How Should We Watch Movies?

[UNCLEBITTLES]

With our eyes.

[Termite]

If movies are only an outlet of escapism for you, why bother watching movies at all? You should probably be reading your bible or begging God for forgiveness because you watched A Princess Bride.

Because some of us are able to have a creative mind without having to bother with filth.

[TigerintheShadows]

....All I could think of was Blimey Cow. "FINDING NEMO!? Son, what have I said about watching PG movies?!?!? NOW GET YOUR BIBLE; WE'RE GOING TO AWANA."

The sequel is even better:

"Toy Story?! Son, what have I told you about watching R-rated movies?" "But Dad, Toy Story isn't rated R; it's rated G!" "Are you kidding me? Toys coming to life? BLACK MAGIC! This is of the DEVIL! Do you think I'm STUPID?!"

[jelly]

Because some of us are able to have a creative mind without having to bother with filth.

"Look at us everyone, we're ripping off popular music genres and Hollywood formulas but taking out all the filth so you'll never have to be challenged by real life! We CAN TOO be creative!"

[Stop Wooton' Around]

With our eyes.

...preferably open.

(grr, you stole what I was gonna say as soon as I saw this topic)

[radgeek]

For those of you that are looking for intelligent, non-compromising Christian film reviews, there ARE good ones being published! But they're definitely not found at this website, Moveiguide, or even Pluggedin.

Christianity Today is a great place to start. Intelligent film reviews complete with strong parallels to faith and Christian values. The good folks over at Patheos also host a number of blogs upkept by film fans of faith.

It's easy to come up with non-intelligent, paranoia-fueled black lists that attack cinema and arrogantly claim to be doing it in the name of Christianity. Those websites are a dime a dozen. The greater challenge is to find film reviews that value cinema for what it is, focus on beauty and truth and draw intelligent parallels to life and faith.

Please be careful what you choose to fill your minds with.

Meh. I check PluggedIn to see if the level of swearing goes past my tear-out-hair limit or if anyone decides they need to showcase a bed show. It is good for that, though I generally skim over or ignore the rest.

^What Termine said.
I normally skip over violence and swearing (I live in NYC so that is basicly what is around me anyway) and just see how long the sexual content part is. I sometimes don't even read it (downside of PluggedIn is if you have left some of that junk in your past it can be triggering a temptation).
While I have been accused of being a legalist, I differ with must other people I see given that label in the area of media consumption. I believe there are three types of fiction movies: the first that you might want to watch once and might disagree with to learn from or know what everyone is talking about, the second are movies you agree with or have slight disagreements with and watch over and over, and the third are ones already to be below your standard to to considered. My movie standards (as you might have guessed based on how I read PluggedIn) is evaluates my weakness and strengths and factors them. I would think that to be the best to evaluate movies. Are their somethings are are absolutist out of bounds? I believe so, but I also believe that there are shades are grey with every movie and no movie is perfectly pure.

[jelly]

What on earth is 'perfectly pure' supposed to mean?

[radgeek]

A "perfectly pure" movie would be a movie where all the characters act according to God's word and there are no circumstances caused by sin. This would be a boring movie since it is hard to have a plot without something going wrong.

[Musical Shutterbug]

A "perfectly pure" movie would be a movie where all the characters act according to God's word and there are no circumstances caused by sin. This would be a boring movie since it is hard to have a plot without something going wrong.

I don't believe that such a film exists.

[jelly]

This quote from Roger Ebert is relevant:

The most fundamental mistake you can make with any piece of fiction is to confuse the content with the subject. The content is what is in a movie. The subject is what the movie is about. Word counters like Medved are as offended by a Martin Scorsese picture as by a brainless violent action picture, because they see the same elements in both. But the brainless picture is simply a form of exhibitionism, in which the director is showing you disgusting things on the screen. And the Scorsese picture might be an attempt to deal seriously with guilt and sin, with evil and the possibility of redemption. If you cannot tell one from the other, then you owe it to yourself to learn; life is short, and no fun if you spend it disowning your own intelligence.

[TigerintheShadows]

//nodnod I think the problem is that a lot of these websites operate under the assumption that no one watches movies with any kind of critical thought going on, when many people actually are quite capable of separating fiction from reality. The other problem, of course, is that many people really don't watch movies and think about them, either in terms of moral judgment or critical analysis, but that's the fault of the moviegoers, not of the movie itself.

[jelly]

exactly.

You guys can call me a snob for taking cinema so seriously, but critically engaging media and entertainment isn't only for people who really love film. It's for everyone. It's especially for believers. Christians should be paving the way for challenging, introspective films, ones that tell important stories, challenge worldviews and reflect the human condition. Instead, they're fueling mindless box office successes (and counting all the naughty words while they're at it).

If these Christians read the Bible the way they watch movies, it's no surprise that the Church is basically committing self-destruction.