Family Movie Night

Sometime in the middle of this past (exceedingly long) winter, we decided to start having a movie night once a week. We would pick something everyone would like, pop a giant bowl of popcorn, and all snuggle together under a blanket on the couch. We watched Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda and then realized that we were going to have to expand our horizons beyond animated films if we were going to keep this up. After all, as great as Toy Story is, there are only so many times a grown up can watch it. So we moved on to kid-friendly dramas like Fly Away Home and classic musicals like Singing in the Rain.

At some point, we realized that we were running short of options through our OnDemand cable programming. Some of the movies listed there under the "kids" section are shockingly inappropriate for young children (think PG-13 violence, bawdy innuendo, and swear words).

(Time for an apparently unrelated, but have paitence, we'll get there, digression.)

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a land far away and fairy-tale-like...Husband and I were poor graduate students living in a the top two floors of an old house. What had once been the home's attic had been converted into a large airy room with thickly padded white berber carpet, white walls, and tons of windows. It was light and bright. It was also the only room in which we had air conditioning (courtesy of a window unit) during the famous Heat Wave of '98. It was a sweltering 100 degrees for over a week, humid and oppressive. We hid ourselves in our room, with a futon bed in one alcove, a desk and computer in another, and our living room furniture in the main part of the room.

We read books that would help us think cool thoughts. We were so hot that Into Thin Air (the tragic story of pushing limits too far on Mount Everest) seemed appealing. And we exploited our Netflix subscription like nobody's business. That was back when Nextflix was basically free: I think it was $5 a month for three movies at a time. We watched movie after movie, and essentially pulled the summer version of hibernation until the heat had passed.

So, having learned our lesson all those years ago, we checked out Netflix to see if it might help us out with family movie night. Score! The prices had gone up so much all those years ago that we'd abandoned them, but now they're back to cheap cheap cheap. It's $5 a month for one movie at a time, but there's no limit to how long or short a time you can have the movie. We've created a list online of movies that we want to watch, and when we return one, we automatically get the next one sent out. The dispatch center that sends us our movies is only about 90 miles away, so we can mail one back on Monday and have the next movie no later than Wednesday.

In short, we love Netflix and have even expanded our horizons to include renting movies for the grown-ups on the house to watch after the kids go to bed. Now, you can too. I just found a flier they sent us offering four free one-month trials of Netflix to anyone we want to give them to. The key is, though, that you have to sign up for your free month by this coming Monday, June 15th. So I figured what better way to share than offer them to you.

If you'd like a free month of Netflix, just leave me a comment below saying so, and including your email address. My favorite would be if you would leave me a comment suggesting the next family movie we should watch, preferably one that is NOT animated, since I'm pretty sure the entire Pixar ouvre has been watched out in our house. I'll randomly choose four people, and email them tonight at 9pm EST with the codes to sign up.

(To clarify: Nextflix didn't approach me to write this post or anything. I just love them. And the deal of four free one-month memberships for friends and family is something they sent out to all their members, as far as I can tell.)

Even if you don't want the membership, would you suggest your favorite young-kid-friendly movie? We desperately need some new ideas! Happy weekend.