Movies Archives - Page 11 of 16 - Jonathan's Blog From The Source

Screen Time

Posted on: 03/1/10 9:55 AM | by Jonathan McKee

I just got back from a weekend speaking at a camp… a weekend where I was unplugged for three days. Kind of nice. Now I’m checking email and catching up on articles for the first time… and WOW!

I just read our new Youth Culture Window article David posted while I was gone, The Lure of Glowing Screens. What a revealing article about teenagers and the time they spend staring at the all mighty screen.

This is David’s third article in the series we’ve done about the Kaiser Family Foundations amazing new “entertainment media” study. I’m not going to bother summarizing his thoughts… you really should just read it. But here’s a few snippits that I found particularly disturbing/revealing:

The content available to kids online is constantly growing and changing. Unfortunately, many of those changes are not good.

For instance, one of the biggest buzzes in youth culture this past week has been the explosion in popularity of a website called ChatRoulette. This is a site that allows users to employ their computer-mounted webcam to chat with any other person using the site at the same time. If you don’t like who you’re looking at, you just hit “next,” and in true roulette fashion, another site user is randomly assigned to your computer screen.

During the writing of this article, I visited the site for about 7 minutes to see what the buzz was all about. In that time, I clicked through mainly guys – no surprise there – about 60 in total, 4 of whom were openly masturbating. In the same 7 minutes, I only saw 2 women…but one of them was doing a topless strip tease.

Are you still sure you want a computer in your child’s bedroom?

Crazy, huh? Now some good news from his article.

The leading influence on kids’ lives has been debated for quite a while; some think it’s media, while others believe it’s parents. In fact, the answer is “it depends.”

In households where parents monitor media and make sure to spend quality time with their kids on a daily basis, “parents” are the leading influence on kids’ lives. But in homes where parents delegate quality time with their kids to screens, “media” gladly steps into the void and becomes a surrogate parent.

But there’s hope. Kids will respond and react to the influence offered by parents. For instance, KFF discovered that when parents did set limits on screen time, children spent less time with media…far less time, in fact. Kids in homes with any media rules consumed almost 3 hours (2:52) less media each day than kids in homes with no rules. That’s huge!

So parents please don’t throw in the towel. You can make a difference…a big difference!

I encourage you to read the whole article here.

Posted in Entertainment Media, Internet, Movies, TV, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

A Christian Film in a Secular World

Posted on: 01/25/10 11:38 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Last weekend the Christian film To Save a Life was released in 441 theatres (compare that to Avatar in 3,141 theatres or The Tooth Fairy in 3,344 theatres) and got great responses from audiences. This film is proving to be a great tool for outreach! Over 200,000 people saw the film, bringing in 1.5 million at the box office.

Even though this film is only ranked #14 or #15 for all the movies this past weekend, the film managed to be the top “fan rated” film on Fandango.com and it was the #5 ranked film for per-screen average. Most importantly, students’ lives are being impacted by the film. One student shared on the film’s Facebook page that he unsuccessfully attempted suicide on Friday, went to the film that night, accepted Christ and wants to reach out to others.

If you haven’t seen this film… I really encourage you to see it this week. This is THE perfect film to bring your kids to. One of the best discussion provoking films I’ve seen in a while. We even wrote up a discussion starter on our web page using a clip from the film that you can watch right on our site- click here.

I’ve been hearing some great reactions from youth workers through this blog. Here’s a couple:

Took my students last night, Every single one of them came out and said, THAT MOVIE WAS AWESOME. I look forward to our next time together to take some time and to talk about some key points brought out in the movie. Hope people take this to heart and LOVE people as Christ Loved us. – Glen Johnson

I took my student leadership team to a screening of the movie. They completely loved it. When I asked them to describe it, one of them said: “That’s my life…that’s what it’s like for me at school.” They shared about the film on their campuses, and I have 65 students going tomorrow night… which includes 30 unchurched friends of our students. – Bill Connors

Here’s some other exciting things happening that you can see from the film’s Facebook page:
-Tons of messages about students saying they are going to reach out to people at school starting today.
-Stories of kids walking out of the theatre and turning to their friend to ask how to become a Christian.
-Several students have quoted, “I don’t know about you but I need to check out a church this weekend.”
-Students sharing how they connected with “Danny” the hypocritical pastor’s son and that they are going to make life changes to be a part of the movement of reaching the hurting and lonely.
-Business men seeing the film and then buying hundreds of tickets for teens to go for free.
-Churches giving people opportunities to sponsor students to go see the film.

I asked the writer, Jim Britts, if he had anything he would like to say to you all. He sent me this:

As a fellow youth pastor I really want to plead with you guys to back this film. If this film does not do really well in the next week we will start losing theatres and films like this will be much harder to be produced and taken seriously in the future. I’m not playing the “we’re all Christian’s card” but just see what teens are saying about this film and then act. It’s not a cheesy film and it was made for you to do better ministry. If the movie is already in your area please ask your senior pastor to see it and then endorse it publically for everyone in your church, take your whole youth ministry to see the film (before Friday) and then challenging them to invite their friends. If the film is not in your area then go to tosavealifeleaders.com to learn how you can bring it to your area and link up with other youth ministries to make it happen.

I encourage you to go see the film this week. You won’t be disappointed.

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Media Consumption

Posted on: 01/22/10 4:46 PM | by Jonathan McKee

I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at our new Youth Culture Window article that will be featured on our front page all this coming week. We just put it up on the site.

As you heard from my last blog, the Kaiser Foundation just released their most recent media consumption report, and WOW!

If you didn’t see the report, David provides us with a great summary. Here’s a snippet:

According to the long awaited and highly anticipated Kaiser Family Foundation’s report entitled Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds, students between 7th and 12th grade spend 7 hours and 38 minutes every day (or 53.4 hours, weekly) taking in various forms of “entertainment media.”

That’s more time than is required to drive from coast to coast. (Google it if you don’t believe me.) …

Every week, kids spend over 53 hours listening to music, surfing the web, watching TV, taking in a movie, thumbing through a magazine, playing video games, enjoying mobile apps on their cell phone…or all of the above…at the same time.

That’s right. Since kids tend to “media multitask” – for example, watching TV while listening to music at the same time – KFF inquired about that tendency, and found that kids actually cram a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes of different media into the span of 7 hours and 38 minutes!

That’s like an all-you-can-eat media buffet!

Click here for the entire article

Posted in Entertainment Media, Internet, Movies, Music, News, TV, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

8-18 Year-olds Average 7 hrs 38 minutes Daily to Entertainment Media

Posted on: 01/20/10 11:17 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Yes, it’s true, 8-18 year-olds average 7 hrs and 38 minutes per day consuming entertainment media. Do those numbers sound high? They should. Because today’s average daily media consumption in the lives of 8-18 year-olds has increased by over an hour per day since the last study 5 years ago.

7 hours and 38 minutes is the brand new total released just TODAY from the Kaiser Family Foundation that you’ll be seeing quoted in reports everywhere for the next 5+ years. The report is called Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18-Year-Olds.

Five years ago Kaiser released their March 2005 report, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds. Since then, the Journal of Pediatrics, Pew Internet, CNN… EVERYONE… have used those numbers in their own reports about young people and media consumption.

Well… the new numbers are in. And media consumption is way up across the board. (Duh!)

This Sunday David and I will release our article with the summary of these findings in our weekly Youth Culture Window article. For those who want to get a sneak peak at the full Kaiser report, click here. Here’s some of what you’ll find:

Check out that increase in just the last 5 years!

Wow… kids are really reading that print-media, huh! 🙂

That’s just a snippet. You’ll also learn fun tidbits from the full report like the fact that cell phone talking and texting is NOT counted as media use (page 18, paragraph 2). That’s right, on top of the average of 7 hours and 38 minutes that young people spend per day in the above activities, there is also texting and talking on the phone.

11-14 year olds spend an average of 1 hour and 13 minutes per day texting, and 36 minutes per day talking.
15-18 year-olds spend an average of 1 hour and 51 minutes per day texting, and 43 minutes per day talking.

Add those numbers to 7 hours 38 minutes!

I’ve been looking forward to this report for a while now. Last week, Amanda Lenhart from Pew Internet told me that it was coming out today. (Another fascinating conversation… I had emailed her because I saw a report released from an organization I won’t name, a report that said that young people were spending 2.5 to 3.2 hours a day online. I read these reports all the time and that sounded high. A similar Nielsen report showed young people- depending on age- only spent a little over an hour per day. That’s an hour to two hours per day different! After examining both reports, I feared that this “un-named” organization was doing an internet survey. Think about that for a moment. “Let’s use the internet to poll people on the internet how often they are on the internet!” 🙂 Sure enough, my guess was correct. But I also emailed Amanda- I really respect her research– and asked her as a third party what she thought. She basically said, “Let’s see what Kaiser says next week!” Sure enough, this new report released today only reveals an average of 1 hour and 29 minutes of daily internet time.)

Again, we’ll give you the full summary next week on our Youth Culture Window page. But for those who have time, I really encourage you to read Kaiser’s full report. Just glimpse at some of their charts. Fascinating stuff about this young generation and their love for media.

Posted in Books, Entertainment Media, Internet, Movies, Music, News, TV, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

The Writer of TO SAVE A LIFE responds…

Posted on: 01/19/10 3:52 PM | by Jonathan McKee

It’s funny how diverse believers can be in their reactions to different types of media. One person will love a movie and see it as a great tool for outreach; another will be totally offended.

Last year I screened the movie To Save a Life, opening in theatres this Friday. I really enjoyed the film- It’s going to be a great tool that youth leaders use for discussion. (We’ve already wrote up a peice of curriculum using a cliip from the film- check it out here, and gave away some of their youth curriculum kits here)

I blogged about it last September, giving a pretty detailed synopsis, and I received some fun comments in reply. But I also received this comment:

Where was Jesus mentioned once in this movie? And 3 curse words, one used twice. It is watered down, diluted faith and I can’t believe youth pastors are all thinking this is great. I took my 17 year old daughter to the movie and she thinks they went to far with the language and sensuality as well. Implied would have worked. Would you eat a 9×13 inch pan of delicious looking and smelling brownies if I told you it had 95% pure ingredients (finest chocolate, flour, an sugar you could buy) but had 5% dog poop in it? I would not eat it and I will not take my teens to see this movie!

Hmmmmm. (The brownie illustration again? Really?)

I commented back… then he replied, I commented again… the bantar was rather humorous (for me, anyway). I won’t paste our bantar- but you might want to check it out in the comment section of that blog.

Then I couldn’t help myself. I emailed Jim Britts, the screenwriter of the film and asked him to address the comment. Here’s Jim’s reply:

From the beginning we never set out to make a “Christian” movie that would cater to just a “church kid” audience. This film was made for the millions of teens that are not going to set foot in a church and for the courageous Christian teens who have a passion for reaching their friends with the love of Christ. The top two things unchurched young people think when they hear the word “Christian” are hypocrites and they just want to convert me. We intentionally made this film real (which meant including a couple cuss words-which I prayed over repeatedly) in order to earn the attention of teenagers and lower their guard against just being converted. The whole reason we did this is so they will be open to a conversation with a Christian friend about the issues they related with from the film and how God could help them like He did in Jake’s life.

The film does not present the gospel because that’s our job. My prayer that it’s much less the youth pastor’s job and much more our students. Our ministry is preparing every student in how to lead their friends to Christ using the film and our prayer is they’ll be equipped and empowered to have more spiritual conversations this next spring because of this film than they’ve ever had before. What if we didn’t see this film as a threat to our Christian kids holiness (I bet they’ve already seen 10 times worse already) but instead an opportunity to challenge them to be more bold in their faith.

Jim Britts

Youth pastor, and screenwriter of To Save a Life

There you have it. No need to add to that.

I encourage you to go see the film this weekend and take a look for yourself. I think you’ll find it a very effective tool for Outreach.

Posted in Evangelism, Movies, Youth Ministry Planning | | Leave A Comment

The Book of Eli

Posted on: 01/15/10 7:34 AM | by Jonathan McKee

I got a chance to see a screening of the new Denzel movie, THE BOOK OF ELI, last night. Wow… probably one of the best films I’ve seen in the last decade.

The story is about a man on a journey through a post-nuclear world. The man’s name is Eli (played by none other than Denzel), and he’s carrying one of the most prized possessions of the times– a Bible.

It was amazing to see a film that truly represented the power of the Bible, and didn’t mock the guy who put his faith in it. This is probably one of the few films where being a follower of God’s Holy word is actually cool!

Denzel’s character Eli, was actually a noble guy too. He read his Bible daily, prayed, quoted scripture, and seemed to want to obey God’s will. I was waiting for him to go and do something stupid (like Hollywood usually does when portraying Christians). But Eli was not only noble, he was basically true to the Word (pacifists won’t agree– because he did defend himself to complete his mission). There were some great “discussion” moments including one scene where Eli talks about the importance of not just carrying the Bible, but following what’s in it.

The interesting aspect of this film was the motives behind people’s search for the Bible. Eli wanted to use it for good, where Oldman’s character wanted to use it to control people. True to life– some people have used God’s words with bad motives.

I warn you… some people won’t like the film’s violence. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a post-apocalyptic world, but never gratuitous.

That being said… great action flick. The film had some great fight scenes as Eli defended himself against attackers.

I go into more detail, including if the film is appropriate for kids, etc. in my official review on our MOVIE REVIEW PAGE .

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Bella’s Mom

Posted on: 12/28/09 11:57 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Okay… my friend/co-worker David is hilarious.

He emailed me the link to the following video with only these words: “Bella’s Mom”

If you haven’t seen the new Twilight film, The New Moon, or listened to Todd and I rant about it on our new movie review podcast… David’s comment won’t make sense (basically, in The New Moon, Bella becomes irritatingly over-emotional) … but you’ll still find this video hilarious.

(if you can’t see the video- click here to view it)

Wow!

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Annual Movie Review Podcast

Posted on: 12/19/09 11:10 AM | by Jonathan McKee

I can’t believe that this is our third one… wow… time flies.

Many of you listen to our THE SOURCE FOR YOUTH MINISTRY podcasts. We’ve been doing them since May of 2007. And yesterday we just launched our third annual Movie Review Podcast (so much fun).

This is the podcast where Todd and I get together, review our favorite films of the year, review a film together and then talk a little bit about using movies in ministry. This is a chance for you to actually hear the two guys that bring you all the reviews on our MOVIE REVIEW page. If you like movies or are looking for movies to use for discussing with kids… you’ll enjoy this podcast.

This year Todd and I start by reviewing New Moon. Funny… we talk quite a bit about how parents should respond to this film.

Then we share our favorite five films of the year– five films you won’t see on other critics’ list. Films that your average joe will enjoy.

Pop on our podcast page and take a look. Or… just go to iTunes and search for Jonathan McKee and you’ll see THE SOURCE FOR YOUTH MINISTRY podcast as a choice.

Enjoy!

Posted in Movies | | Leave A Comment

Avatar

Posted on: 12/11/09 4:49 PM | by Jonathan McKee

I get to go to quite a few screenings… and I haven’t been to one this “regulated” in years. (Movie reviewers only, no guests, one screening, no cameras, etc.) But hey… this is James Freaking Cameron!

Think about it. We haven’t seen a film from Cameron since Titanic, the biggest box office success ever! So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that I got a chance to screen Avatar. Congruently, you can probably relate to my high expectations.

Look at Cameron’s repertoire of films: Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, T2, True Lies, Titanic… not a dud in the bunch (a couple of rentals, but not a dud). How do you follow up the greatest selling film of all time?

I’m actually not allowed to post my review of the film until next Friday, the 18th (told you it was stringent), but I’m allowed to make some broad comments about my screening experience.

First, I’ll tell you that the film is definitely worthy of going to the theatre for the release. A mere glimpse of the preview on the official site will tell you that. The film is over 2 hours and 40 minutes long and I didn’t want to miss a minute. I attended the screening right after lunch and had to pee so bad two hours into it I almost went in a cup! (I didn’t… I sprinted!)

I’d love to give you details, but I can’t yet. I’ll just tell you that there were a few scenes that were visually amazing. The fantasy genre has proven to be well liked by audiences in the last decade, and I think the whole “avatar” premise will be welcomed by an extremely “virtual” generation.

But, all that said, it was hard for the film to rise to my expectations. This film is the “little brother” of “the captain of the football team.” It doesn’t matter how good or bad it is… it will always be compared to Titanic.

I called my son as soon as the screening was done and started giving him the play-by-play. I told him of scenes he would love and scenes that I thought they could have improved. I told him it was enjoyable, but a little preachy and too new age for me at times (I didn’t tell you that… I just told him that.. wink, wink.)

The main aspect I have to vent about is the choice to do 3D. (I don’t even know if I’m allowed to talk about this) I’m really disappointed they went 3D. I’ll be honest: I’ve never enjoyed a 3D film, ever! I was sitting at home in front of an HD screen literally 3 hours after the screening and the preview came on. I thought the preview on my HD screen looked better than I had just seen on the big screen wearing the stupid 3D glasses. I hate 3D. And there weren’t really any great 3D moments. So the 3D definitely effected my perception of the film.

That all being said… the film was really good overall.

I’ll share my official review next week with what I liked and didn’t like. I’ll also share my “two cents” on how appropriate it is (or isn’t) for kids. The only thing I’ll say now is that there is a lot of weird religious themes throughout the film that parents will want to talk about with their kids, especially in today’s culture of mix and match religions (just saw an article on that very subject here yesterday).

Posted in Entertainment Media, Movies, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Free Stuff from To Save a Life

Posted on: 12/7/09 12:29 PM | by Jonathan McKee

You guys like free stuff, right? Well… I’ve got something for ya. Those of you who have been subscribers of my blog for a while might remember me talking about a Christian film I got a chance to screen, a film titled, To Save a Life. The writer of the film, Jim Britts, is a buddy of mine, and he just hooked me up with some free stuff to give away to you guys. I’ve got 10 things to give away. So I thought we’d have another little contest. More on that in a minute.

This film is one you really should check into. It’s releasing in the theatres January 22 and is something I would use in two ways. One, I’d use it to open doors to spiritual conversations with my outreach kids. Secondly, I’d definitely use this as a tool with my student leaders to help them start thinking about reaching out to their friends at school and what that actually looks like. The film addressed typical church youth group “hypocracy” like no other.

I really enjoyed this film (you can check out my earlier blog about it here, where I gave my complete “two cents” on the film and received a few comments that got pretty interesting). As I mentioned, it’s a fantastic tool to show to a small group of kids or even an entire youth groups and discuss afterwards. It’s very real… even a little edgy at parts (You can see their new trailer here on their official site).

Jim is giving me three of his Youth Curriculum Kits to give away to you (a cool little kit with a seven week teaching series- it’s got a leaders guide, a DVD with clips from the film, ppts, and more)… and seven of the To Save a Life Novels. Cool stuff!

So here goes: a little “google-proof” movie trivia again since we’re talking about movies here:

The first three people that use the comment feature of this blog to answer just one of the questions below correctly, get the To Save a Life Kits. The 7 runner ups get the novels.

*BONUS PRIZE: Because of the rapid rate at which people won the first contest, I offered a bonus prize to any of those who could answer questions 1 or 3 below (because question 2 turned out to be “Googlable!) To those bonus winners, I put them on the list to receive a copy of my new CONNECT book coming out this month. Only two additional people got it. CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. All comments are posted below now.

1. What scene of what movie did actor Richard Dreyfuss refer to when he said that he didn’t even have to make up his interest in another actor because he was so captivated by his performance? (those are my words, so you can’t Google his real words!) 🙂 ANSWER: Jaws, during Quint’s speech

2. In what movie does Joe say, “I got Ice Capades!” ANSWER: Joe Junior says it in my wife’s favorite film ever, While You Were Sleeping. Then he says, “I know a guy!”

3. What scene of what movie did Morgan Freeman shoot, only to come onto the set the next day with an ice-pack on his shoulder, with no mention of it or no complaint? ANSWER: The baseball throwing scene in Shawshank Redemption.

That’s it. If you don’t know it, ask your movie geek friends. First 10 people with correct answers win!

If you’re just visiting the blog now and want to subscribe so next time you don’t miss all the fun- do so here– it’s free!

Posted in Movies, Youth Ministry Planning | | Leave A Comment