At the Movies Finale

One more weekend of "At the Movies," and one more chance for Maddie to wear her Princess Leia costume.  She really enjoys it, for reasons you see above.  The kids love the big inflatable dinosaur, but they also go to Maddie who is happy to smile and high five and pose with pictures.  It was a little humid this morning, so we migrated indoors here shortly afterwards, mingling with a lot more people and taking pictures there before settling down at KidPak for our services.  Our movie downstairs was "Raya and the Last Dragon," which was our final message of the series this year.  Given the state of movies this year, I'm not entirely sure how long we'll be doing this sort of series at KidPak, unless of course we choose older movies.  Which of course is one of the trends of this year, with content that evolving in a direction away from the traditional Christian family entertainment.  And while on a whole, the movie industry has always been trending in this direction, now we have family and children's movies - animated movies - crossing lines and challenging parents.  Before 2017, there was largely a feeling a trust between parents and certain companies that made kids movies.  Since then, that trust has eroded to the point that instead of blindly going out to see a new movie from a certain company, instead we have to look up more details about it ahead of time.  Yesterday we saw a trailer for a new animated movie that comes out in November, and it looks great.  But rather than just go out and see it, we have to really check out parent reviews ahead of time and go from there.  Anyway, the point is, there aren't as many "kid movies" to choose from next time around, because movie studios keep insisting on putting in content that many parents, particularly those from churches, will object to.  We've seen a few movies this year, and certainly not as many as we used to.  Partly this is because there just haven't been as many movies to see, and perhaps there's been the cost factor.  To go to the movies for the four of us, it costs somewhere between $50-$60 each time.  So perhaps we're being a bit more selective there.  By putting in content we don't want to see, that sort of helps the process of selection along, I suppose.  

We had four good movies for "At the Movies" this year.  There were a few "edgy" moments for parents of younger kids, but Isaac is great at editing things down a bit so that we could get our points across.  And the points were really good - these movies were deeper with repeat viewings.

We got home after this and Mom had a feat ready for us, a wonderful Sunday afternoon meal.  We took a nap after this, but later on Maddie and I were doing a lot of exploring through the LEGO Star Wars galaxy.  We had gone to Hoth for a good bit, at least the Echo Base.  And we were also on Mustafar a lot, trying to avoid falling in the lava.  The game is glitchy.  It shuts down or freezes up frequently.  There must have been a deadline, because this just wasn't tested enough before releasing.  But despite these glitches - which happen about once per playing time - the game has a lot to do in it, with all kinds of fun references.  There are evil GNK droids, Christmas sweaters, and you can even play as Willrow Hood.  There are so many obscure Star Wars jokes, or references to things that Star Wars fans would get.

Tonight we moved Miyazaki Monday forward a day and watched "Howl's Moving Castle" before bedtime,  another steampunk classic.  I think next we're watching "The Secret World of Arriety" next, but tonight's movie we actually had very little memory of.  We remembered the castle, of course, and Billy Crystal as Calcifer.  Like so many other Miyazaki movies, there are so many creative elements to this story, and of course our favorite character is Turnip Head.  We would both love to have a scarecrow exactly like that in our yard, but we'll see if we can pull it off.  Not sure.  It depends on the schedule, of course.

Okay, moving on.  Tonight we read another chapter, and the Ten Men are back in the silent Salamander, and there's been a narrow escape from capture already.  We'll see what happens next, but the excitement has been building sooner in this next book, and we're all enjoying the story.  

We said our prayers tonight, and were off to sleep after that.  It was a longer morning at church, as there were some people that needed talking with, and there have been issues and pains left and right with our friends there.  But everyone is persevering, even after open heart surgery in one case.  In other cases, a wedding is coming soon, and very soon.  We've got a few things tomorrow, but this is the week of school beginning again.  It's been yet another challenging summer, and hopefully soon things will shift in a new direction for everyone.