. So, we chose this movie to watch so that I could illustrate my point. Which I did. Very well:)
The movie was a hit. I'll be the first to say that we let our kids watch movies that most may not. We watch them together, and honestly, I've found that it brings up a lot of conversations that we otherwise wouldn't have. I find it comforting to know that our kids feel like they can talk with us about things, that they can see problems and issues with people on the screen... and they know it is just a movie. The girls have both been on several movie sets, so maybe they have an even better perspective of that.
Anyway, Emma Stone's character is outcast as a "slut" after a lie she tells her friend gets out of hand. It actually came up from our public school Junior that this particular plot twist seems ridiculous, as in high school, every seems to find it 'normal' to be sexually active. Granted, he only has one year of public school under his belt (he was homeschooled up until last fall, then went to Public school at his request), but that was my memory of high school, too, that no one cared and pretty much the only people who stood out were the ones that were very vocal about NOT having sex. That brings up an opportunity to talk about our thoughts, our values and even our mistakes in our own past.
I find that the conversations come up often over the following days and weeks, even, sometimes when the kids are one on one with me, sometimes at the dinner table, but it opens discussions.
The stereotypical Christian goodie-two-shoes in the movie was incredibly off putting. I know she was
supposed to be, but there are far too many of the type out there, the "let me put myself on this pedestal and pray for you as I berate you behind your back" types. I don't even think its JUST Christians that do this, not in the least, but I find it incredibly off putting when people hide their actions behind a label of Christianity that in my opinion is decidedly UN-Christ-like. Again, it was good for conversation.
I like the movie. I find Emma Stone to be entertaining. I found her family in the movie to be highly entertaining.
I love it when a non-typical family and teen are portrayed in a movie in a good light. I get sick of the "all teens are rebels and hate their parents" and "all parents have given up and just know their teens are horrible rebellious people" attitude that I see in a lot of television shows especially.
I think if your children are younger, this probably isn't a movie for your family. If you have teens and you are a pretty open minded family, you'll probably love it. If you're pretty conservative and don't want your children exposed to the concept of sexually active/partying/foul mouthed teens, definitely steer VERY clear of this movie. For us, we've always said that we're happy to watch most movies with our kids, as long as they continue to behave by our family's standards and not by mimicking imaginary characters in a movie.
Anyway... fun movie, fun characters, some of my favorite actors, I give it a thumbs up!
*Since my kids then watched it again the next night, I say they must have enjoyed it as well.
Next Family Movie Review: DodgeBall
