My blog on the Oscars last year triggered a number of student reactions. I received more student emails on that entry than on any of the dozen I have written.  So I thought I would revisit one of my favorite subjects!

I have always loved going to the movies.  It is a great escape, a wonderful adventure, an opportunity to suspend the real world and enter a cinematic one.  The Circle Theater in Washington, DC used to have matinee double-features and admission was $2.  This wasn’t during the Great Depression – this was during the ‘80’s.  I remember seeing a double feature of The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now.  Or they would show two Madonna films.  They were creative in how they paired up their features, and many a time I went for a double-feature and emerged from the theater refreshed. 

That is what good movies can do and that’s why I  love the movies.  But it’s hard to love the movies these days.  And judging from the flat line on movie attendance across America this year, apparently others share my point of view. 

As you may know, this week the Oscar nominations were announced.  What genre pulled in the most nominations?  No surprise here:  violent movies won big.  Don’t’ get me wrong on violence in movies.  Some of my favorite movies were steeped in violence beginning with the Godfather series, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Onion Field, Salvador, Saving Private Ryan and many others that I have seen since. 

My complaint is not about violence in movies. My beef is the extent - that the violence portrayed is now so excessive, so graphic, so grisly, and so gratuitous that instead of enhancing the movie’s plot and character development, it ruins both for me.  Did you see Saw?  I didn't see Saw or its sequels or any of the slasher flicks that are marketed to teens.  The Simpsons made popular the often hilarious "Itchy and Scratchy" episodes that satired the shameless marketing of violent "entertainment" to children.   The problem is that Saw sells, and it isn't satire, and teens are soaking it all in.

Those movies don't win Oscars, but even ones that might are different only in degree in how violence saturation.  Here are the titles of the reviews in The New York Times for some of the movies that received Oscar nominations this week:

There Will Be Blood – “An American Primitive, Forged in a Crucible of Blood and Oil”

American Gangster – “Sweet, Bloody Smell of Success.”  (Review’s summary at the end:  “Explicit and very realistic-looking intravenous drug use and bloody, bloody gun violence.”)

No Country for Old Men – “He Found a Bundle of Money, and Now There’s Hell to Pay.”  (Review summarized neatly at the end:  “A lot of killing.”)

Now, if you are like me, when Friday rolls around, one fine option is to go to a movie that night or over the weekend.  My kids and Mary and I like the movies and because all but two of our five are under 12, I often find myself going to movies alone because many of the films are inappropriate for younger viewing (and note to parents of 13 year olds:  PG-13 movies are often really PG-16 movies; the ratings system is a joke, but that’s another blog, another day). 

Today I am very interested in retreating to a movie.  We had an exhausting week of interviews and meetings as the College identifies our next Vice President for Academic Affairs, and so I am ripe for a flick. 

This morning I went online to The New York Times to see what the new release movies for today are.  Here are the two featured new releases, and I am not making this list up nor the texts from the reviews:

Untraceable – “Morally duplicitous torture porn…You may view ‘Untraceable,’ as I do, as a repugnant example of the voyeurism it pretends to condemn…sadistic ingenuity…the killer’s spree begins with a grisly test run on a cat…it is only a matter of time before either Jennifer (the detective) or her daughter, or both, land in the killer’s gadget-clogged cellar…scenes of torture.”

Rambo – “Blowing heads off and slicing abdomens is man’s work...  Ms. Benz (member of group) is on hand to scream, gasp, fall in the mud and huddle in a damp bamboo cage, waiting to be raped…’Rambo’ is, for most of its fairly brief running time, a blood bath…There are beheadings, mutilations, disembowelings –enough gore to rival ‘Apocalypto.’”  Summary at end:  “It has unhinged, sadistic genocidal violence.”

Wow - a choice between torture porn or unhinged, sadistic genocidal violence!  Pass the popcorn!

Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI released a statement about the mass media and its effect in the world, particularly upon the young.  He said, “Any trend to produce programs and products – including animated films and video games – which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and portray anti-social behavior or the trivialization of human sexuality is a perversion, all the more repulsive when these programs are directed at children and adolescents.”  He went on that such “entertainment” directed to adolescents is an insult “to the countless innocent young people who actually suffer violence, exploitation and abuse.”

He went on, “Beauty, a kind of mirror of the divine, inspires and vivifies young hearts and minds, while ugliness and coarseness have a depressing impact on attitudes and behavior…The church desires to share a vision of human dignity that is central to all worthy human communication.”

So the question is whether all of this graphic violence in video games and on the big screen or plasma screen is coarsening our culture dangerously or dulling our moral senses. 

And is it fair to ask whether “torture” entertainment films like Untraceable and Rambo are indeed an affront to people in countries throughout the world who are tortured? 

How would you feel if someone you loved had been tortured and then you are at the cinema with friends who are giggling at the latest torture or gore fest?  The problem is that what we take in through our eyes matters.  Images can last a lifetime.  And some of these ghastly images may influence our behavior.

Today’s Tribune-Review leads with this story about two young people playing chess:  “A drunken chess game turned dangerous Wednesday night when one of the participants threatened to kill himself, grabbed a handgun and fired it.”  One is now listed in fair condition.

Yesterday’s Post-Gazette had two headline stories, side-by-side.  The first was about two Robert Morris students who were killed by a 23 year old male who also unloaded seven shots into his girlfriend (miraculously  she is still alive, clinging to life). 

The other was about an 18 year old who has been charged with six counts of aggravated murder.  He allegedly poured gasoline on the porch of a house, lit it and ran, and four died in the ensuing blaze.  The home belonged to a woman who may be a witness to a New Year’s Eve fire up the street in which the 18 year old is a suspect.  That fire also was arson and the work of four attackers who beat a man before setting fire to his home.  Yesterday police were questioning four juveniles who are the suspect’s housemates.

The saddest thing is that these stories are written all over our country, claiming more and more lives of people your age.

Hollywood will say that it does not foment violence in our culture – it only reflects it.  I don’t buy it. I don’t think that Hollywood is the cause but whether it’s today’s news or Columbine’s of yesteryear, as long as Hollywood and others in the media “entertain” with Saw IV, “torture porn,” and other violent fare, it bears some of the responsibility for the real-world bloodshed that seems to mimic them. 

The Holy Father’s suggestion that we train our eyes on that which is beautiful and uplifting and affirming of human dignity is worth following. 

Unfortunately, we likely won’t be able to do that at the movies this weekend.