And no, it wasn’t a long-lost relative or a neighbor from down the lane asking for a cup of sugar. This was a messenger from God, an honest-to-goodness angel. And the angel came with news: The young woman would give birth to a son.

It was surprising and seemingly impossible news, considering that the young woman was a virgin.

But in time, the woman did miraculously become pregnant. She traveled to Bethlehem with her new husband. There was no room for them in the inn, so they had to stay among the animals. And that is where the virgin gave birth to her son.

It’s the beginning of an incredible story—some would say the greatest story ever told. It’s a tale of miracles and wonder: more angelic visitations, supernatural healings and the ultimate sacrifice. The woman’s son grows into a man. But more than that, he is fully man and fully God. He lives a perfect, sinless life, preaching and teaching and proclaiming the Kingdom of God. He is betrayed, killed and buried, but he rises to new life, conquering death and paving the way to eternal life for all who hope in him.

Maybe you’ve heard of this story.

It’s the account of Jesus of Nazareth.

The post The Jesus Film appeared first on Plugged In.

From her fellow townspeople’s point of view, however, there is one little problem: She’s just not like them. She reads books. And she dreams of adventure and true love. What a peculiar young thing.

Of course that doesn’t stop the lantern-jawed Gaston from wanting her as his wife. She’s the prettiest girl in town, after all, which makes her the best. And doesn’t he deserve the best?! He’s certain he’ll cure her of all that silly reading and dreaming once they tie the knot.

Belle isn’t interested. She’d rather wait for the future while taking care of her forgetful but loving papa. He’s such a dear old fellow, and an inventor, too. Someday his wonderfully quirky inventions will make him famous, she’s sure of it.

So when Papa gets lost on his way to the city, and his horse returns without him, Belle is instantly concerned. And she rides out to search for him, his faithful horse taking her to the gates of a gloomy old castle. Inside, she finds her father, locked away in a dungeon cell.

“Go away, Belle!” he cries. “Save yourself.” But it’s too late. The surly owner of this enchanted castle has heard the commotion and storms into the shadow-cloaked room. With bared teeth and an angry roar, he makes the facts clear: Papa trespassed and a price must be paid. If Belle wants to take his place, so be it. But someone will be the lifelong prisoner of … the Beast!

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“You’re not Charles Dickens,” Rizzo the Rat replies.

“I am, too.”

“No, a blue furry Charles Dickens who hangs out with a rat?”

“Absolutely!”

Well, Gonzo may not actually be Charles Dickens. But he does seem to know the 19^th-century novelist’s tale A Christmas Carol like the back of his hand. In fact, he proves it.

Gonzo narrates the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old grump with love for nothing but money. As London’s citizens put it, “If they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him.”

But on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by several spirits who warn him that if he doesn’t change his ways, he’ll suffer the consequences of his sins.

And it all starts with this famous line:

The Marleys were dead to begin with …

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Many people might have looked at the broken-down and rotten-posted house with apprehension. After all, the building was closed up, dilapidated and covered in dust, dirt and fallen leaves.

But when 10-year-old Satsuki Kusakabe and her 4-year-old sister, Mei, approached the weathered countryside home, they don’t see it as troubling in the least. It’s an adventure! And when their dad pushes back the wall panels and throws open the windows of their new home with a hearty cheer, “I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house, ever since I was a little boy!” the girls are sold.

Besides, with their mom laid up sick in the nearby hospital, being close by means the girls can visit her much more often. In fact, on their first visit, even Mom chucklingly declares that she’s looking forward to getting better soon so she can come home and meet some ghosts.

That’s not to say that everything is perfect about their new place, however. At least from Mei’s perspective. For one thing, the youngest sister is a little worried about Mom. She would never say anything out loud and be thought of as a baby, but she worries.

And there’s another problem: Now that they’re settled in, Satsuki is heading back to school. And Mei is left to run around the big yards all by herself. I mean, Dad is there working at his desk in his professorly way, but Mei is alone. And alone is … not fun.

That’s when Mei spots a small trail of acorns and a little, ghost-like figure that’s accidently dropping them from a hole in a hoisted sack.

Mei is quite surprised to see something like that shuffling about: a little, round, squirrel-bear sort of thing. So she follows it into a nearby hedge and out into the forest.

Mei knows that she really shouldn’t crawl off too far, but following this … forest spirit? … is too enticing. Before you can say, Where am I? the little tyke finds herself quite turned around and lost.

Then, after tumbling down a small tunnel in the base of a massive tree, Mei finds another one of the critters she’s been following. Only this one is huge. And very much asleep.

Mei crawls up on the creature’s slowly rising and falling stomach and marvels at its enormous snoring mouth, it’s long twitching ears, it’s thick, thatch-like fur.

It seems that Mei the explorer has found a new forest-dwelling neighbor of theirs. This creature is strange and wonderful in equal measure. And just before little Mei drifts off to sleep on this beasty’s large, warm, swaying tummy, she thinks:

What an interesting place we’ve found ourselves in.

The post My Neighbor Totoro appeared first on Plugged In.

Tevye is a poor Jewish milkman with a deeply rooted and conversational relationship with God. Though the small village of Anatevka faces antisemitism from the Russian militia, Tevye knows the Russian constable in their village well, and it is peaceful there.

While the antisemitism in this story doesn’t reach its full climax until the end of the film, Tevye has other pressing issues to address. Namely, his three eldest daughters wish to be married.

Traditionally, a matchmaker arranges the marriage, and the father (in this case, Tevye) approves it. Tevye has no plans to abandon his “Tradition!”

His daughters have other plans.

One asks for his permission, one asks for his blessing, and one just asks him to accept the marriage after the fact. Throughout the story, Tevye wrestles to reconcile his three loves in life: his love for tradition, his love for his daughters and his love for God.

The three-hour musical features lively music, energetic dancing and the story of a father doing his best.

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You’ve got Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal, Rowlf and, of course, Kermit the Frog. They, alongside plenty of others, are famous names in households all across the world.

But every story has its beginning. And Kermit is ready to share it: the story of how the Muppets—approximately—got started.

You see, Kermit wasn’t always the green movie star you know him as today. At one point, he was content simply to play his banjo in his Floridian swamp. But when he hears about an offer of fame in Hollywood that’d give him the opportunity to make millions of people happy, well, he’s as tickled pink as any green frog could be.

Along the way, he meets many others looking to find fame in Hollywood, too, including plenty of the aforementioned names so familiar with us all.

But he also meets a dastardly villain, too: Doc Hopper, a Col. Sanders-like man who’d like Kermit to be the spokesman for his fried frog legs restaurant chain. And let’s just say that he’s got the deep fryers already sizzling in the event that Kermit declines the offer.

The post The Muppet Movie (1979) appeared first on Plugged In.

Even when it’s pouring rain you stand there, wet and dripping, in hopes of a sale while members of London’s society class wait for umbrellas and cabs.

But even flower girls have a sense of self-respect. And as one flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, hawks her meager wares, she spies a man watching her and taking notes. And be he police or detective, that is a step too far.

“I’m a good girl, I am,” she proclaims. “I ain’t done nuthin’ wrong by speaking to the gen’leman. I’ve a right to sell flowers if’n I keep off the kerb. I’m a respectable girl: so ‘elp me, I never spoke to ‘im ‘cept so far as to buy a flower off me,” she concludes with indignant fire.

That, however, sets something quite unexpected in motion.

For just as Eliza is no bad girl, the man she speaks to is no detective. No, he’s actually a pompous phonetics specialist named Professor Henry Higgins. And he’s taking notes on her speech, determining her origins and where she was raised based on her digraphs and diphthongs.

And before you can say Cap’n, buy a posey? Higgins has gone from comparing the woman’s speech to the “crooning of a bilious pigeon,” to proclaiming his ability to improve her through diligent training.

“You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days,” Higgins states over-loudly and with great confidence. “Well, sir, in six months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.”

The cockney working-class girl, Eliza, is initially offended. But then she thinks about what it might be like to improve her job prospects, perhaps even become a real flower shop girl. It would offer the possibility of simple comfort. It would be “loverly.” So she seeks the professor out and asks him to proceed.  

Colonel Pickering, Higgins’ friend and fellow linguist, thrills at the concept. In fact, he’s eager enough to see the idea made possible, that he guarantees to cover expenses if Higgins proves successful.

Higgins smugly agrees.

So begins the story of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, a most unlikely pair.

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When Bagheera the panther found the human baby boy amidst the wreckage of a boat, he wasn’t sure what to do. But he couldn’t help but feel a bit of love for the child, and against his instinct, he gave the kid, Mowgli, to a friendly wolf family to raise. All was well in the jungle once more.

But while most jungle creatures—generally wary of humans—were willing to make an exception for Mowgli, not so with Shere Khan, the tiger. Shere Khan’s terrified of fire, and were it not in the possession of man, he’d wipe them all out—alongside any animal who tries to protect them.

So when the ferocious beast returns to prowl on Mowgli’s side of the jungle, the wolf pack tells Mowgli’s adoptive parents that the child is too much of a risk for them. In an effort to keep the boy safe, Bagheera offers to take Mowgli to a nearby “man village,” only a few days away.

But Mowgli likes the jungle, and he doesn’t want to leave. And he’s quick to gain the support of Baloo, a laid-back “jungle bum” bear who thinks that sending Mowgli to live with the other humans will ruin the boy.

Well, Baloo tries to teach the boy all he knows, and Mowgli would content to live with the “Bare Necessities” of life with Baloo for the rest of his days.

But no amount of back scratching and banana eating will stop Shere Khan from pouncing as soon as he finds Mowgli.

The post The Jungle Book (1967) appeared first on Plugged In.

Dorothy’s biggest storm at this moment is an ongoing squabble with the mean old Miss Gulch, who lives down the road. Dorothy’s dog, Toto, nipped at the old lady when she hit him with a rake. (Wouldn’t you nip, too, if you were a tiny, defenseless dog?) And now Miss Gulch wants to put the sweet pup down. She even got a police order to do just that.

Unfortunately, Dorothy’s beloved Auntie Em and Uncle Henry can’t help with the problem. It is the Sheriff’s order after all. So, while dreaming of a place where troubles and people like Miss Gulch don’t exist, Dorothy grabs her little dog and runs away.

However, even running away isn’t without problems. Actually, it can be quite the opposite. So when the skies turn dark and the winds start to howl, Dorothy stops running away and starts running for home, with a tornado blowing at her heels. And with a whoosh she and their farmhouse are swept up into the storm’s swirling, violent winds.

Dorothy and Toto are shaken and tossed about. And then the house thumps down with a ferocious crash!

Dorothy pulls herself up and stumbles out her front door, and she can only gasp in surprise. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” the teen whispers to her little dog as she looks around at the surrounding flowers and greenery. It’s all so colorful, so bright, so wonderful.

Could this be the place somewhere over a rainbow that Dorothy had wished for? Is this the land free from Gulches and troubles, she wonders. That’s when Dorothy notices that her house has crashed down on a person, no, a witch. A witch with ruby slippers.

What’s that old saying: Out of the frying pan, into the fire? Yes, that’s the phrase that comes to mind here. For it appears that, despite all the wonder around her, Dorothy may be in for a whole new round of stormy troubles.

And these are troubles of a magical kind, filled with witches, flying monkeys and a wizard named Oz.

The post The Wizard of Oz appeared first on Plugged In.

The Chief Manager elf in charge, Crumble Starsnaps, hasn’t really noticed, since he’s all about dancing and singing and keeping the elf crew holiday-happy. But Cinnameg has certainly noticed. And since she’s just been promoted to assistant manager, she’s kinda panicked about it. I mean, they’re only days away from Christmas. And there are rumors of a big storm coming, too.

She wants to do her best. She wants to make this Christmas perfect. But Crumble just points out that, in the 129 years that he’s been in charge, they’ve never come up short on toys. It’s the North Pole, he tells her. Chill out.

Meanwhile, Cinnameg’s daughter, Marzipan, has her own issue she’s been working on. She’s noticed this odd, floating sparkle zipping around just outside Santa’s Village. And she’s determined to figure out what it is. While chasing the sparkle deeper and deeper into the Peppermint Forest and beyond, Marzipan runs upon a huge, Christmas-hating bear named Grizz.

As Marzipan gets to know the growling behemoth, she comes to understand that he’s not as bad as everyone thinks. In fact, he’s a good enormous bear with sharp teeth and claws. He may be on everyone’s naughty list, but he doesn’t deserve it.

So now, Marzipan has two goals to chase after: Find the sparkle and help Grizz.

Little does anyone realize that Marzipan’s quests and Cinnameg’s worries are about to intersect.

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