Yes, Marge, it is possible to watch those movies with your kids
Friday July 29, 2005
So, my beautiful bride and I had an opportunity the other night to spend the evening without two of our children, which left just the two of us and our beautiful daughter (we’ll call her Kiwi here). We enjoyed a few serene and peaceful hours at the local Borders, looking through whatever books we found to tickle our fancy. And then we came home, thinking that we could watch some movies with Kiwi, being that she’s getting older now and stuff.
And what movies we have to choose from, just let me tell you! Movies I love to watch with Lynn, like O Brother, Where Art Thou, The Transporter, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Mission Impossible, Undercover Blues, and many, many wonderful others. So, as we were looking through our collection and comparing each one up with the PluggedIn movie reviews, I was amazed, frustrated, and supremely irritated by the fact that out of all of these really enjoyable movies, NONE of them were free from profanity, and therefore were not, any of them, something that I’d want to sit my kids down in front of and encourage them to watch. And just a pre-emptive “ssh”… yeah, at some point, my kids will be exposed to profanity. They already have been. But, as Kiwi and I were just talking about the other day, everything you come in contact with (are exposed to) affects you. Everything. And I’ll be darned if I want to voluntarily bring things into my kids’ lives that are not good for them. ’nuff said.
“This supremely sucks”, said I, determined to fix the problem (that is, you know, what men do–they must fix things).
A good friend of mine had already found a solution, however, and had been enjoying these sorts of movies with his family. I had been resisting the outlay of $50 to be able to do this, however, but the afore-mentioned frustration drove me to it. I ordered and have received the wee beastie, and thus I present you with (and highly recommend) the TVGuardian Foul Language Filter, Model 301, available for you and you only for the low, low price of $49.86, plus S&H.
I look forward to being able to laugh along with my kids as we watch some of these otherwise-enjoyable movies and not have to cringe everytime someone opens their mouth on screen. Yay for technology, again! =:)
Yep, one of those handy little boxes is sitting in our basement. Makes a lot of the film world a lot more accessible, without the guilt feelings.
…although it does sometimes generate unintentionally comical moments. The Matrix in particular is that way.
Heh. Yeah, actually, I need to fine-tune ours. We were watching something the other night… oh–Miss Congeniality 2–and there was one part where the William Shatner’s mother was telling Sandra Bullock’s character that he had a real problem with the sluts. What she was trying to say was “slots” and “slot machines”, but there was a really funny dialog that we completely missed because the TV-G translated “slut” to “flirt”. Lynn and I were baffled, reading about William Shatner having a problem with the flirts and the flirt machines. Lynn finally got it after a couple of sentences, and we laughed more than we should have, probably. =:)
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