The blog has been on "content overload" as of late, so perhaps a lighter topic might be helpful. If you follow on Twitter, you know I like to take the kids to movies. But, I am also particular about what I take my daughters (ages 4, 6, and 10) to see. Since I am now officially on vacation, I am quite certain we will be checking out some movies.

Obviously, one of the dominant forms of art and entertainment in our culture is film. We've got it all these days when you go to the mulit-plex: "Popcorn flicks," independent film, "Rom' Com's," drama, "bio-pics," summer blockbusters, the never ending stream of re-makes (or re-imagining for those trying to feel better about it), and of course we have the man who is a genre unto himself - Michael Bay. In the last few years we've also seen a growing number of "Christian films" of varying degrees of quality getting theatrical releases.

With movies playing such a large roll in American culture Christians always have something to say about the film industry and the new releases that hit the big screen every weekend. It seems like much of it is complaining. Some of that is valid, but sometimes I think we should take ourselves to task.

If you have children, it is your job to check out the film before you to to the movie.

Maybe you took your kids to see Michael Bay's Transformers without knowing the content. Well, you knew it wouldn't be an Oscar nominated film - it's a Michael Bay movie, after all.

But giant robots fighting it out on the big screen? Robots that can change into suped up Cameros? Robots that had cartoon series and toys you were into as a kid? You expected something exciting and fun. You didn't expect it would have some of the more coarse parts.

You can take issue with those choices by the filmmaker, but you took your kids to see it without knowing what you were walking into - and you should have. You could have.

We recently were going to take the kids to see "Marley and Me." Seemed like a happy film about a cute couple with a fun loving dog. Well... you might want to check out the review before you go (we did and decided it was not for our kids).

Let me just encourage everyone to be responsible participants in the culture, thoughtful movie-goers, and involved parents. If you take your kids to see a movie without doing your homework on the content of the film, and then find the film objectionable, don't yell at the industry or film makers before you sit yourself down for a serious talking to. You dropped the ball. It's easier than ever to find out what's in a move before you drop $60 on tickets and snacks for the family.

No, you can't rely on the ratings system (it's broken), nor the trailer (they're trying to sell you tickets!), but you can get the low-down on the themes of the movie, language used, sexual content, violence, and of course reviews on the quality and value of the film as well all before you cross the velvet rope. Here are a few helpful resources for the thoughtful movie goer.

Plugged In Online
Kids in Mind
Screen it
Rotten Tomatoes (not a Christian site, but compiles reviews and gives an overall "fresh" or "rotten" rating-- and you don't want to go to bad movies just because they are "clean" movies, right?)

Are there other resources you use in checking out a film before you go to see it? Share in the comments below.