Five Christian Movie Review Sites

New York Times, December 26, 2005

New Cultural Approach for Conservative Christians: Reviews,
Not Protests
By JOHN LELAND

Christian groups used to ignore movies like " Brokeback Mountain." Recently, they have been more willing to examine popular culture critically.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/movies/26crit.html?th&emc=th

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Christian Movie Review Sites quoted in the above New York Times article:

pluggedinonline.com
Focus on the Family Web site pluggedinonline.com , which started reviewing movies in 1990, gets 800,000 monthly visitors to pluggedinonline, and 50,000 see the magazine in print, a spokeswoman said.

Christianitytodaymovies.com
The mainstream evangelical magazine Christianity Today last year started Christianitytodaymovies.com and the site gets 125,000 visitors a month.

HollywoodJesus.com
HollywoodJesus " HollywoodJesus.com" gets one million visitors a month, said its founder, David Bruce, a former Protestant minister who has also worked in television and publishing.

decentfilms.com
Decent Films Guide ( decentfilms.com ) an independent Roman Catholic site

movieguide.org
The more conservative MovieGuide, which runs on syndicated television, radio and online at movieguide.org, is a Web site dedicated to "redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles."
Reviewer Mr. Snyder, who has a doctorate in film studies from Northwestern University, says "Hollywood projects a leftist homosexual agenda, which goes along with radical feminism, and a misunderstanding of what Christianity teaches."

Seminary quoted: Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical institution, in Pasadena, Calif.

Strategy:
quote: So far the religious reaction to "Brokeback Mountain" has been limited to the review pages. … This too represents a growing sophistication in the way conservative Christian groups engage the popular culture, said Stuart Shepard, managing editor of Focus on the Family's daily e-mail news updates, which go out to 115,000 subscribers. "We're not going to go out and protest it because it would probably play into the marketing plans of the producers," he said. "They'd say, the Christian right is opposed to this movie, so you really, really, really want to see it."
"We learned from 'Last Temptation of Christ' that if it wasn't for the protest, the film wouldn't be remembered today," Mr. Shepard said. "Our expectation is 'Brokeback Mountain' won't do as well in the heartland, but protest would bump that up."