A couple of weeks ago, online journalist/blogger Martyn Wendall Jones of Christ & Pop Culture shared what he called a “found poem” composed entirely of lines from Plugged In movie reviews. Here’s an excerpt:
John is injected with a drug that renders him unconscious.
A small group of twentysomethings seems to be high.
We see the hole in his flesh, the blood-streaked face
and more blood pooling on the ground.
Charles smokes a cigar.
Lyrical, don’t you think? And illustrative. It might sound a little odd, but it nicely shows what our movie reviews are mostly made of: recitations of problematic content. Oh, we try to be creative too, and we certainly attempt to dig as deep as we can into messages and worldview issues, sometimes even waxing philosophic in our conclusions. But we know that many of you really just want to know if there’s any nudity or misuses of Jesus’ name. That stuff’s important to you, just as it’s important to us. So we tabulate the sexual content, keep track of the violence. We count profanities. And we make no apologies for it.
But discernment doesn’t stop when a decision is made to see or not see a given flick. Personally, I think the process is only beginning.
And that’s why I’m really excited to introduce—or, rather, reintroduce—something we call Movie Nights.
Plugged In’s Movie Nights have been around for a while now—longer, in fact, than I’ve been the editor. We have about 100 of them in our archives, covering everything from time-honored classics to contemporary kids’ movies. They’ve always been designed to help you—parents of kids and teens especially—to take the next step in the process of discernment. Each is crafted to help bring families together to talk about the important themes, concepts and elements of a given movie.
Now we’re about to embark on a new phase of Movie Nights for a new generation of readers. (Meaning you!) Our new additions to the collection will be a tad more flexible as we break the discussion guides down into small, manageable conversations. In each one, we’ll lay out a few themes and lessons we’ve found in a given movie and suggest a few questions—discussion starters, really—that you can chat about with your kids or friends or small group or youth group. We’ll offer a smattering of Bible verses that support a concept the movie illustrates. We’ll talk about some of the messages the movie offers, be they good or bad. And if they’re bad, we’ll suggest why God’s way is the better way.
We’re not intending for our Movie Nights to be structured, step-by-step, take-it-or-leave-it devotionals. We want this to be a pliable tool that you’re able to use as much of or as little of as you wish. Maybe you do want to watch a movie as part of your youth group and go through the whole Movie Night afterwards, step by step. Maybe you simply want to have a drive-home conversation starter after a Saturday matinee with your kids. Maybe you want to chat about the flick over pie and need just a little direction. Our Movie Nights might help in all those situations.
And we plan to do more of them than we’ve done in the past, too. Like, a lot more. We’ll do them on new movies that just came out in theaters. We’ll do them on films just released on video. And, of course, we’ll still pick up a favorite older flick or two along the way. Whatever films we pick, over the next few months we plan to have a new one for you pretty much every week.
Don’t think of them as recommendations. And don’t think of them as school work. Just think of them as us sitting down with you and yours to talk over a movie you’ve just seen. Check our reviews first, and watch for our cautions, of course. And if one of our Movie Nights looks like a movie you would like to watch (or have already watched), use our guide however you wish. (You can read more info about how and why we pick what we pick on our main Movie Nights landing page at pluggedin.com/familyroom/movienights.)
As mentioned, we’ll be doing this over the next several months—longer, if you seem to like it. (Which, in Internet terms, means lots of people clicking and reading and using!) So please take a look right now at our (re)introductory Movie Night on The Giver. Thumb through it and tell us what you think. And then keep checking back each week for more.
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