temptation and overcoming

Confession: I love a good screwball mad cap comedy full of dirty jokes, filthy language and male bonding. Judd Aptow and Kevin Smith are two of the finniest filmmakers around and they can do no wrong in my eyes. I could watch the 40 year old virgin a million times and it would continue to be funny. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of the funniest movies I have EVER seen. Don't even get me started on Clerks 2. Once again they can do no wrong in my eyes and I will always support them as filmmakers in one way or another.

However, I have also recently realized that while I enjoy these movies with a passion I am constantly using this phrase with my friends "you don't want to see this movie, but it is SOOOO good!" or "this is so inappropriate but there are some good parts in it" my personal favorite was Forgetting Sarah Marshall "sure you see his penis 9 times but it was done for comedic effect and it was so awkwardly funny!" (yes I said that. multiple times in fact.) and I realized something today when I was listening to themovieblog.com's review for "I Love You, Man" a movie I fully intended on seeing this weekend, that I was most likely going to have to say those things again. I was going to tell people they shouldn't watch something because it was against standards I claimed to share with them, and yet I was fully going to enjoy and ignore my own advice.

Why should I be exempt from my own judgements? Why is it that I deemed those things appropriate for me and yet not for someone else? It was a double standard and hypocritical of me to suggest that I was above the standards I claim to follow.

Now don't get me wrong, I will still watch R rated movies. I have been and I have a feeling I always will be a believer that the MPAA is bogus and biased in their rating system (I might expound on this in a later blog if I have the urge) and that we shouldn't actually pay any attention to whether a movie is PG or R when it comes time to watch a movie. It is our duty as a consumer to pay attention to early discussions, watch trailers, read articles, essentially DO RESEARCH about a movie you have interest in seeing and judge for yourself if you think the content in it is appropriate for you or not.

Instead what I am saying is I am not going to watch a movie that I would tell any of my friends not to watch due to content.... in theaters. I added that last little bit partially because I know I will probably watch them on DVD eventually especially the ones that I already own thanks to my resolution. However I will not be purchasing them either, and with any luck I will reach a point in the near future where I will be strong enough to take all my inappropriate movies to Half Price Books and be rid of that part of my life. However until then... baby steps.