In this tightly-packed room, Geoff Botkin is delivering a session on How to Analyze a Hollywood Movie. In this lecture Mr. Botkin is taking his listeners through the film Remember the Titans, modeling how he watches movies with his children.

Mr. Botkin controls the remote and will pause the film frequently in order to point out the good and bad aspects of the directing, acting, music, and worldview or to explain historical or social context to the audience.

Throughout the session Mr. Botkin would point out dialogue that communicated the personality and moral fiber of the characters and identify the film techniques (scoring, acting, cinematography, etc.) that made the film effective.

“Look at this little cut-away to our little female star,” he exclaims, pausing the film, “Notice how she communicates without any words her jealousy for her father and the tension of the scene.”

Later in the film: “Look at how the camera pushes in to the neighbor’s window and then cuts to the neighbor’s point of view from inside. That is good filmmaking.”

After a character makes a speech: “Notice how the music sets the mood for the speech. It is very emotionally effective. However, 40% of what he said was right, but the other 60% was wrong.”

The audience leaves with the impression that it is not just swearing and nudity that makes a film unclean. However, a wise and godly father, who controls the remote, can use film to equip and lead his family — to identify and refute dangerous worldviews, to praise godly character and rebuke ungodly character, and to train his children to identify excellent storytelling and filmmaking.