My husband and I love movies. A passion for film is what brought us together as we met on the set of a college production where I was the lead actress and he was the camera operator. It's been nearly 18 years since that moment and there's been many changes in our lives but one thing that hasn't changed is our mutual appreciation for the cinema. For us, date night almost always involves a movie — not because we aren't very inventive — but because we truly love it. We get excited about new movies the way some people get excited about going to Home Depot. We'd probably choose a movie outing over most choices (excluding things like going to Disneyland, of course) and we're always on the prowl for what's in store for the coming months. As we've matured, our movie tastes have evolved but some things remain the same. For example, I always prefer a rom-com over something that will make me cry (which totally makes sense seeing as these are the kind of stories I write in my romantic fiction) and my husband enjoys weird, art-house flicks that always leave me wondering how the production company got funding. We both love action flicks and fantasy and while I tend to shy away from horror flicks (my teeth chatter involuntarily when I'm scared and while my husband finds this hilarious, I don't) he'll pretty much watch anything.

We've since passed on our love of cinema to our children. Our sons enjoy a variety of different movie genres, and our younger son, has watched foreign films with his dad since the time he could read the subtitles. Our older son is into anime these days and I figure it's okay because at least he has to do a bit of reading (which normally he hates) and if nothing else, at least he's making his brain work for his leisure time activity.

Our daughter is just getting into movies. She's almost 5 years old and the movie-going experience, up until this point, had been lost on her as she was previously more interested in the snack bar than what was playing on the screen. However, the tide is finally changing and she's starting to really enjoy watching a movie. Unfortunately, her fare is mostly the Disney stuff (which I don't mind) and the movies featuring talking dogs and crime fighting gerbils (which I don't mind too much but my husband finds inane).

Although we don't get to see every movie we'd like on the big screen (egad, ticket prices!) we do enjoy a fair amount of movie time. Last night we went to see Robin Hood with Russell Crowe as the iconic hero. Afterward we spent the car ride home discussing the merits and the deficits (in our opinions) of the film. I gave the film a B- while my husband gave it a solid B.

Good times. 

It's been 18 years since my husband and started watching movies together and it's something I suspect we'll always make a part of our dating rituals because, no matter what, we simply love it.