Last week I had the pleasure of attending an advanced screening of The Help from DreamWorks.  It opened in theatres August 10, 2011.

As a self proclaimed movie buff this is something I looked forward to. I enjoy watching all types movies (except those that make me cry). I have seen the trailers and heard a lot about the book.  It piqued my interest.

I am familiar with most of the cast including:

Viola Davis (Aibileen)

I have watched her over the years in some of my favorite t.v. shows like Law & Order, CSI and New York Undercover. On the big screen I have seen Viola in the movies Disturbia and Law Abiding Citizen.

On Broadway, Viola won Tony® Awards for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her role in “King Hedley II” (for which she also won the Drama Desk Award) and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for “Fences.” Off-Broadway, in The Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of “Intimate Apparel,” Viola won Best Actress awards from the Drama Desk and the Drama League, and received the Obie Award and the Audelco Award.

Octavia Spencer (Minny)

On the big screen Octavia has been lots of  movies including Blue Streak,  A Time to Kill, Big Momma’s House and Coach Carter. I have seen her on television shows too: Standoff, Ugly Betty, Dollhouse and CSI: NY.

In 2009, Octavia was added to Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Funniest Actresses in Hollywood list.

The Help was set in the 1960′s in Jackson, Mississippi. During this time, segregation and seperate bathrooms were common place. The storyline in the movie involves Skeeter (Emma Stone), who just graduated from college and wants to become a writer. She doesn’t get a job she applied for because of course she has no experience. Skeeter is hired at a local newspaper as a writer for a cleaning column.

Since Skeeter’s family, hired maids to do their cleaning like most white families, she does not know anything about cleaning. Skeeter decides to reach out to one of her friend’s maid, Aibileen (Viola Davis).  Once Skeeter realizes that writing the cleaning column will not get her the experience needed, she decides to write a book from the perspective of the maids in her community.

The maids in this story not only cook and clean houses. They are responsible for raising generations of children in white families. Skeeter wanted to give them a voice since no one ever bothered to ask them what they felt.

Aibileen was a maid who has raised seventeen children throughout her years of working for the same family. Her mother was a maid and her grandmother was a houseslave.  It was a difficult decision for Aibileen to make because she did not want to lose her job. It ending up becoming therapeutic to get her thoughts out. Aibileen eventually convinced her best friend Minny to join in and share her stories. You can’t help but love Minny. She is funny, to the point and a great friend to Aibileen. Plus she is one of the best cooks in Mississippi.

This movie was not about all the civil unrest going on in the country. It was more about the relationships between African American maids and their employers with a brief glimpse into their personal lives. I enjoyed watching the movie. I was caught up in the story and did not even realize it is over two hours long. It is one of those movies where I laughed, cried and  felt empathy for the characters. I felt proud when Minny stood up to Hilly and sad at how people were treated. It was an emotional rollercoaster to say the least. The Help stayed with me way after I left the theatre. Even though Skeeter did the writing, at the end I felt is was definitely the maids’ book.

After seeing the movie I really want to read the book. I have it on my e-reader and plan on reading it this week.

If you would like to enter to win a prize pack from the movie, stop over and visit Deals for Dummies. The Help Movie Pack includes: an adult female sized t-shirt, pocket jotter & pen, fan and a nail file/mirror. The giveaway ends August 21, 2011.

Last year in April, Walmart teamed up with P&G to offer movies that are appropriate for families to watch together. The made for tv movies are a hit in our house. I like it when I don’t have to worry about what the kids might hear or see. Sometimes I have been caught off guard so it is nice to have options where I don’t have to worry about it. We watch a lot of movies and while most are purely for entertainment, I do like for us to watch movies that tackle subjects that will spark a conversation. Field of Vision does this by addressing the subject of bullying and making the right decision.

I was invited to watch an advanced screening of Field of Vision. I was happy to check it out after watching the trailer. 

Bullying is something I experienced as a child. I have always felt that back then it was acceptable. No one ever really went and talked to adults about it. I hate thinking about all that I went through, but it helped me to pay more attention to my own kids and look for the signs. I would never want them to experience bullying and I am a big supporter of anything that brings bullying into the spotlight.

I really enjoyed the movie, even though there were scenes that made me tear up a little. You know I am not a huge fan of emotional movies. I am definitely putting this on my list of great family friendly movies. My kids watched the movie with me and did not find it boring at all. Between the storyline and music, Field of Vision is definitely easy to relate to and has some teaching moments. School can be socially challenging and doing what is right may not always be easy. But it can be done. It is very important to keep the subject of bullying in the spotlight. The more our children are exposed to the reality of it, they are more likely to make the right decision when it comes up.

There are plenty of familiar faces in Field of Vision. Faith Ford, best known as Corky on the hit TV series “Murphy Brown,” stars as Jody McFarland, high school guidance counselor and mom of the star quarterback, Tyler McFarland, who is played by Tony Ollerfrom TeenNick’s “Gigantic” and The Disney Channel’s “As The Bell Rings.” The role of Lucy McFarland is played by Alyssa Jordan Shafer from “The Unit” and dad, Kenny McFarland, is played by Phillip Casnoff, best known for his role as Chief of Staff Dr. Robert Jackson on Lifetime Television’s “Strong Medicine.” Joe Adler (“Prom”) plays the part of a troubled new transfer student, Cory Walker.

Make sure you remember to watch the premiere of Field of Vision on Saturday, June 11 on NBC at 8pm ET/7pm CT. If you won’t be at home, set your dvr. It is worth it!

If you are interested in more family friendly movies, visit the official Family Movie Night website. You can also connect with Family Movie Night on Facebook.

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of P&G and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

ARE WE THERE YET? is a sitcom starring Terry Crews (Everybody Hates Chris) and Essence Atkins (Half and Half) as Nick and Suzanne, a newly married couple whose blended family struggles with the challenges of everyday life. From dealing with the complexities of life as newlyweds to weathering the storm of teenage children this series is packed with relatable moments for all families. Telma Hopkins (Family Matters) plays Nick’s mother, who isn’t happy about his marriage nor her new role as grandmother.  Keesha Sharp (Why Did I Get Married, Too?) is Suzanne’s best friend, who has a taste for men and the finer things in life.  Comedian Christian Fenigan plays Nick’s best friend and owner of a sports memorabilia store.  And Ice Cube (Boyz n the Hood), who also serves as producer, plays a recurring role as Suzanne’s SWAT officer brother.

My family had the pleasure of checking out the first three episodes of this new series from TBS. As a long time fan of Ice Cube I was excited to see him produce a series. My entire family has seen the movies “Are We There Yet” and “Are We Done Yet” which both starred Ice Cube. For some reason I thought it would pick up from where the movies ended but it did not. It takes place six months after Nick and Suzanne were married. That was ok though, it just took a minute to get used to. I was not sure if I would be able to believe Essesnce Atkins playing a mother. She looks exactly the same as she did on Smart Guy and Half & Half. It turns out she did a really good job. The entire cast did. Terry Crews really impressed me with how well he played Nick.

We all enjoyed watching it. The storyline was very easy to relate to on so many levels. From the antics the kids pulled to thoughts on parenting and married life. Are We There Yet  is funny while adding a little bit of real life problem solving into the mix. My husband and I were laughing all the way to the end of the show when the credits started up I can not wait to see where the storyline goes.

Make sure you check it on on Wednesday June 2nd when it premieres with two episodes back to back at 9 and 9:30 p.m. (ET/PT)

I was provided with a screener of this movie to review. The opinions above are solely the thoughts of my family.

Thursday I went to the library and along with some great books to read, I was able to get some good movies as well. I wanted to grab something for Movie Night. I grabbed The Hannah Montana Movie, Scooby-Doo: The Mystery Begins and Tinkerbell. I am a Scooby Doo fan from way back so that is why I picked this movie. It aired on Cartoon Network back in September and we missed it. The dvr messed up somehow. I let the kids pick and luckily they wanted to see it too. We have the first two Scooby Doo movies, but they are scratched up so I am hoping to find them on sale somewhere.

My dad joined us for movie night so we were able to use his projector again, yay!! Yall know how I love his projector We ordered 2 meat pizzas from Sam’s Club, had chips, treats from Nestle, popcorn and made soda. Yeah, I said made soda. We used the Sodastream Jet  I was sent to review a while back. I was waiting for the right time to try it out. What better time than movie night! I was a little nervous because I was not sure how it would work. So I gave my dad the job of making the soda. We were sent a few flavors but we voted on orange and root beer. I almost forgot about the water and it needs to be ice cold so if you get one make sure to have some on hand. It comes with two 1 liter bottles that you can add the water too and stick them in the freezer for a little while. It works good that way. My dad read the simple instructions and attached the carbonator to the back of the machine.  The kids filled the bottle up with water and brought it to my dad. He screwed it into the front of the Soda Stream. He held down the button and added the fizz. Then he unscrewed the bottle and we added a capful of orange flavor. Then we did it again for root beer and it made a loud buzz sound when he pressed the button all the way down. So we figured we did not do the orange right and screwed it back on to the Soda Stream. Not a good idea. We had soda spilling everywhere!! I could not stop laughing. So we now know to be sure to hold the button all the way and wait to hear 3 buzzes The soda tasted really good. We could not believe we did it right there in our living room! That was really cool. We were thinking it would cool to actually mix some of the flavors to make our own special soda. Maybe orange and cream, root beer and orange or even grape and lemonade!

After we did all that we watched Scooby Doo. My dad never saw any of the movies so he was in for a treat. The movie was a great pick for movie night. This cast was not the same one from the other two movies. The storyline for this one is how the Mystery Gang got together. While we were watching everyone was pointed out different things we saw that is also shown on the cartoon. The only thing that bothered me was Fred was not blonde. It just keep sticking out to me. I am wierd like that sometimes. The guy who played Shaggy had the voice down perfectly. The movie did a good job of explaining  how it all came to be and we enjoyed it.  I am glad we watched it. It is definitely a fun movie, it had us laughing

If you want to check it out it,  will be on the Cartoon Network on Friday November 27, 2009.

The Scooby Doo movie was picked up at our local library. The Soda Stream Jet was provided was provided to me, at no cost, for the sole purpose of reviewing it. The opinions expressed are purely my own and are not influenced by monetary compensation.

I can always tell when the holidays are getting close. I just get this urge for new video games. I think it is all the deals that are popping up. They are just. so. hard. to. resist. The bad part is I don’t even have a favorite genre. I can play them all. No matter what the system. A love a good game. It can be for PSP, DS, PC, Ipod, Wii, Gamecube, Xbox (orginal of course) and my trusty Nintendo. Yes, I like old school too

I just found out today a new Need for Speed came out. I am a huge Need for Speed fan. I was just playing Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City on my PSP over the weekend. I have Need for Speed Underground for Xbox. I also have Need for Speed Undercover on my iPod Touch. I tend to get games on all consoles if I really like it.

Anyways, back to the the new Need for Speed Nitro game. It just game out today for both Nintendo DS and Wii. It definitely sounds fun. I love a racing game where I get to drift and get to run from the cops, lol. Plus it will be cool to try out the  variety of licensed cars they have that can be customized. I think I will be adding this game to my “want” list. It sounds right up my alley. I am curious about the actual game plan on both systems.  I just found out that Need for Speed is on Twitter too.