While the majority of my development into a functioning, moral human being came from my Catholic upbringing, movies have always been there to fill in the gaps, or even more accurately, help me apply my Catholic principles and viewpoint to tremendous stories in which the morally correct answer may not be immediately evident......That, and movies are just so dang entertaining and helped develop my sense of imagination and wonder growing up.
To put it all into a nice, easily-digestible package, I'm just an average Catholic struggling his way through sin to, hopefully, live a moral life immersed in grace who also happens to love talking about movies. My hope is that this project will allow me to combine these two great loves of mine into something that you might find entertaining, inspiring, informative, or all of the above.
(You can read the full "About Me" post here.)
We are all meant to give glory to God in our own unique ways, depending on our God-given talents and gifts, our interests and abilities, and most especially, our particular vocations in life. Why not, then, through movie reviews?! Isn't this the greatest idea for a truly original blogsite (said my youngest son's mother in her not-at-all-biased humble opinion)?! Couldn't it fill a void for the Catholic movie-goer who's never sure which films are worth the time and which he should avoid? It could fill a niche, I think; and as I said, I am just so excited about the whole thing.
My youngest son has always been fascinated by movies and the magic that goes into producing them. I think this started with "The Lion King" when he was about one or two. But his deep love of movies and movie-making really blossomed and flourished when we let him watch a short film called "The Making of Jurassic Park," because he was obsessed with being allowed to watch that PG-13 movie at a much younger age than his brothers had been allowed to watch it--he was always trying to play "catch up" with his heroes!--and we didn't want him to be traumatized by the much-too-realistic dino attack scenes. He couldn't get enough of that behind-the-scenes look at Stephen Spielberg's groundbreaking blockbuster. He wanted to be the next Spielberg--that was his big dream. In third grade, when they had a "Career Day" at school, he said that he wanted to be a movie director when he grew up. He actually directed a short film to show his class that day, using his Jurassic Park toys and the stop-motion filming technique he'd learned (with me as his videographer), and he called it "T-Rex T-rouble." (This short film is actually fairly impressive for a third-grader and still exists for posterity on a VHS tape that I will keep forever!)
I can't think of a better way for my movie-loving boy to spend his free time while he's stationed overseas than building his new website; and it is my dream for him that he will be "discovered" online, that his posts will go viral and someday, he'll be able to actually make a living from the movies, about which he has always been so passionate. And what a beautiful (and unexpected!) way for a layman like him to give glory to God.
How interesting! I love his website! I think this does fill a void and is much needed. I often have questions about movies either for myself or my grandkids. This could be very helpful! I can see how proud you are of your son!
ReplyDeleteOne tiny, little thing - unless I missed it I couldn't see anywhere on his blog how to sign up for updates?
Aileen, thanks so much for checking out his site.
DeleteI mentioned your problem to him, and he's not sure how it all works yet. I will try to get some answers for you.