Local Favorites

I subscribe to Netflix. Yeah, I know. Thirty years without a television in the house, raised our two kids TV free, and now I have come to this. Forgive me, I hope I haven't let anyone down, but we have been avid movie watchers for a long time. In fact, it all started because we wanted to pre-screen any movies or other media our kids watched when they were young. And when we found a good movie - especially if it had some value in teaching morals, ethics, Biblical truths or even if it was just good clean fun - we would buy it and put it on the shelf for later viewing. Phew - I don't know why that seemed like such a confession, many of you have borrowed from our vast library of movies, so I don't know if this was a surprise to anyone. The big laugh is that I think anyone cares! Let it go Chas, let it go...

But back to Netflix - I have completely run out of ideas of movies to add to my waiting list, so they finally stopped sending me movies. It seems a shame to pay the six bucks per month (or whatever it is) and not have a movie in the mailbox now and then, so I was going through the 'suggestions' part of the Netflix web site. Wow - our society has sunk even lower than I thought! Talk about the frog in the boiling water!

And every once in a while I get a suggestion of a movie from a friend or relative. Wow. I don't know where to even begin on that topic! I forget that most everyone else on the planet has soaked their brains in the mass media for their whole life, and I hope nobody takes this as a personal slam, but the media IS aimed at about an elementary-school intellect. You know that, right? Breath Chas - breathe. Keep moving..

But the thing that I wanted to blog about today was the little tab which shows up on Netflix called "Local Favorites." I almost always watch and enjoy movies which were hated by 'the critics,' or which tanked at the box office. I even have purchased whole seasons of television shows which were canned after one season, or LESS than one season. Shows like "Firefly," and some Summer fill-in shows too. They have to have intelligent dialog, and some sort of mental challenge, and that just doesn't seem to do well with the general population these days. I just don't have the same tastes as the rest of the world, I guess. And after spending an hour this morning shopping around on Netflix, noting the high reviews of some titles and the very low reviews of others, I have come to the conclusion that the "Local Favorites" for Ventura, CA do not reflect well on this part of the world. Sorry Ventura, but you are not giving a good show of intellect, morality, purity, and certainly not holiness.

So - as Samuel Clemons once said, do I "live my life in such a way that I could give my parrot to the local pastor?" Or in today's parlance: could I post the "history file" of my web browser in my blog for all to see? If I posted the list of movies I have rented or borrowed, removing those which I only saw a few minutes of before stopping them, of course (happens a lot) what would those lists say about me?

Wow - I'm not there yet. Let me say THAT is a true confession. But I am sure aiming for it.

Philippians 4:8 says it pretty well: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.