Horton Hears a Who, the Drive-In & spending money

On Saturday night we took the kids to the Drive In. Yes you read right, we went to a drive in! It was really fun, we brought blankets, pillows, chairs, snacks,drinks and a radio. We did buy some corn dogs and a hot pretzel there. You no longer attach a speaker to your car window at a drive-in, thus the need for the radio since we chose to sit in the back of our pick up truck. The movie is transmitted to your car radio. The cost was $6 for adults and children are free. If parents have a carload of young kids it's a pretty good deal! If we had gone at the same time to our local movie theater it would have cost $32, not including any snacks. On a side note, a friend shared that rather than going to the movies they wait until the movie they would like to see is on DVD. They buy the DVD rather than taking their family of 4 to the movies. New releases can be as little as $15. It works out to be less expensive and you can own the movie and watch it over and over again. Even if you don't know if you'll like the movie enough to own it, it's still less expensive than taking a family of 4 to the theater. As a parent I'm trying to teach my children about being good stewards of God's provision rather than indulging them at every turn, making good choices of what we spend our money on. In what has become a very self indulgent world. I'm not saying that we'll never go to the movies or treat ourselves to certain special privileges but not at every turn. I'm hoping this will also help my children to be independent adults that can afford things on their own rather than trying to keep up with a self indulgent appetite they may have been fed growing up, that will also make them confident knowing they can afford what they are accustom. I am a stay at home Mom, which obviously forces us to be this way but I'm glad it does because it's a valuable lesson and I feel it's what God wants from our family. Ok I'll climb down from my soap box and tell more about the movie :) I'm passionate about my opinions and I'm grateful that my Blog gives me the opportunity to express them.

On Saturday night it was a little chilly, so it was nice to have brought some blankets and pillows. It was a beautiful clear night. We arrived a little early and got some corn dogs to go with our snacks. Then we settled in to watch Horton Hears a Who. We thought it was a really cute movie having been fans of the book and the cartoon. I thought about the message of the movie and how no matter how big or small we all matter a persons a person.... I thought about how as a Christian I could derive some positive message in this movie and the Christian rating site "Plugged In" sums up my thoughts best. Read some of what was said at that site, this isn't the entire review but just bits of it:

Though God is never mentioned, Horton Hears a Who! explores the concept of faith in a larger—unseen—being. At first, McDodd is the only Who able to communicate with Horton, so the other Whos think the mayor is delusional. Meanwhile, McDodd is trying to wrap his mind around the idea that his whole world fits on a speck of dust atop a flower held by Horton's trunk. His difficulty in grasping this concept is heightened by the fact that he can't see Horton.

To his amazement, when he begins factoring in Horton's presence, McDodd's own world suddenly makes more sense. When he tries to explain this to his fellow Whovillians, he uses words strangely similar to John 3:8: "Look at the wind! What do you think that means?"

Out in Horton's world, the kangaroo takes a hard-line naturalist view. "If you can't see, hear or feel something, it doesn't exist!" she insists. But her dogmatism is shown to be unfair and motivated by fear of losing control over the other jungle creatures.

The mean kangaroo accuses Horton of turning the jungle children into "a bunch of harebrained half-wits" and other such things.

Hands down, the addition I was most pleased by was the exploration of faith in things unseen, which gets only a passing mention in the book, but enjoys significant screen time. The interaction between Mayor McDodd and Horton leaves viewers with the distinct impression that faith is not just reasonable, but in this case, makes one more loving and more responsible.

So moviegoers looking for a Sunday school take-home lesson all spelled out and labeled with circles and arrows won't find it here. But they will be given a chance to engage in meaningful discussion about both faith and responsibility—all because of a lumpy and lovable elephant who's sure to make parents and kids alike leave the theater waving their trunks and looking around for purple clover to pluck.