Joel Adams' Movie Interests

Films/movies are an important form of story-telling in our culture, and the stories that writers and directors choose to tell provide an important window into aspects of our world that lie outside of our daily experience.

Since films usually reflect the worldviews of their writers and/or directors, it is important to watch them critically and to be aware of the messages they are communicating. This is particularly important for Christians, as many (most?) popular films present non-Christian messages and values that, if absorbed uncritically, can erode one's values.

To help myself and other Christian adults in this area, I convene a small group in which we view and discuss films.
To help my students in this area, I occasionally teach a course on watching films critically. This is new to many students, so we focus primarily on the different ways that films portray computing technology. Beginning with this "baby step", students learn to see the "technological messages" that some films present. Once they learn to see the messages in this narrow domain, we can take the bigger step to see the worldview messages contained in mainstream films.

Over the years, I've watched thousands of films. Perhaps someday I'll find the time to list and rate them...

Joel Adams — Hobbies — Movies