CleanFlix directed by Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi [February 2010]
In the 1980s, Mormon prophet and LDS church president Ezra Taft Benson famously counseled the young men of his church to avoid watching R-rated films:
Consider carefully the words of the prophet Alma to his errant son, Corianton, “Forsake your sins, and go no more after the lusts of your eyes.” [1]
“The lusts of your eyes.” In our day, what does that expression mean?
Movies, television programs, and video recordings that are both suggestive and lewd . . .
We counsel you, young men, not to pollute your minds with such degrading matter, for the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards. Don’t see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. [2]
Though his words were directed at young men specifically, in practice, they became applied to church members in general. So began the cultural Mormon phenomenon of shunning R-rated films, in America, at least. Mormons would be far from the only religious conservatives to take issue with the graphic content of modern-day films based on MPAA ratings.
[Read the rest of the review at Worlds Without End]
Grade: B+
