Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Rated What?

Our family really enjoys having movie nights together. Unfortunately, I am constantly being surprised by the content in many movies targeting children. And truthfully, I'm shocked at what's considered acceptable in movies targeted at adults as well.

A few years ago, I got fed up with being unpleasantly surprised and started searching for a way to eliminate these moments in our family. So...I thought I'd share a few online movie review sites that work for me.




My favorite online movie review site is
Kids In Mind. While not a Christian website, they have the most detailed reviews that I have found. I love this site and feel like I can make informed decisions about what our eyes and ears are consuming. Here's what they have to say about their site:

We enable adults to determine whether a movie is appropriate for them or their children, according to their own criteria. Unlike the MPAA we do not assign an inscrutable rating based on age, but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE & PROFANITY on a scale of 0 to 10. We also explain in detail why a film rates high or low in a specific category, and we include instances of SUBSTANCE USE, a list of DISCUSSION TOPICS that may elicit questions from kids and MESSAGES the film conveys.

I also use it to make decisions regarding movies for myself. They have recently had some cyber problems (hackers, etc.), so they have a couple messages on their site - including one about membership, but I have been able to continue to access their reviews for free.




Another site I frequent is
Plugged In Online, a website of Focus on the Family. While I don't find it as detailed as Kids-in-Mind, it occasionally has additional information that helps me make a decision about movie selections. One neat thing is that they don't just stop at movie reviews, they also cover music, video games, television, etc.





I recently discovered that the
Dove Foundation does online movie reviews. While I haven't used their site very much, I checked out a few of their reviews and I really like the way that they have done them. Probably more so than Plugged In Online from what I can tell. I will definitely be using them in the future.

Making wise decisions about the movies we watch definitely works for me! You can check out more Works for me Wednesdays here. Happy viewing!

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3 comments:

6intow said...

Thanks for the heads' up. I have often used Plugged In, but was not familiar with Kids In Mind. Always great to have more resources for making entertainment choices.

Thanks!
Erin

Crystal said...

I didn't know about Kids In Mind. Thank you for the info!

Sherry @ Lamp Unto My Feet said...

I'm definitely going to have to check out Kids in Mind as I hadn't heard about that one.