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But Isn’t Hunger Games about Kids Killing Kids?

Posted on: 03/20/12 11:46 AM | by Jonathan McKee

UPDATE: Jonathan has now posted a new post titled, After Seeing The Hunger Games… We encourage you to peek at that, since the post below was written before the film’s release (even though they are both in agreement with each other).

Original Post:
After posting our article about what parents can expect from the movie Hunger Games, we’ve been receiving some interesting emails and comments from our readers. The most common question:

“Why should we let our kids go see a movie about kids killing kids?”

That’s not an ignorant question.

How should parents react to a story like Hunger Games? Are our kids going to want to start killing each other if they watch this film like all the kids that are throwing parties after watching the rebellious film Project X? Are we lowering ourselves to be like the audiences who gathered to watch gladiators fight it out thousands of years ago? (All accusations I’m hearing.)

First, let me ask a question: Should we avoid any story where both good and evil are presented? Think about this kind of reasoning. In The Chronicles of Narnia we see a group of kids fight against an evil witch! (Wow, that’s like Hunger Games vs. Harry Potter!) Should we avoid that classic C.S. Lewis story?

What about stories with kids killing other kids? Should we shelter our kids from any stories that tackle this ugly premise? Should books like Lord of the Flies be banned? (Wouldn’t be the first time.) We’d have to censor Genesis, Chapter 4, if we go that route. What about violent stories of adults killing other adults? (Oh man, there goes the book of I Kings!)

What kind of content should parents be leery of?

Good question. I’m reading The Hunger Games right now and am planning on seeing the movie this weekend and blogging about it. So far, I find the book not only captivating, but also thought provoking. A tyrannical government known as “The Capitol” lords control over the 12 remaining districts in the known human race. The districts are forced to each provide a boy and a girl to fight to the death on national TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss selflessly takes her younger sister’s place, forced to fight for survival in these evil games.

As you investigate this film for yourself, ask yourself these questions:

Is this story glorifying violence or inappropriate sexual situations?

Is this story making “bad” look “good” or enticing?

Does this story irresponsibly display imitatable attitudes and behaviors that our kids will absorb and eventually emulate?

Does this story needlessly sell out to showing “eye candy” like nudity or gratuitous violence?

Let me be clear: I haven’t seen the movie yet. But from what I’ve read in the book so far, and what I’ve read from those who have seen the film, I don’t find any of those negative elements in this story.

I encourage you, as parents, to do the same. Read the book for yourself. Read several articles, not only ours, but this one from Entertainment Weekly about Common Sense’s review on the film. (Note: don’t just read the headline of this article, it’s misleading as to Common Sense’s actual stand.) Read IMDB.com’s parents guide for the film, which always lists any sex & nudity, violence & gore, etc.

Furthermore, watch the film with your kids, just like I suggested you do with a movie not quite as innocent as this one. Go out to ice cream afterwards and talk about the story.

Don’t just tell your kids “yes” or “no.” Help your kids think Christianly about this film and any other entertainment media they encounter.

What about you? What do you think of Hunger Games? Do you have any concerns about this story hitting the big screen this Thursday night at midnight?

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

Date Night Salvaged

Posted on: 02/6/12 3:27 AM | by Jonathan McKee

It’s a good thing opposites attract, because when it comes to the movie choices Lori and I make… we rarely agree. And that was the consensus when were exiting the theater after watching The Grey last Friday night.

It’s funny, Lori and I have a terrible record for movie choices on our anniversary. We laugh about it, because usually we’re pretty good about finding something that we both like when we actually ante up for the theatre. She typically likes romantic comedies, with favorites like While You Were Sleeping and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. My favorites are Jaws, The Shawshank Redemption, Heat and A Bronx Tale. But years of marriage have taught us to find common ground in films. She enjoys the occasional action film, and I the occasional romantic comedy. And we both can always land on fantasy-adventure greats like Lord of the Rings. Despite our years of discovering common cinematic ground, our anniversary movie choices over the last 21 years have been epic fails. For some reason we have a terrible history finding good films come anniversary time.

Most of you read about the plans I had for Lori and I last weekend. She had the choice of three dates and opted for the shopping and night out locally. The date started amazing: we shopped, we had a nice dinner, we laughed, we talked. But then, forgetting about our anniversary-movie-flop curse, we decided to include a movie into the mix.

She actually suggested the new Liam Neeson film, The Grey. “Todd loved it,” she said. “And it has Liam Neison.” (Todd… did you hear that? She trusted your opinion from our Movie Reviews & Quick Q’s page. Ha! Keep reading, my friend!)

I thought the film looked good as well; so we easily agreed to see it.

We should have known better.

It was our anniversary after all. There is no way we’ll ever make a good movie choice on our anniversary!

I remember the one year that we chose Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film Collateral Damage. I know, I know. How could we even have thought… Anyway, we went to see it. Then there was the year we saw Hannibal. Yeah… you’re losing all respect for me, aren’t you?

I don’t know what it is. I think something is in the air early February every year and it affects our judgment.

So this year we go and see The Grey.

At the end, Lori turns to me, almost angry, and says, “That was the worst film I’ve ever seen in my life!”

In all honesty, I can only remember thinking two thoughts at this point. 1. Is there any way I’m going to be able to salvage this night and still get lucky? (Sorry, but we married guys still think this way!) And… 2. I’m going to seriously kill my buddy Todd!

Funny, I didn’t find The Grey so terrible. It’s not gonna go down as one of my favorites, but I liked the fact that it wasn’t your typical Hollywood, predictable, mindless-action flick. I grew to like several of the characters in this story about a handful of men in a desperate situation, struggling to survive. But I totally understand Lori’s perspective. The movie was very dark and didn’t leave the audience much to celebrate as they left the theatre. It sure didn’t leave Lori feeling like celebrating anything as we left the theatre!

Luckily, 21 years together have taught us a few things. We talked about the film for about 5 to 10 minutes on the way home—in this case, I let her vent. It was actually quite entertaining. I wish the filmmakers could have heard her opinion. She was on a roll, trashing every aspect of the film. Gene Siskel would have been proud.

After shooting the film full of holes, she took a deep breath and looked at me with her amazing brown eyes. After taking in her adorable features for a moment, I said, “I’m really sorry you hated that film so much. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Comedy.” She said. “I need comedy!”

We got home, I lit a fire, we snuggled on the couch and laughed together, watching a comedy.

The night was salvaged, and The Grey forever goes down in my anniversary-movie-flop hall-of-fame.

What about you? What has been your biggest date flop?

Posted in Humor, Marriage, Movies, Personal | | Leave A Comment

Nerd Fun

Posted on: 01/22/12 6:07 PM | by Jonathan McKee

It’s been a crazy weekend of travel, looking at colleges with Lori and Alyssa (Shout out to Azusa and Cal Baptist) and speaking at NorthPark Community Church (they’ve posted my talk on their website). As soon as I’m done teaching this parenting workshop, we’re going to go ahead and drive home tonight (because Alyssa has school tomorrow morning), probably arriving in at 3AM. So let me just quickly leave you with a little movie nerd fun, a cool pic I found on Alyssa’s Pinterest page. Classic!

Posted in Humor, Movies | | Leave A Comment

10 Winners Who Connected

Posted on: 01/2/12 4:34 PM | by Jonathan McKee

What better way to start the New Year than to give some stuff away! So that’s what I’m doing. I’m rewarding the people who connect with us.

As most of you remember, on December 19^th I offered prizes to ten of you through a little contest announced in this blog. I offered one of 5 new Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital copies of the new movie Dolphin Tale (Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd), or one of 5 copies of my book, Do They Run When They See You Coming.

The task was simple: LIKE our youth ministry Facebook page, or connect with us by receiving our free EZINE, my blog, or my Twitter (all easily done through this new “Connect with Us” page), or make a comment on our year-end Youth Culture Window article about the year’s top music.

Hundreds LIKED, CONNECTED and COMMENTED… and here are the 10 winners:

Ben Riddle

Aaron Verigan

Blairlee Owens

Eric Groezinger

Stephen Page

Corey Roskamp

Scott Ritter

Bob McMichael

Benjamin Spears

Charles Wallis

If you didn’t win… don’t worry. I offer plenty of fun deals and prizes through my blog, my Twitter, our Facebook, our EZINE… that’s why it’s good to connect with us in as many places as possible via our new “Connect with Us” page!

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

Looking Back

Posted on: 12/28/11 3:48 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Everybody’s looking back. The Top 5, the Top 10… name it. The end-of-year lists are emerging, revealing the top music, movies, and TV shows of 2011. I always find it intriguing to take a peek at the media choices people have drifted towards in a given year.

Nielsen released a few “Tops of 2011” lists last week. In their entertainment lists, they included the Top DVDs (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I leading the pack), and the Top 10 Children and Young Adult books (The Hunger Games at the top). Nielsen also shared their “Tops of 2011 Television” lists, with the Top 10 Single Telecasts (made up of 9 football events and the Academy Awards), and the Top 10 Primetime TV Programs (with American Idol, Sunday Night Football and Dancing with the Stars at the top).

2011 provided an interesting year in music as well. Rather than just providing you with a list of this year’s top music, David and I wrote a two-part Youth Culture Window article recapping the top 14 songs that went #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, a list that included hits from Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Adele, and Rihanna. This peek into the videos and lyrics of these songs proved to be eye-opening.

The year of music certainly has ended on an interesting note, because the #1 song hasn’t budged since November 6^th. Rihanna’s hit, We Found Love, has reigned in the #1 spot for 8 weeks now. I devoted a few paragraphs to unpacking the song and video in that article. The song seems to be resonating with young girls especially, with its message of even though I feel hopeless, empty and in pain, I almost would do it all over again just so I could have those good moments.

I encourage you to take a peek at that article, particularly our summary about the two common denominators we see in all the top songs of 2011.

We also provided you with a fun look at the top movies of 2011. Todd and I each provide you with our own personal Top 5 of 2011. (After posting that list, I have seen the Sherlock Holmes sequel, the new Mission Impossible film and Tin Tin. I really enjoyed the first two, but Tin Tin was mediocre at best.)

That pretty well wraps up 2011.

Only a few more days and everyone will stop looking back… and begin looking forward again.

Posted in Entertainment Media, Movies, Music, TV | | Leave A Comment

A Little Christmas Contest

Posted on: 12/19/11 10:38 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Kids are mostly out of school, Christmas is just around the corner… I think I’ll give away some fun prizes!

Let’s do a fun little contest. I’ll keep it simple. You LIKE our Facebook page, or subscribe to one of our lists (our e-ZINE, my blog, or my Twitter), or simply make a comment on our most recent Youth Culture Window articles about this year’s music, and we’ll put your name in the hopper to win one of 5 new Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital copies of the new movie Dolphin Tale (Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd), or one of 5 copies of my book, Do They Run When They See You Coming.

Pretty decent prizes. Dolphin Tale was actually a pleasant surprise. Todd Pearage, our movie guy says it well in our official review of the film:

I generally don’t like movies where the main character is an animal. Hollywood loves to give the animals human qualities, personalities and even intelligence – which is just annoying. That combined with the sappy trailer had me really dreading this one. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more the story of young Sawyer than it was the story of Winter the dolphin. And while, yeah it is sappy, it’s really sappy in a pretty good way…. It’s really the story of Sawyer and the effect Winter has on his life, rather than vice-versa.

CLICK HERE for Todd’s entire review, along with discussion questions you can use to dialogue with your kids about the film.

I’m staring at the 5 copies sitting on my desk right now. I like how they do these Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital copy combos. I have a Blu-Ray that I use at home, but I only have a DVD player on my laptop, and my kids like to put digital copies in their iTunes.

10 prizes, 10 chances to win. Just subscribe, LIKE, or comment. Doesn’t get easier than that.

I’ll run this contest through the year-end, draw 10 names New Years day, and announce winners in my blog on the evening of January 2^nd.

Posted in Movies | | Leave A Comment

Top 5 Films of 2011

Posted on: 12/13/11 4:27 PM | by Jonathan McKee

What are the best films you saw in 2011?

Think about that one for a moment, because your list might vary greatly from the typical critics… I know mine does. This year critics are talking about films like Shame, A Separation, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Meanwhile, teenagers are talking about Twilight and The Hangover Part II. Sorry, none of the films above made my list this year. (Dare I admit that I didn’t see any of those… and didn’t really care to see them?)

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I love film. I’m the type of guy who will sit down and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy in one day! (the extended additions, mind you) If you’ve been a fan of my website, you might even remember when our movie guy Todd and I used to do a special MOVIE REVIEW PODCAST at the end of each year (those were the days, back when we had the budget to do those podcasts—thank you, recession! Now we just do it in print.)

This year Todd and I wanted to kick the dust off that end-of-the-year “Top 5 Films” element that we used to do, so we each developed a list of our Top 5 Films of 2011.

Now, for you newbies to my blog or our website, let me prepare you for our unique lists. Todd and I aren’t your typical critics by any means. Let me put it like this: in 1977, which film did you prefer, Star Wars or Annie Hall? (Because Annie Hall got all the Oscars).

Exactly! If it won an Oscar, we probably didn’t like it. If it’s on AFI’s list of the greatest films… well… it’s probably not on ours. Todd and I didn’t vote for Black Swan last year (sorry critics), and as much as I enjoyed The King’s Speech (no doubt it was a really good film), it wasn’t in my “Top 5 Films” of last year.

With that in mind… here’s a peek at our Top 5 Films of 2011, along with a little bit of explanation why.

JONATHAN’S TOP 5 FILMS OF 2011
#5 —Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Those of you who follow me on Twitter may remember receiving my tweets from the midnight premier of this film when it came out late summer. I brought my own three teenagers to the opening and all of us enjoyed it immensely! The film avoided any raunchy talk or sexual situations. Parents will just want to use discernment because of the PG-13 violence. I give my detailed thoughts about Rise of the Planet of the Apes as well as some discussion questions here.

#4 —The Help
This film was a pleasant surprise for me. Not that I expected it to be bad, but I didn’t anticipate enjoying it as much as I did. For one, I only heard women talking about this film and book, no guys at all! But I decided to set aside my desire for an action film and watched this one with the family… and enjoyed it immensely! I shared my thoughts about The Help in greater detail in this earlier blog entry.

#3 —Hanna
This film was probably one of the most unique and original films I’ve seen in years, and it kept me on the edge of my seat. Yes, this film is every bit of action that The Help wasn’t, but as surprised as I was to enjoy The Help, my wife was surprised and enjoyed Hanna. My official review here.

#2 —Super 8
J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Mission Impossible 3, TV’s Lost…) brings this wonderful story to the screen, a nostalgic tale of a group of kids in 1979 (yes, I was a kid then) who are shooting a super 8 film when they witness a catastrophic train crash. Soon, inexplicable events begin occurring and this small group of friends start to uncover the truth. This film reminded me of what E.T. was to me in 1980 (a little language in that one too), a really fun and suspenseful film. Todd wrote up a full review and discussion questions for this film here. I would have no hesitation showing teenagers this film. The most objectionable thing is the swearing. Sadly, kids are so used to swearing these days that the PG-13 language in this film hardly will faze them.

#1 —We Bought a Zoo
This film almost didn’t make my list because of its late release, but I was invited to a screening and literally saw this film tonight… and wow! Cameron Crowe comes through once again. What can I say, I really love this director. Say Anything, Jerry McGuire, Almost Famous… this guy didn’t need to make any other films, but he did, and delivered once again, complete with classic lines that only Crowe could write. “He had me at hello” with this film. Truly my favorite of the year. Click here for my complete review of We Bought a Zoo.

JONATHAN’S HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Captain America- I’ve already blogged about how refreshing Captain America was compared to other films of late. Here’s a film with good ol’ fashion values, emphasizing the importance of internal character over external features. In addition, this film is probably one of my favorite films of the year for provoking discussion with kids (and we provided discussion questions, as always). It’s an easy conversation piece because most kids enjoy the film and it’s not preachy in any way.

The Immortals– This film was profanely violent, so I would struggle calling it one of my favorites, but it was extremely well done. A great film.

Drive– Also very violent, and irresponsible. Like Michael Mann’s Heat, it offered a creative and unique perspective into the life of crime and showed many of the consequences of entering that world. Ryan Gosling was amazing.

Moneyball– I saw this on a Daddy-daughter date with my 16-year-old Alyssa, and we both enjoyed this greatly. Neither of us are baseball fans in the slightest, but the film kept us. We even joked, “It might be fun to go see an A’s game now, huh?” The writing was solid, Brad Pitt was great as always, and Jonah Hill was surprisingly effective.

The Muppets– Maybe it’s just because I grew up on The Muppet Show, maybe it’s because I think Muppets in Space rocks (if you haven’t seen it, don’t judge… that film is really clever)… but this new muppet film was a lot of fun. We saw this as a family the weekend it was released and thoroughly enjoyed it.

TODD’S TOP 5 FILMS OF 2011
#5 —Rise of the Planet of the Apes
This movie made me forget about the Mark Walberg Planet of the Apes film…which is a good thing. It was so well done from the characters (both human and primate) to the action sequences.

#4 —X-Men: First Class
This one wasn’t as clean as Captain America, in fact it might have the most skin of all the superhero movies combined. So it dropped to number 4, but the action and story are fantastic.

#3 —Super 8
Everything about this movie was amazing. From the detail of life in the 70’s/80’s to the suspense of a great monster movie. I loved it.

#2 —Real Steal AND Soul Surfer
I grouped these two together (and cheated to get 6) but I loved both of these movies. Not only do they top my Top 5 Family Movies of 2011, but they are near the top of my favorite movies of the year.

#1 —Captain America
Clean, exciting, fun. This superhero movie had it all, and I can watch it with my kids.

TODD’S HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Thor

What about you?

What did you like?

Posted in Movies | | Leave A Comment

Watching The Help

Posted on: 11/28/11 4:18 PM | by Jonathan McKee

The last 5 days provided several times to sit down together on the family couch and watch a lil bit of cinematic entertainment. The highlight of the weekend was definitely the film based on the best selling novel, The Help (I was sent a copy to review). Probably one of the best films I’ve seen in 2011.

This last week was one of the few years that we didn’t travel anywhere over the Thanksgiving holiday—kind of a nice change. Instead, we lit a fire, hung out with family, ate turkey, hauled out the Christmas decorations… and when we tired of all of that, we watched movies! I’ll be honest. When everyone asked, “What should we watch?” The Help was not my first vote. Alec and I, being men, had our eyes on something a little more manly (something with bullets, explosions… maybe even a few zombies…), but being outnumbered by the females in the living room, we consented on watching The Help.

10 minutes into the film Alec and I looked at each other, giving the “not bad” nod. By 15 minutes we were hooked!

The Help is funny, gripping and inspiring all the same.

We all loved it. I haven’t read the book, but my wife and my youngest daughter have. The two of them kept commenting about how the book went into a lot more detail (as books always do), but loved the film as well. I’m curious to read the book now.

The performances were spectacular. Emma Stone really proved herself as “Skeeter,” as did Viola Davis as “Aibileen.” But I think I was most impressed with two other actresses, the first being Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter).

It was probably difficult for Bryce to take on the role of the mean-spirited… scratch that… racist pig, Hilly Holbrook. Bryce was amazingly despicable. Bryce has so much range that I hardly recognize her in many films. I think I first noticed her as the blind Ivy Walker in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village in 2004. M. Night must have loved her too, because he used her again for the lead role in Lady in the Water in 2006. A year later, I hardly recognized Bryce as the blonde heartthrob who Spiderman ends up saving from falling to her death in Spiderman 3… and that’s just it… she’s always completely different, and utterly convincing.

The second actress that wowed me was no-name Octavia Spencer in her role of Minny Jackson. Most people won’t recognize Octavia other than some teenagers who might remember her as the nurse in Halloween II or the “troubled woman” in The Soloist. But now, everyone will remember her as Minny Jackson. Minny was the icing on the cake in The Help.

I loved the film, my family loved it, and our movie review guy Todd loved it in his review of the film a few months ago (complete with discussion questions).

If you haven’t seen it, the DVD/BluRay will be released on December 6^th. This is definitely one to watch with the whole family. (Be warned, there is one scene where someone uses the word “sh*t” literally in reverence to fecal matter in a comical way. It is referred to a couple times throughout the film. If you have young children that like to repeat things they hear, use discretion.)

Posted in Family, Movies, Parenting | | Leave A Comment

The Increasingly Difficult Task of “Fleeing” Porn

Posted on: 11/21/11 11:47 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Porn is becoming virtually inevitable. Unfortunately, so are the consequences of porn-consumption.

Doug Fields and I collaborated on four posts about porn last week on his blog (here’s his summary post with links to all). I wanted to take the opportunity to wrap up with some closing thoughts about taking this threat seriously.

The Pressing Need to “Flee”
Porn is permeating every avenue of technology. Unless we all move to Amish Pennsylvania or to an ice cave near the North Pole, porn is readily accessible. If you have the internet, it’s no secret that porn is a click away. If you ever stay in a hotel, hardcore porn is most often one of the TV ‘s main menu choices. If you’re like the 91% of America that pays for TV reception at home, the Playboy channel and pay-per-view porn are available at the click of a button, not to mention the soft-core porn that they often show for free on Cinemax, Showtime, and HBO.

Maybe that’s why (according to this article) 87% of men admitted to using porn in the year prior. If that weren’t enough, 69% of men and 10% of women report viewing pornography more than once a month.

As you can see, this is predominantly a male struggle. Those men who are trying to escape the lure of porn are being forced to take drastic measures to truly “flee sexual immorality.”

Sexual immorality was a real struggle for many of the heroes in the Bible (Abraham, Judah, David, Solomon…) and it’s a struggle for Godly men today.

The temptation is real. Take it from me, a guy who is in an average of two to three different hotels per month. If you dare turn on the TV, the first screen that appears is a “preview” channel that gives you a choice of “popular movie titles” and what they cleverly label “adult desires.” If you are strong enough to resist temptation, clicking “popular movie titles,” the screen once again gives you several choices: movies still in the theatres, popular rentals, or once again adult desires. Sometimes you’ll even get propositioned a third time.

If you skip this menu all together and click through the channels, be careful if it’s in the later hours of the evening. If the hotel has HBO, shows like Real Sex and the CatHouse series provide softcore porn. HBO’s TrueBlood is full of graphic sex and nudity. If the hotel has Showtime, this channel has it’s own versions of the same. Most hotels have one of the two channels.

This makes it very difficult for any traveler. I have learned that I literally have to check the TV schedule before I turn on the TV. If a man doesn’t check the schedule, then he might be caught off-guard while channel flipping, and that’s a very difficult situation for a man alone in a hotel room. Anyone who has been in this situation understands why Paul uses the word “flee” when talking about the lure of sexual immorality in I Corinthians chapter 6. Fleeing porn might sometimes require dropping everything and running like Joseph shedding his jacket and barely escaping Potiphar’s wife.

Here’s where many authors would insert that personal story of failure to hammer home the point. No need for gratuitous confessions here. Let me just say this: I’m not perfect, porn is a very real temptation for me, as it is for most men, and personally I take “fleeing” seriously (this reason being a huge motivator).

When a believer experiences the lure of porn, it’s good to lay down some boundaries, or dare I say “fleeing” measures. Personally, I never turn on the TV in my hotel without checking the schedule. My wife and I talk openly about fleeing these kinds of temptations. I meet for accountability with a good friend who is a local pastor, asking each other tough questions regularly.

Some people don’t see porn as a big deal. The reality is, they are suppressing the truth about the consequences of porn, allowing it to reign free in their life. They don’t foresee the danger. Today’s porn isn’t like the Playboy magazines that some of us might have peeked at as a kid. This porn is high speed, available 24/7, with a taste for every fetish. Those that become entranced soon grown numb to the mild stuff. Softcore is replaced by hardcore, and an increasing need develops for more extreme material. Soon, the consequences hit them right where it counts.

I encourage you to take a peek at the four articles Doug posted on his blog about porn. In those articles we covered:

In a world where almost 9 out of 10 men have struggled with the lure of porn, this is a subject we cant ignore. I encourage you to not only take a peek at the research in Doug’s blog entries, but dialogue about this with your teenagers. Teenagers are hearing lies on so many fronts… you might be the one person that actually tells them the truth about God’s desire for sex.

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

Top 10 Scary Movies I’d Actually Show Teenagers- PART II

Posted on: 10/28/11 10:54 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Yesterday I kicked off the first 5 of my Top 10 List of films that I’d actually feel comfortable showing my teenagers. Yesterday I gave you the first five; today you get five more.

I don’t know what the fascination is with scary films, but they really intrigue this generation. As a kid I really liked scary stories. Scary movies… even better. I remember watching Jaws when I was about 10 and I couldn’t sleep for several nights. My parents vowed to never let me watch scary films again… so I watched them at my friends’ houses!

This generation seems no different. When the top grossing film of the weekend last weekend was Paranormal Activity 3… that tells us something.

So if young people are going to watch scary, it would be nice to at least have some clean options. Here’s the remaining 5 from my Top 10 list.

The Next 5 Scary Movies I’d Actually Show Teenagers

(WARNING: Again, as I mentioned yesterday, please don’t just read the titles below, rent the film and show it at youth group. You will be fired! There are several of these that I would not show at youth group- but I would co-watch with certain teenagers. So read my description and my linked review carefully, then view the film yourself, using your discernment.)

Devil—(Directed by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle). I’ll start my list off with a dooooozie. Yes, the title of this film is “Devil.” Does that mean it’s inappropriate to watch? Good question. The film opens with the scripture verse, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. – 1 Peter 5:8” When I first heard about this film, I thought, “No way.” Personally, I don’t like films about demon possession, mediums, etc… because it’s very real! (I shared a little about my view on this here). But after a few friends told me about the film, and once I discovered that it was written by M. Night Shyamalan, I decided to take a peek… and I’m glad I did. The film has little to do with the paranormal, instead it’s more of an Agatha Christie-esque “And Then There Were None” where people are being murdered one at a time and it’s up to you to figure out who is doing it. The writing is amazing, the acting is brilliant, and the film delivers some great jumps. Spooky, thought provoking, and it will keep you on the edge of your chair the whole film!

I Am Legend—(Directed by Francis Lawrence) This is the one “Zombie-esque” film that will actually make it onto this list (although 28-Days Later is an amazing film, but just a little too intense for me to actually recommend for teenagers). Will Smith proves his amazing acting ability in this film, evidencing that he is much more than your proverbial action star. Humankind is almost entirely wiped out, and New York City is seemingly empty except for the zoo animals that run about. But then the sun sets… and it’s a whole different story. Amazing film, clean, suspenseful… and it will even put a lump in your throat a few times.

Psycho—(Directed by Alfred Hitchcock) An amazing film by the master of suspense. The film is tame by today’s standards, but still has some pretty mature themes. This is not a film I’d show to youth group, but one I’d watch with my own teenagers. This 1960 film probably needs no explanation, but if you haven’t seen it in a while, I think you’ll find the dialogue pleasantly surprising and captivating. This film is so much more than the “acclaimed” shower scene, a great mystery overall.

Book of Eli—(Directed by the Hughs brothers) Okay, I admit, this film would not typically be thought of as a scary film, but I’m including it on my list because of its frightening premise. Nothing is scarier than a post-apocalyptic survival situation, and that’s exactly the world that Eli lives in. In this R-rated film you’ll see swords chopping off limbs and some intense survival fight scenes (including an implied rape). Scary stuff… a scary world indeed. In the midst of this world is a man named Eli who is carrying the last copy of the Bible across the country to safety. Some great discussion scenes, including the one where the Eli’s nemesis Carnegie talks about the great power of the Bible, and the scene where Eli finally concludes, “All the years I’ve been carrying it and reading it every day…I got so caught up with keeping it safe I forgot to live by what I learned from it..” (We provided a piece of curriculum with small group questions and scripture using that scene).

The Sixth Sense—(directed by M. Night Shyamalan) This spooky little piece is the film that put M. Night Shyamalan on the map. This film is very creepy—not for those easily frightened. It does raise questions about the dead and where they go after they die. Some people might think that this film deals too much with paranormal activity. If you think that’s a slippery slope, then you shouldn’t watch this. But the film is very well made, very clean, and is made by a director who always seems to be looking for spiritual answers.

What about you? Any films you’d include in this list? Any films that you might have shown teenagers… and regretted it?

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