Today is the day. We are getting rid of the satellite TV and Netflix. We will be left with the local channels for news and PBS for Masterpiece theater. So I guess I'm in good shape. Genius Golfer, however, might go through withdrawl. He is the Golf Channel's biggest fan. And it is in the pile we are cutting out.
After a family discussion about what priorities we really have versus what priorities we seem to have, this was one of the changes we decided to make. Plus it will save some money--and I'm not complaining about that.
Wish us luck. And please don't give away any spoilers to good shows. We might not get to see them until they are available to rent at RedBox.
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Monday, June 24, 2013
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Edu-Tainment?
I watched a movie last night that made me think. It was the Academy Award Best Picture winner from 1947 and starred Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire. It is called Gentleman's Agreement. Have you seen this movie?
Gregory Peck plays Phil Green, a hot shot writer, who is hired to come to NY and write for a national magazine. His editor gives him an assignment to write about anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, he falls in love with the editor's niece, Kathy, played of course by Dorothy McGuire. And by the way, Phil's son Tommy is played by a very young Dean Stockwell--just FYI.
To write his expose, Phil decides that the best way to really get a feel for his topic is to go undercover, as it were, as a Jewish man. So he begins to introduce himself as Phil Greenberg and the reactions shift immediately, giving him oodles of information and personal antidotes to write about for the magazine. Plus he learns first hand, the depth of this hatred and bigotry.
Apparently this film was quite a hot potato in the 40s when it was made. The majority of the studios were run by Jewish men and they all turned down the project to avoid stirring up a hornet's nest. Gregory Peck was even advised not to do the film as he could possibly be misidentified as a Jewish actor. Showing the pluck I love about him personally, he told the critics that this was film that needed to be made and he knew a good role when he saw it. How very Atticus Finch of him, huh?
Interestingly, a couple of years following the release of the movie, several of the cast and crew were tagged by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as potential communists and then black listed from the movies. The actress, Anne Revere, who played Peck's mother for example, didn't work in films for 20 years after this movie, because she refused to "name names" to the committee.
Do we have issues like this that could set off a firestorm? Does our 'entertainment' tackle these kinds of issues anymore? Would anyone even go watch something that might make them think that hard? It made me wonder.
So much of the technology and media advancements were created with good intentions, but have been hijacked by those who would use it for wicked and insidious purposes. I heard President Uchtdorf remind of this at our broadcast Stake conferences this weekend. For almost everything good that God has given us in progressive technologies, Satan will find ways to twist it into something that will trap us, if we are not careful.
There are two films of Gregory Peck's now, that I admire. Too bad our "movie stars" don't show the same kind of backbone that he did all those years ago. Now they just shake their fists and complain, but they still make whatever will bring them the biggest paycheck. I don't think there are many that would know "integrity" if it kicked them in the teeth. Their 'stands' are really just grandstanding for political or popular purposes. Too bad. They are seriously missing the boat on that. Should have taken a page from Peck. He got at least two right.
Gregory Peck plays Phil Green, a hot shot writer, who is hired to come to NY and write for a national magazine. His editor gives him an assignment to write about anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, he falls in love with the editor's niece, Kathy, played of course by Dorothy McGuire. And by the way, Phil's son Tommy is played by a very young Dean Stockwell--just FYI.
To write his expose, Phil decides that the best way to really get a feel for his topic is to go undercover, as it were, as a Jewish man. So he begins to introduce himself as Phil Greenberg and the reactions shift immediately, giving him oodles of information and personal antidotes to write about for the magazine. Plus he learns first hand, the depth of this hatred and bigotry.
Apparently this film was quite a hot potato in the 40s when it was made. The majority of the studios were run by Jewish men and they all turned down the project to avoid stirring up a hornet's nest. Gregory Peck was even advised not to do the film as he could possibly be misidentified as a Jewish actor. Showing the pluck I love about him personally, he told the critics that this was film that needed to be made and he knew a good role when he saw it. How very Atticus Finch of him, huh?
Interestingly, a couple of years following the release of the movie, several of the cast and crew were tagged by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as potential communists and then black listed from the movies. The actress, Anne Revere, who played Peck's mother for example, didn't work in films for 20 years after this movie, because she refused to "name names" to the committee.
Do we have issues like this that could set off a firestorm? Does our 'entertainment' tackle these kinds of issues anymore? Would anyone even go watch something that might make them think that hard? It made me wonder.
So much of the technology and media advancements were created with good intentions, but have been hijacked by those who would use it for wicked and insidious purposes. I heard President Uchtdorf remind of this at our broadcast Stake conferences this weekend. For almost everything good that God has given us in progressive technologies, Satan will find ways to twist it into something that will trap us, if we are not careful.
There are two films of Gregory Peck's now, that I admire. Too bad our "movie stars" don't show the same kind of backbone that he did all those years ago. Now they just shake their fists and complain, but they still make whatever will bring them the biggest paycheck. I don't think there are many that would know "integrity" if it kicked them in the teeth. Their 'stands' are really just grandstanding for political or popular purposes. Too bad. They are seriously missing the boat on that. Should have taken a page from Peck. He got at least two right.
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