When I logged into my web application thingy, I had no idea what I wanted to write about?

I had been thinking about blogging on [“Up in the Air”](http://www.theupintheairmovie.com/) which I enjoyed a great deal (not surprising, since it was created by the same man who did two other favourites, [“Thank you for Smoking”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/) and [“Juno”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/)). There’s lots of great themes in the movie: the nature of relationships, our reason for being, the question of what is happiness & can it ever exist consistently?

Instead I decided I wanted to ask a question.

This is possibly a very stupid idea, given that my readership is maybe 5ish…

My question, for all 5 of you is “Why do you go and see movies? To turn your brain on or to turn it off?”

I know a number of people who only want to go to movies if they can guarantee at least one explosion every 10 minutes. They need action, adventure & possibly some gratuitous violence.

I on the other hand love a movie that causes me to think. I want to know what I would do in any given situation, or whether or not I agree with the philosophical presuppositions that the main character holds. Is their moral viewpoint logically consistent? Even better, does some activity in the movie cause me to ask whether I am morally or ethically consistent?

Even something like Avatar has levels to consider. Are we a culture that is getting caught up in nature worship? Is a technological societie’s ability to dominate a weaker (if more ecologically friendly) society just reflect the same kind of relationship we see in nature between, say, the Lion and its prey?

Even when a movie doesn’t ask a deep moral question, I still prefer the “Brain turned on” movies. Something that is dialogue driven, that keeps you thinking, that distorts one’s perception of time or space… It’s nice to inhabit a reality that is profoundly not mine, yet stretches my understanding of my own reality.

What gets you going in a good movie?