Buddhist says Tiger understands Buddhism
After listening to golfer Tiger Woods talk about recommiting himself to his Buddhist faith, I had a chat with a local Buddhist leader I met last year at the Buddha Mind Monastery, 5616 S Anderson Road.
Jian Mao is abbess of the monastery. I met her at the monastery’s 2009 Chinese New Year celebration.
She had this to say about Woods and his avowal to ascribe to the Buddhist teachings of his youth:
“The fundamental Buddhist teaching, the Four Noble Truths, points out our false ego (misconception of the self-identity) and that greed, anger and ignorance are the causes of our suffering. Based on our ego, we endlessly seek for the temporarily physical pleasure to satisfy our desires, but not the inner peace and joy,” she said.
“I agree with his understanding of Buddhism and hope he could be back to the right track, live the life of integrity and bring peace to his family and those who once admired him.”
(PHOTO BY JOHN CLANTON/THE OKLAHOMAN: Jian Mao, abbess of the Buddha Mind Monastery in Oklahoma City, participates in the 2009 Chinese New Year celebration at the monastery, 5616 S Anderson Road.)
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
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Ministry asks for new movie ratings guidelines
MovieGuide is circulating a petition asking Americans to urge the Motion Picture Association of America to drop its rating system in favor of a new “Code of Decency.”
MovieGuide is an online movie guide to films with moral and family friendly content. It is a ministry of the Christian Film & Television Commission ministry.
Ted Baehr, the ministry’s chairman, said the Motion Picture Association of America’s current ratings system has failed.
“The MPAA’s rating system never worked really well, but it has gotten much worse since it added the ambiguous PG-13 rating,” Baehr said in a news release today.
“Parents, especially mothers, can no longer trust the ratings for movies, especialy in light of the PG-13 ratings for movies like ‘The Love Guru’ and ‘Land of the Lost,’ and the R ratings for pornographic movies like ’Bruno.’”
Baehr said the trouble with the MPAA ratings is that they are not based on standards.
He said he plans to send the signed petitions to the Federal Trade Commission.
“This is not true of the Code of Decency so it is clear that the entertainment industry must return to the kind of system it had during the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ and the ‘Golden Age of Television’ when it was a wonderful life in America because Mr. Smith went to Washington, Ricky still loved Lucy and the Bells of St. Mary’s rang across the land.”
Readers, what do you think of the current movie rating system? Does it work for you?
Do you think Ted Baehr is right and we need a system based on a “Code of Decency.”
Interested in the MovieGuide petition? Find out more about it by going to www.movieguide.org.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
Summer at the movies: recommendations & warnings
I have not reviewed very many movies in recent months, but the folks at MovieGuide have.
They sent out their warnings and recommendations about the summer crop of movies for people looking for family friendly content at local movie theaters.
The Pixar film “Up” has received glowing reviews from Ted Baehr, founder of MovieGuide.
I thought I’d share their round-up of “the good, the bad and the ugly of summer season film fare”:
May 1, 2009
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”
*** -2
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” tells how Logan, aka Wolverine of the “X-Men,” lost his memory battling General Stryker, the villain in the second X-Men movie. Wolverine is a rousing, passionate action flick with a tragic romance that may appeal to a few women, but its moral worldview is spoiled by some very strong fight scenes and plenty of foul language.
May 8, 2009
“Star Trek”
**** -1
The long awaited “Star Trek” re-imagines the world of the original series by changing its timeline to enter an alternate universe where the characters can literally start over. “Star Trek” is an exciting, entertaining, popcorn movie with a strong moral worldview ultimately, but it takes place in a darker, amoral universe.
May 15, 2009
“Angels & Demons”
*** -3
The movie version of the “Angels & Demons” book stars Tom Hanks as an agnostic professor who stops a dastardly plot to blow up the Vatican and destroy the Catholic Church from inside. The plot in “Angels & Demons” is too convoluted and retains the book’s revisionist history and slanderous tone of smearing Christianity through false information.
May 22, 2009
“Night at the Museum”
*** +1
“Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” finds the hero of the first movie and his museum friends trying to stop an evil Egyptian king’s plot to rule the world. “Battle of The Smithsonian” is a charming, creative family adventure sprinkled with humor, romance, excitement and history, including two brief positive references to God and an implied reference to Jesus Christ and His positive impact on history.
May 22, 2009
“Terminator Salvation”
*** -1
“Terminator Salvation,” based on the previous “Terminator” movies, stars Christian Bale as John Conner, the prophesied Resistance leader against a group of evil, world dominating machines. John goes on a quest to find his father, who holds the key to stopping humanity’s complete annihilation. “Terminator Salvation” is a thrilling action movie with intense, non-stop action violence and a strong moral, somewhat redemptive theme of fighting evil and sacrificing for others.
May 29, 2009
“Up”
**** +3
“Up,” the new animated feature from Pixar and Disney, is about a 78-year-old widower and a young boy scout who find the adventure of a lifetime on a jungle plateau in Venezuela full of unknown dangers. “Up” is another heartfelt, family-friendly, utterly delightful animated classic from the wonderful team at Pixar and Disney. It is the real winner of the summer season!
June 5, 2009
“Land of the Lost”
*** -4
Though it promised to be family friendly, it did not deliver on that! “Land of the Lost” is a very vulgar remake of what was a children’s TV show, about a foul-mouthed, pompous scientist, his new assistant and a redneck survivalist, who accidentally get trapped in another dimension with dinosaurs, a caveman alien and a group of nasty, but slow-moving lizard men up to no good. Despite some very funny clean moments, “Land of the Lost” is a rambling, abhorrent exercise in offensive, sexual, scatological, stoner jokes.
June 12, 2009
“Imagine That”
*** +2
“Imagine That” is the story of Evan, an executive competing inside his company for a promotion, only to discover that he needs his daughter and her imaginary friends in order to succeed. With little negative content, but some magical elements, “Imagine That” is a heartwarming, funny movie showing the love that can grow between a father and a daughter.
June 12, 2009
“The Proposal”
*** -2
“The Proposal” is a funny story of powerful book editor Margaret talking her younger assistant Andrew into marrying her in order to stop deportation to Canada. “The Proposal” is a very well made romantic comedy, but it contains much sexual innuendo, some near nude scenes and a mixed pagan worldview with positive references to pagan beliefs that warrant extreme caution.
June 12, 2009
“The Taking of Pelham 123”
**** -2
“The Taking of Pelham 123” stars Denzel Washington as Walter Garber, a New York City subway dispatcher who must redeem himself by taking on a foul-mouthed criminal mastermind who is holding about 17 subway passengers for $10-million ransom. “The Taking of Pelham 123” is an excellent, suspenseful thriller with a strong Christian, redemptive worldview, but it is marred by a whole lot of strong foul language and some intense, very strong depicted violence where people are shot multiple times.
June 19, 2009
“Year One”
Jack Black stars as a caveman and the plot borrows from and skewers the Old Testament stories. This will probably have much troubling content for faith-based viewers.
June 26, 2009
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
The sequel to the original hopefully will retain the moral content of the first. The original “Transformers” was honored by Movieguide as one of the Top 10 movies for mature audiences in 2007.
June 26, 2009
“The Stoning of Sorayam”
**** -1
“The Stoning of Sorayam” is a passionate dramatization of a true story about a Muslim woman whose husband disposes of her and the reporter who risked his life to bring the true story to the world. This movie is a powerful, dramatic insight into the evils of Islam, with convincing acting and direction. Though not a movie for children, it is a movie every adult should see.
July 1, 2009
“Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”
The gang is back for the 3rd installment of the “Ice Age” movies. It promises to be family friendly.
July 17, 2009
“Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince”
The bespeckled boy witch is at it again with a new installment. We anticipate it to have the same occult outlook as the previous movies.
July 24, 2009
“G-Force”
A group of guinea pigs has to save the world in this family comedy. Looks promising.
July 31, 2009
“Aliens in the Attic”
When children prove immune to the aliens’ mind control device, it’s up to the neighborhood kids to save the planet! Looks family friendly.
August 7, 2009
“G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra”
Based on the popular toy, this action adventure movie has G.I. Joe as a UN Special Forces group based in Brussels. Because of outcry from many fans, especially servicemen, Hasbro has said that movie will be changed to make G.I. Joe an American hero again. We’ll have to wait and see.
Note: The *s represent quality of the movie, with **** being the highest. The number system is for acceptability and ranges from – 4 for unacceptable content to +4 for positive content.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
P.S. I did see “Terminator Salvation” and I agree with MovieGuide’s recommendation on the film. There was a very strong theme of redemption in the movie and that made it much more interesting to me than if it had just been another action film. I have sons so I’m familiar with the genre. “Terminator Salvation” was actully quite good.
Morality at the movies
So it’s Friday and you’re thinking about catching a movie this weekend.
You’re trying to find a family friendly movie. Read on:
Screenwriter Teri Haux says she grew up loving movies so much she knew she wanted to write them.
Haux has written a new book “Movie Viewer Extraordinaire: Discerning the Influences of Movies on Your Freedom, Family and Happiness.”
She offers the following tips for families looking for movies that match their morals:
1. Choose the morals and standards you want to live by. Examine the ideas and concepts that are important to you, and that you want to pass on to your children. Before you understand what you don’t want in a movie, you really need to come to terms with the things that you DO want. Make your choices your standards, and use them as the guidelines to navigate your family’s movie wish list.
2. Regulate ALL media that you and your family experience. For all the people who want to ban certain films and television shows, the truth is that it is far easier to simply choose and guide what your own family watches. Movies that feature more sex or violence than we would like will always be around. We simply don’t have to watch them. The natural extension of that is being a vigilant parent who knows not only what your kids are doing, but also what they are watching.
3. Reinforce positive influences and minimize the negative. Short of editing the movies yourselves, you likely won’t 
eliminate all vestiges of the negative elements of modern movies. Talk to your kids about some of the things that they see, and ensure they understand the context of the actions. Silence in the presence of harmful examples is an implied endorsement.
4. Trust your feelings. Movies do more than entertain. They touch our emotions, so if we are previewing a movie, and it feels wrong (or right), chances are it is. These are individual choices, and we need to trust our guts sometimes.
5. Use movies to complement dreams, interests and talents. Since we already know that children emulate what they see on film and television, why not expose them to a diet of movies that actually inspires them and speaks to interests and talents they may already exhibit. One of the most valuable things movies do for us is that they take us to new places and show us things we might never see on our own, allowing us to live our dreams vicariously through the cinematic experience. When we choose movies that connect to our aspirations, the potential for inspiration is limitless.
Carla Hinton
Religion Editor
