So DW is close, really close to awakening from the sleep of Mormon-dumb. Tonight we were watching The Dutchess with Kira Knightly. This isn't exactly my kind of film, but the subject matter got DW talking.

The film has polygamy in it. Well not exactly polygamy, but the Duke has multiple mistresses all in one home and the women are treated the way women in the Church were. This got DW talking about how much she would have hated polygamy and living in Joseph Smith's time.

I just realized I need more films like this. I need to help enlighten her perspective. Outright anti-Mormon will not work. She'll raise her defenses. But if the film appears to be innocuous she will watch it.

I could use some suggestions. What films might be enligtening and help her come full circle, but not obvious enough to cause her to raise her defenses?

I was still a TBM when I saw this movie, and it left me stunned! It definitely started me thinking.

Your wife will like it, as Jim Carrey is not at all crude in this. It is light and entertaining, but its message is powerful.

The Truman Show is really good. It would be a good way to start a discussion, for ex. 'If you were truman would you want to know the truth?' go from there.

For me the money quote from the Truman show was:

Mike Michaelson: Christof, let me ask you, why do you think that
Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of
his world until now?

Christof: We accept the reality of the world with which we're
presented. It's as simple as that.

I liked Chocolat (with Juliette Binoche).

It's kind of an artsy chick flick that could enlighten and promote discussion. (Johnny Depp, too, if that helps.)

I love "Chocolat" too. Especially the words to the young priest's sermon near the end . . .

"I think that we can't go around measuring our goodness by what we DON'T do, by what we DENY ourselves, what we RESIST, and who we EXCLUDE. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we EMBRACE, what we CREATE, and who we INCLUDE."



edited a bit for formatting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2015 10:45AM by seekyr.

Get her to watching Big Love on HBO. If that is not available you can get past seasons online. In tonight's episode first wife is starting to question her faith, going to Sunstone, etc.

Two seasons back it showed a good representation of the temple ceremony. Most any season, except maybe last year's with it's goofy casino stories, is good and serve well to get her to thinking about the fallout of polygamy and all the other bizarre stuff that makes up Mormondumb.

A good one is "Brigham City". The subject of the film is not the church, but the church culture and foolishness is highlighted throughout. Look it up online.

Yes Brigham City is a good one. I was caught speeding by a trooper when driving from Idaho to SLC. When he asked me why I was driving so fast I told him I had seen Brigham City and he was following me. He had a good laugh and let me off with a caution when he heard my british accent.

I second the Truman Show
Pleasantville
The Natl Geographic series of "Guns, Germs, and Steel"
Life of Brian
The Invention of Lying

Others that might be sort of related to leaving/thinking different.

Edward Scissorhands
American Beauty
The Matrix
Contact
The Chumscrubber

I second The Invention of Lying. Great. Loved it.

Ditto. "Invention of Lying." Also the Nat'l Geographic "Guns, Germs, and Steel" movie.

Mormons really see a problem during the "Guns, Germs, and Steel" movie. It accurately shows that no culture is superior to the next, which is a premise that is necessary to support Mormon doctrine. We showed it to the senior missionaries on our movie night when we lived in Africa, and one of the older women really objected to the fact that it did not support the Book of Mormon.

anything from these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+dawkins
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=christopher+hitchens
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sam+harris
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dan+dennett
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+shermer
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=victor+stenger
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=james+randi
http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell

concerning polygamy: how about "big love"? =) (I second Just Thinking's suggestion)



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Paint Your Wagon
Matrix

The Island
The Village

Zardoz. Its not mormon related but is interesting about an elite group who try to live forever controlling the rest and the truth being discovered.

The Legend of Johnny Lingo. Don't believe me? Watch it. It's the "pissin' in the wind" equivalent of promoting Mormon ideas.


Ron

Because you can point out half a dozen things that were done in Hitler's Germany that are also done in Mormonism like control of information. Before I'd told my kids any of my disbelief, I took my son to see Valkyrie and we talked about how someone who controls what you read can control what you think and people who were only allowed to read things favorable to Germany and Hitler were easily led astray because they weren't allowed to think about the opposing viewpoint. I was able to make a number of points like that in order to get my son thinking critically about belief systems in general, without criticizing his belief system in particular.

I credit getting a lot of my "outside of the box critical thinking" skills to having read William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."

I wanted to figure out how a large group of people could do what they did... and too much of it sounded eerily familiar.

The Matrix.

The Matrix has been recommended a lot and I agree (I taught the film, with Ken Wilber & Cornell West's commentary, etc.--although its choreographing of violence is certainly against Buddhism or any other version of enlightenment), but just remember...

...that WITHIN the Matrix there are Mormons and Anti-Mormons and all the oppositions and dualities that form our consensus reality. No one can take an intra-Matrix position ( = illusion) and insist it's superior to another illusory position. That reminds me of venal, prejudiced religionists whose real religion is their blinkered culture, not the "out of the box" transcendence at the heart of the religion.

So I guess in terms of The Matrix, it's "remove the beam from your own eye before you pick at the mote in your brother's."

The Handmaid's Tale. It's sci-fi. great great book too!

*** ding!!! ding!!! ding!!! ***

I read this when I was still Mormon, and it REALLY started me thinking.

I don't think it's out on video yet, but I highly recommend the movie St. Vincent.

It's about Vincent, a drunken, gambling war veteran retiree, who gets recruited by his new single-mom neighbor to watch over her 12-year-old son Oliver. Vincent's after-school activities involve visits to racetracks and bars, but eventually the mismatched pair begin to help each other mature.

The movie makes the point that everyone has good in them and sometimes, you need to look really deep to see it.

One that got my wife and I talking was a TV series called "How the states got their shape" then find the Utah episode. When we watched this DW said "I can now see how the rest of the world views mormons".

Ditto on The Truman Show - when Truman literally hits the wall, and Pleasantville when Jeff Daniels' character sees paintings in color for the first time... Chills! So easy to connect the dots to mormonism

Not sure If its related but the documentary on North Korea that shows the people worshipping great leader after doctors restore their vision was about the best damned anti Mormon documentary I've ever seen.

Wish I could remember its name.

Cosmos

I'd say '1984' but I've never seen TV/movie version as good as the book.

The best movie allegory to the Mormon church that I have seen is "Pleasantville."

It is a remarkable story of a town frozen in time clinging to its own version of reality. People are happy, satisfied, and nothing changes. It is the center of the universe and there is nowhere to go and no reason to explore alternate ideas.

Then, through a quirk of fate (science fiction) they are suddenly thrust into the real world.

It parallels the evolution of the church since the internet era.

It is Worth the time to watch. Maybe a few times to get the nuances of the transformation.

Sweetwater. It doesn't overtly say it's about mormons, but you'll easily pick up that it has mormons for bad guys. And you can say it's not about mormons, these guys were kicked out of their church group. ;)

I got hooked on StarGate after a SuperTMB introduced it to me when the movie came out. If I had to pin point the moment I realized how screwed up religion was it would then.

about a lady leaving the Hutterites (a communal religious group similar to the Amish).

And I was struck by the fears she was dealing with: cutting her hair, living on her own, etc. She thought she would be struck down for cutting her hair. Just as I thought something bad would happen to me for doing things on Sunday. I realized that my fears were no more rational than hers were.

But I can NOT remember the name of the show. I found this one, but haven't watched much of it. Seemed good. The point of watching about that religion is that the fears and the mindset are similar to Mormonism.

http://vimeo.com/12686780

I want to add "The Inner Circle" - a very well-made film about a man working in Stalin's inner circle in the Kremlin, spanning from pre-WWII era through Stalin's death. Absolutely fascinating to see his utter devotion (all accurately depicted-nothing overdone) and to see how slow and difficult it is for him to recognize the truth, despite the evidences all around him. Ultimately it comes to focus on the question of whether he loves his wife more, or Stalin. Terribly sad, but a lot of parallels with the church's hold on people. (DVD available on Amazon)

Religulous