Last movie you saw?

[Kaesekopf]

I remember Jerome. I kind of agreed with him in general though he was more strict than I am. On Cathinfo he accused me of sinning because I browse the internet without all images blocked even though I do not go to bad websites. If I was KK I would not have banned him because I think the more rigorous should be welcome to counteract the lax. I think those arguments make for a good forum.

Eh, if someone wanted to promote strong moral standards, they're free and welcome and encouraged to do so. 

They just can't be an asshole about it. 

It also helps if they at least try to become a member of the community, as opposed to the moral police squad. 

[Matto]

The problem with the Jansenists/rigorists is that they're usually assholes.  You never come across a smooth-talking one who is able to win people to his "side."

It's always "You're going to Hell for browsing with images on!"

Eh, if someone wanted to promote strong moral standards, they're free and welcome and encouraged to do so. 

They just can't be an asshole about it. 

Well Pon de Replay said he used to be similar to Jerome and he seems nice. In the month since I joined this forum here he is one of my favorite posters. But I agree that Jerome was not that good at getting along with others and he seemed to brush people the wrong way when trying to correct them. But I think he meant well and was in a hard situation because it seemed to him that people were watching and recommending movies that he thought were mortally sinful to watch and no one else was saying anything about it. Even if his judgment was wrong, I understand why he acted the way he did.

About rigorists usually being assholes, I would probably be considered a rigorist myself and I hope I am not an asshole. But I do not usually talk about some of the more extreme views I have because they are strange and not really appropriate to talk about publicly.

[Mono no aware]

Thank you for the kind words, Matto.  You became one of my favorite posters as soon as you mentioned liking Yasujiro Ozu and Carl Theodore Dreyer.  Ordet is one of my favorite films, too.

I can appreciate why Jerome came across as so harsh in Kaesekopf's view; I think a lot of it really is a matter of perspective.  For people to whom popular culture presents no problem, someone like Jerome will appear a ranting lunatic.  But at the same time, he's not a "holy fool."  It's impossible to picture Jerome as some bearded Russian mendicant monk haranguing everyone with a bizarre folk theology, because he was so astute and scholarly with his sources.  There was something very sane and methodical about him—and you're right, I think he was brusque because he saw the situation as so desperate for correction; he obviously felt he had no time to spare on trivialities or pleasantries.  Which is a shame, because I'll bet he's an interesting person.  At one point, Carleen Diane asked him to talk a little bit about about himself, but he turned up his nose at the suggestion and deemed it "irrelevant."  I didn't think it was.  I would've liked to have known, say, what kind of movies Jerome liked before he became so strict about such things.

[Mono no aware]

The problem with the Jansenists/rigorists is that they're usually assholes.  You never come across a smooth-talking one who is able to win people to his "side."

It's always "You're going to Hell for browsing with images on!"

There is some truth to this, of course, but at the same time, I wonder if even St. John Chrysostom, whose very sobriquet attests to his eloquence, would be able to convince anyone these days that the Christian ought to be not conformed to the world.  (And he would definitely be considered a "rigorist" by this forum's standards).

However priggish or scolding Jerome may've been, we have to admit that at least he founded his arguments on copious saints and popes.  Looking at the hostility and sarcasm in the responses to him, I get the impression that his opposition was so entrenched in their ways that even a silver-tongued Jerome oozing sweetness and light couldnt've done much to sway them.

[Maximilian]

I think the movies I watch are appropriate for a person my age. 

The Handmaiden is thoroughly evil on many different levels.

I appreciate your point that some things can be appropriate for adults, but certainly this is not one of them.

[Pheo]

But I also believe that particular spirit has been irrevocably eroded down to nearly nothing, and cannot realistically be recaptured.  To attempt to recreate an authentic Christianity would be kind of "futilely anachronistic" at this point.

On a societal level you're probably right (barring a miracle), but it has to count for something on an individual level still.  I haven't read The Benedict Option, but I can't think of anything more in tune with the spirit of St Benedict than a struggle for personal holiness through development of the interior life.  There's no hope of changing those around us without it, because we can't give what we don't have.

Having said that, we probably have to go through some rough times before there's any widespread recovery of the Christian ideal.  But as +Bossuet said, "When God wishes a work to be wholly from His own hand, He brings everything to powerlessness or to nothingness, then He acts."

[Non Nobis]

I think the so-called "rigorists," or "Jansenists," or whatever they get unfairly labeled, are great because they afford us a glimpse of that authentic Christian spirit; in their gestures, attitudes, behaviors, and fashions, they really are "the light of the world."

Such people would have a much shorter list of movies that they deem "appropriate for their age".  If they made it very much longer, would they still be (or provide a glimpse of) "the light of the world"?

It seems possible to me that any of us may misjudge what is "appropriate for my age"; going too far in one direction (rigorists) or the other (the world at large). Granted it is subjective, but can't we see which way the pendulum of the world is swinging, and which way we may be swinging too?   

Surely we should try to "recreate a more authentic Christianity" as much as we can in ourselves and in our family, even though it is futile to do in the world at large (or even in most groups larger than the family).  It's not always bad to be personally regarded as "anachronistic". Granted it takes prudence to know when we go too far, but I don't think we should just give up and stand back and admire the rigorists with no real attempt to be a little more like them.

[Kaesekopf]

I can appreciate why Jerome came across as so harsh in Kaesekopf's view; I think a lot of it really is a matter of perspective.  For people to whom popular culture presents no problem, someone like Jerome will appear a ranting lunatic.  But at the same time, he's not a "holy fool."  It's impossible to picture Jerome as some bearded Russian mendicant monk haranguing everyone with a bizarre folk theology, because he was so astute and scholarly with his sources.  There was something very sane and methodical about him—and you're right, I think he was brusque because he saw the situation as so desperate for correction; he obviously felt he had no time to spare on trivialities or pleasantries.  Which is a shame, because I'll bet he's an interesting person.  At one point, Carleen Diane asked him to talk a little bit about about himself, but he turned up his nose at the suggestion and deemed it "irrelevant."  I didn't think it was.  I would've liked to have known, say, what kind of movies Jerome liked before he became so strict about such things.

I think you paint a false picture, though, or at least a bit of a false dichotomy.  I think people in this forum are somewhat open to charitable correction, or at least a healthy dialogue over different matters. 

I'd probably side more with Jerome on media matters, insofar as the bulk of what is produced is utterly degenerate and soul-killing.  I think his guide to restricting certain content on Internet browsing was a good one.

But, as the old saying goes, you'll get more flies with honey rather than vinegar.  Running a one man crusade to get everyone to stop watching a certain type of movie isn't going to go over well.  People have an irrational attachment, particularly, to music (and I think Fr Basil Cole, OP states as much in his book on music and morals) and breaking that isn't easy. 

And, he should certainly know that, regardless of the situation, regardless of what is going on, running into a community, declaring yourself the arbiter of all things moral, and instructing everyone to follow suit won't go over well, even if you're cassock-clad and holding an STD in moral theology. 

[Mono no aware]

I think you paint a false picture, though, or at least a bit of a false dichotomy.  I think people in this forum are somewhat open to charitable correction, or at least a healthy dialogue over different matters. 

I'd probably side more with Jerome on media matters, insofar as the bulk of what is produced is utterly degenerate and soul-killing.  I think his guide to restricting certain content on Internet browsing was a good one.

But, as the old saying goes, you'll get more flies with honey rather than vinegar.  Running a one man crusade to get everyone to stop watching a certain type of movie isn't going to go over well.  People have an irrational attachment, particularly, to music (and I think Fr Basil Cole, OP states as much in his book on music and morals) and breaking that isn't easy. 

And, he should certainly know that, regardless of the situation, regardless of what is going on, running into a community, declaring yourself the arbiter of all things moral, and instructing everyone to follow suit won't go over well, even if you're cassock-clad and holding an STD in moral theology.

I agree with you about Jerome's style, and I concur wholeheartedly about people's irrational attachments making them stubborn and hostile when challenged.  So I don't think it's a false dichotomy.  At the end of it, though, after these personality issues have been peeled away and the sheer force of argument is all that remains, Jerome comes out a lot better on those threads than his detractors do.  He who had no self-restraint in his presentation at least had logic and citations on his side, whereas those who had no charity had nothing else besides.  Which is not to tar everyone; the user named Ye Olde Fustilarians did seem to recognize that Jerome was bringing forth some good and cogent arguments, and offered him serious and considered responses.

But consider it this way, because arguments among laypersons are mostly doomed.  If the Catholic Church miraculously returned to tradition tomorrow, and had a pope whose traditionalist bona fides would be unquestioned by 99% of the people on this forum, and if the Church set up a pontifical congregation to set the standards for modesty in dress and decency in entertainments, do you think everyone would receive those standards with docility if they were even half as strict as the Early Church Fathers?  Or would they "LOL," or take recourse to the notion that "well, it's pretty obvious that Jansenism lives on in traditional Catholicism"?

[Mono no aware]

The Handmaiden is thoroughly evil on many different levels.

I appreciate your point that some things can be appropriate for adults, but certainly this is not one of them.

I don't think it's more "thoroughly evil" than a lot of culture and entertainment that gets mentioned here.  I will admit that this may be self-justification on my part, but I think a presentation that is overall languorous, dreamy, and decadent (such as The Handmaiden has) is far less noxious than one that is coarse, crass, macho, and soulless (such as many of the action movies and first-person-shooter video games people enjoy). 

The Handmaiden is sexy and pervy, that's true, but its atmosphere is lush and mannered.  It's close in tone to 19th century movements like the French Symbolists or the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England, both of which I like.  You can see the aesthetics in the costumes, the set design, and the landscapes.  The mansion it takes place in was designed to be a perfect combination of the Japanese and the English: cultures that place a certain emphasis on propriety and form.  I would in no way class it in the same tier as Barry Lyndon, but it is definitely a distant heir to that same kind of cinematic sensibility, where Stanley Kubrick strove to have almost every frame a work of art unto itself, like a Gainsborough painting.  The themes and plot are far more degenerate, involving a perverse sexual underground and a lesbian affair.  But I don't think there's anything there that would be out of place in the poetry of Verlaine or Baudelaire, which adults can appreciate on a literary level.  It's not for everyone, of course.

[Mono no aware]

On a societal level you're probably right (barring a miracle), but it has to count for something on an individual level still.  I haven't read The Benedict Option, but I can't think of anything more in tune with the spirit of St Benedict than a struggle for personal holiness through development of the interior life.  There's no hope of changing those around us without it, because we can't give what we don't have.

Having said that, we probably have to go through some rough times before there's any widespread recovery of the Christian ideal.  But as +Bossuet said, "When God wishes a work to be wholly from His own hand, He brings everything to powerlessness or to nothingness, then He acts."

I guess my biggest issue is with the fact that it all has, in effect, come down to the "individual level."  At that point, I don't see how it doesn't end in relativism, with one Catholic reveling in worldliness, saying, "this is all right for me," and another living like a monastic, saying, "this is my preference."  It becomes a sort of a "Choose Your Own Catholicism," and Catholicism turns into a nebulous thing that no one can really pin down, because it changes from person to person.

One of the things traditional Catholicism demonstrates (unfortunately) is that when everyone is left to their own, and things do break down to this kind of individualist approach, there's no standard.  The standard is arbitrary.  Someone like Jerome can come in and say, "look, people, we have these strict standards," and everyone else can say, "no, Jerome, sorry, it's more loose and nuanced than that." 

I thought the most interesting response to Jerome was from Ye Olde Fustilarians, when he asked Jerome if he was a convert from Protestantism, because Jerome was reading the words of the saints and the popes and making himself the sole arbiter.  But in a way, that's kind of what everyone does.  It's like a form of sola scriptura, where the scriptura is the collection of all these documents, encyclicals, manuals, and devotional writings, with no ultimate arbiter any more, and everyone is interpreting them more or less on their own.

[Mono no aware]

Such people would have a much shorter list of movies that they deem "appropriate for their age".  If they made it very much longer, would they still be (or provide a glimpse of) "the light of the world"?

It seems possible to me that any of us may misjudge what is "appropriate for my age"; going too far in one direction (rigorists) or the other (the world at large). Granted it is subjective, but can't we see which way the pendulum of the world is swinging, and which way we may be swinging too?   

Surely we should try to "recreate a more authentic Christianity" as much as we can in ourselves and in our family, even though it is futile to do in the world at large (or even in most groups larger than the family).  It's not always bad to be personally regarded as "anachronistic". Granted it takes prudence to know when we go too far, but I don't think we should just give up and stand back and admire the rigorists with no real attempt to be a little more like them.

In my own life, I tried to be very much like the so-called rigorists, but gave it up.  Not because I couldn't handle it, as is often alleged (there's a popular criticism that says people go to this extreme with too much zeal, find they can't handle it, and then their pendulum swings back).  I just despaired that I was fashioning my own little individual form of Catholicism, while everyone else was having their fun with movies and rock music, and who was I to say that they were any less Catholic than me?  I will admit that "Jansenism," for all its minimalist sublimity, is not easy.  I think I appreciate it now in a detached way, in the same way that Barry Lyndon or a Mozart piano concerto has a profound beauty.

I remember when I was growing up, we lived a couple of hours away from the "Amish country" area of Lancaster county in Pennsylvania.  Occasionally my family would take a day trip to whatever small colonial town the Amish frequented, and we would kind of leisurely sight-see and distantly admire that pastoral, old-fashioned, agrarian way of life that was lost to us in the suburbs.  And after my parents did some antique shopping, we would all get soft ice cream and sit on the porch of the establishment and watch the horse-&-buggy carriages on the street, driven by strange people in beards and black clothing, bonnets and prairie dresses.  And then we would drive home and I'd go back to playing Atari or reading some goofy Choose Your Own Adventure book.  I somehow intuited that the Amish were special, but I was hopelessly stuck in the modern world.  Had I known how to articulate it at the time, I would've thought to myself, "I am not numbered among the elect."

[Sempronius]

I was also a rigorist but mellowed down a bit.. for a year and a half I gave away like 40 % of my salary to charity.. Became more worldly when I realized what Pon de replay is saying, that everybody seems to treat the saints mortifications as "weird stuff that saints used to do".

But Im still staying away from tv, music and movies

[Matto]

I just watched The Passion of Joan of Arc by Dreyer again. I have been watching some of my favorite movies recently. The first time I saw this it blew my mind. It is a silent movie from 1928. There are a few different soundtracks you can watch it with. This one is by a modern band called "Joan of Arc". There is another soundtrack called "Voices of Light" which has a kind of choir singing. I like them both. I was afraid that this soundtrack would detract from the movie but I do not think it does.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/embed/CxJSGMK9yRE[/yt]
As far as modesty issues go, there is a man bare-chested for a few seconds and there is a woman breastfeeding for a few seconds. It is not at all sexual but you do see a woman's breast.

[MilesChristi]

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