I believe in the power of movies to convey a message.

To some people, movies are just entertainment to let time pass by.  To me, movies are treasured memories that will stay with me forever.  One of my fondest memories from my childhood is cuddling up on the my dad’s bed, which seemed huge at the time, and watching a heartfelt movie with my father as my little body sunk into the oversized mattress.  Every Christmas Eve, my dad and I used to brew up two enormous cups of smoldering hot cocoa and silently sit there watching the plot of the Polar Express unfold right before our very eyes. I always remembered those times as quality time with my father, but just saw them as heartfelt movies that tugged the heart strings just enough to almost seem as though the movie should mean something more to me.  I just let this amazing feeling slowly die off as the movie loosened the grip it had on my heart strings, for I was a very energetic and wild child at the time, and didn’t think twice about almost anything.  

It wasn’t until last year that I realized that that feeling I felt was not just a one and done type of deal, but yet was trying to show me how movies can change someone’s life.  At that moment I felt an overwhelming sensation of joy and happiness as I came to the realization that movies may just be entertainment and meaningless to some people, but to me, they were intricate memories that could change our society for the better.  All of these gears were clicking together in my head during the most meaningful and heartfelt movie I have ever seen, The Blind Side.   

The Blind Side is the kind of movie that pulls your heart strings, and right when it begins to let go, snaps the delicate strings in half and shows you realizations you never would have imagined.  Through this movie, I finally saw how movies can convey a message. It was as if the message was sent to me and was waiting for me to look for it before it showed its face.  During this movie I finally realized that the message this movie was trying to teach me is how to open up your life to others and show people kindness.  Ever since I saw that movie, I have been trying to live my life by the movie and make changes in my life for the better.  

As a society, we also have to be careful about what we convey in movies.  We have to remember that all lessons are not always good ones.  For example, one of my favorite movies is Pitch Perfect.  Sure this movie is funny, entertaining, and eventful, but it also teaches us that many things are ok that are indeed not, like doing drugs or underage drinking.  As Stan Lee said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

As I have been through my life so far, I have ventured through the magical world of moving pictures.  I have experienced the best and the worst of movies from this decade and have seen many lessons conveyed in these movies.  I feel that I have learned many of my life lessons from movies.