MovieGuide
If I really want to find out whether I want to go see a movie, I check that useful and witty aggregator rottentomatoes.com. But now I'm thinking of adding MovieGuide.org to the list. Here's why.
The Sydney Morning Herald had a story recently about a man who's put some hard work into demonstrating that movies promoting sex, violence and atheistic world views are not as profitable as movies that don't. Among other things, the story reports that Ted Baehr, the man responsible for MovieGuide.org, has actually made a difference to the movies we watch, and has done so from a theologically conservative Christian position.
The movies are rated on the sorts of things you'd expect in a secular movie review—for example, features such as production values, plot, characterization. But there is also an ‘acceptability rating’—about which the site says:
We gear the ratings to parents with children but also provide information for discerning adult viewers. For example, an Acceptability Rating of Plus One means caution for younger children ages 2-7, an Acceptability Rating of Minus One means caution for older children ages 8-12, and an Acceptability Rating of Minus Two means extreme caution for teenagers and/or adults. These Acceptability ratings are arranged not only according to age levels, but also according to a traditional Christian view of art, going from the sublime and the divine, Plus Four, to the abhorrent and demonic, Minus Four.
So, for example, The Golden Compass gets three stars in the general review, but is given an ‘acceptability rating’ of ‘-4, abhorrent’. (Baehr's critique is worth reading.) Similarly, the summary for Alien vs Predator: Requiem gives a general rating of two stars, an Acceptability rating of -3 (excessive) and blasts the film to kingdom come with the one-line dismissal “A Waste of Theater Space”.
I suppose people in the US do this sort of Christian movie rating all the time. But the interesting thing about MovieGuide.org is that the moviemakers actually seem to be paying attention. This is encouraging for those of us—Christian and non-Christian alike—who dislike exploitative and sexually explicit trends in advertising, or TV and movie programming, and who make the effort to complain.