How do you decide what movies and TV shows to watch and what not to watch? What is good and what is bad?
In thinking about this, I’ve determined 3 things:
1) You cannot trust the movie ratings system
Hollywood is not getting better. The movies that are rated “PG-13” now would probably have received the “R” rating just a few years ago. I’ve even seen some ‘PG” movies that weren’t quite family appropriate. And don’t even think about trusting PG ratings from the 80s (yikes!).
2) You cannot trust the previews
Hollywood is getting wiser. They realize that there is at least some moral pulse left in America, and so they aren’t going to show you all the bad stuff in the previews. When is the last time you heard a curse word in a preview? Side note: don’t you hate it when the previews contain all the best/funniest parts of a move? I hate that…
3) You cannot trust your friends
I know this sounds harsh. I have a lot of friends that I would trust to recommend a movie as “family-friendly”. I also have a lot of friends that I would not trust. Because their definition of “family-friendly” is much different than mine, I’ve learned not to trust word of mouth alone.
So what is the solution?
For several years now, I have been consulting a website called “Kids in Mind” (kids-in-mind.com).
The site offers reviews, not of the storyline, but of the content. They rate movies on a scale of 1-10 in 3 categories: “Sex & Nudity”, “Violence & Gore”, and “Profanity”. I find this site very helpful in determining what movies we are going to watch and more importantly – which ones we aren’t.
This site has been helpful to me as a single guy, a married man, and now as a father of young children. I imagine it will be even more helpful when I am the father of teenagers….
I challenge you to check out your movie on Kids-in-Mind before your next viewing, and ask yourself a few questions while you read the review: Is this movie appropriate? Do my children need to see this? Would God want me to watch this?
What about you – how do you determine what movies to watch?
Hi Marc – I’m glad you like Kids in Mind. As a father of 4, I find it invaluable as well. If you’d like to take the movie ratings with you, check out Kids in Mind for the iPhone at http://www.kidsinmindapp.com
Dave
That is great! Thanks for the hint and link to the iPhone app – I will prob download that to use as we travel this Fall….
Thanks for sharing that site, Marc. The past few weeks it seems like we’ve been around a lot of kids lately, and it has given me pause to contemplate my future parenting choices. I definitely want to be deliberate and Christ-exalting in what I allow my kids to watch. I will have to start checking out this website.
It’s definitely a great site. It’s called “Kids in Mind”, but I think it should be called “Purity in Mind”….the site reviews apply for kids as well as adults. My thing is – if you couldn’t show it to a group of kids in church, should you really be watching it anyway? I think we’ve bought into the stuff Hollywood sells us, a lot of times without thinking Biblically about what we’re digesting….but that’s for another blog post….