Pen-Elayne on the Web

Movie Time

With both the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Awards coming up this weekend, it's a really good time to check in with Jeff Alworth as Notes on the Atrocities presents Movie Week! First up, musings on LotR, American Splendor and the current state of the movie business. (Update: And Mark Evanier will be live-blogging during the Oscars!) I don't know if Jeff will be tackling the Ash Wednesday movie, but I just wanted to say that, based on the reviews that have started to appear, I agree with Lis that parents should keep their kids far, far away from this gruesome spectacle, even if it is historical fiction (and some might say is even based on historical fiction ;) ). One day, when I was in yeshiva, my classmates and I were ushered into the gym and made to watch Nazi propaganda films, featuring shots of soldiers shoveling the bones of dead Jews into piles, etc. Many girls ran from the room screaming or crying hysterically; quite a few of us had lost relatives to Hitler's Final Solution madness, and for all we knew we could be watching our great-aunts' bones. I can't remember specifics about the films any more, a'danken Got, but I do remember that ever since that horrid day I can no longer read about the Holocaust, watch any dramatic depictions of it, even talk about it without getting agitated in very short order. It is not doing children any sort of service to make them watch this sort of extended trauma, particularly as part of a religious education; trust me, I've been there.