Decent?

At times, one could consider the description "decent" an indictment. Consider for example the exchange below:

"How was your meal?"
"Decent."

Isn't that eerily similar to:

"How was your date?"
"Mabait."
"No, really. How was your date?"

Which is why when Luigi Bercades and I stumbled onto Decent Films Guide, I approached it with the deep noncommitment implicit in the retort, "Mabait".

It didn't help that the very first line in About Decent Films read: "Welcome to the Decent Films Guide, a site of film appreciation, information, and criticism informed by Christian faith."

Fortunately, it gets a whole lot better from there. While I cannot bring myself to agree with some of the reviews that Mr. Greydanus pens, I have to admire the discipline with which he adheres to a rational Christian perspective, as in his review of the film American Beauty:

"Some movies have a moral. I say that as a mere statement of fact, with no implication that either having or not having a moral necessarily makes a movie better or worse. Some movies have a moral; American Beauty — and this is also a mere observation, not a value judgment — has an aesthetic."

As such, I suggest that people who are genuinely interested in exploring an overtly Christian film aesthetic to head on over to Decent Films Guide to, if not agree, then argue with Mr. Greydanus's thoughtful reviews. It's the "decent" thing to do, I suppose.

Picture Credits:
The person depicted above is, by no stretch of the imagination, "mabait".