GA’s favorite movies

Was the rated R thing ever really a rule? Or was it a suggestion from a GA, that was taken as gospel?

The Fugitive

True Lies

The 5th Element

A Clockwork Orange

Anything Monty Python

Raising Arizona

My favorite movies:

All the Star Wars. Did you have to ask? 😆

I do like other movies, including the Hobbit series, Second Hand Lions, Unbroken, Dead Poets Society, Stand By Me, and Driving Miss Daisy. There are more, I’m just not thinking pof them.

As to R rated movies, that has not been emphasized in some time and isn’t even in the FTSOTY, although it does encourage discretion in movies. I think we also need to recognize that the R rating is part of the American system and does not reflect that we are a world wide church – which also could be a reason for the de-emphasis. That said, I do believe the GAs watch movies but I doubt you’d see one walking into an R rated movie just because of the press it could generate. It would be easier to wait until it’s on Netflix if they really want to see it.

My favorite movies:

I do believe the GAs watch movies but I doubtIt would be easier to wait until it’s on Netflix if they really want to see it.

Good point. I would be curios to see what specific movies they may or may not watch, and why.

What about you guys? What are those movies on your favorites list?

I’m positive that many GAs have watched rated R movies. Getting them to admit it however…

I don’t need to know that they are watching rated R movies or even which movies they are watching to know that they are regular folk. I would get a kick out of seeing some members in the Q15 go out to a movie. How would they react to the movie being in color? How would they react to the lack of a piano player at the front of the theater to provide the audio? How would they react to the price of admission? :angel:

Elder Benson counseled the young men in a Proesthood session not to watch R-rated movies. It got over-applied after that, as happens too often, to all members and then, as also happens too often, it took on command status among the most orthodox members. After a while, people started thinking it was written by the hand of God on Sinai.

It is NOT in For the Strength of Youth or in the Church Handbook of Instructions.

They don’t need to write it down, the counsel already self replicates through the culture.

These days I don’t hear “no rated R movies” nearly as much as I was hearing it 20 years ago, which makes sense. The priesthood session you referred to was in 1986:

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1986/04/to-the-youth-of-the-noble-birthright” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1986/04/to-the-youth-of-the-noble-birthright

We counsel you, young men, not to pollute your minds with such degrading matter, for the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards. Don’t see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. Don’t listen to music that is degrading.

The thing about that… the youth that were indoctrinated with that rule in the mid 80s are now raising (or have raised) children of their own. In my house watching a rated R movie is not up for debate. It doesn’t matter if there is no nudity, less swearing than some PG movies, etc. Rated R? As Bronson would say, no dice. Don’t ask me how I know that quote.

I think we’ve supplanted the no rated R movies counsel with a no vulgar, immoral, violent, pornographic, etc. counsel specifically to address that many PG-13 movies these days are extremely inappropriate, often worse than some rated R movies. That and the aforementioned issue with a worldwide church having to accommodate ratings systems that are specific to individual countries. In the US I’ve seen the no rated R movies rule continue as a baseline starting point, use wise discernment for all other ratings as counsel that is applied on top of that.

Come to think of it, no R rated movies isn’t even hinted at during the TR interview, but the counsel has had a definite effect on the culture.

All the Star Wars. Did you have to ask? 😆

All of them?

Some more than others. 🙂

This is going to look pathetic after SilentDawning’s list, but I’ll own it… my all time favorite movie: Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

After that there’s a huge fall-off and you start getting into movies I really enjoy. Groundhog Day rises to the top of that grouping. I remember Schindler’s List creating a profound emotional impact but I only watched it once. Still, the emotions were lasting.

I would include Groundhog Day, Schindler’s List, and Gandhi on my list. And I don’t know how I forgot It’s A Wonderful Life – if I had to pick one favorite movie, that would be it.

Re: It’s A Wonderful Life. Bit of nibbler trivia here, I watched that movie from beginning to end for the first time just this past Christmas. In all the previous years I had caught 5 minutes here or 5 minutes there because it was always on TV but I never watched the whole thing. I didn’t get all the fuss in the past but that’s mostly because I had only seen isolated bits and pieces. When taken as a whole, yup. Good movie.

I’d agree with you there. It is overexposed as a film (out of copyright!!!), but it is a great film. Some people have called Frank Capra’s films “Capra Corn”, but this one is quite moving.

The Mission is a wonderful moving film about RC missionaries in South America, and their fight against less scrupulous Europeans. I always find it very moving.

Word of warning though… because it portrays indigenous South Americans, there is some nudity in it, but it’s all of the National Geographic variety, if you know what I mean.

I wasn’t even going to mention it, but “The Mission” was one of the most impactful films I have ever watched. It really hit me how honest men can be at such odds with what should be an organization allegedly led by God. At the time I just thought about the Catholic church. Little would I know almost 30 years later I would see parallels in my own church.

My wife and I watched it and she fell asleep. I mark it up there with Shindler’s List.