Now that the nominations are out for the Oscars I have to catch up on the movies I missed.  My goal is always to have seen all the best picture nominees at least.

So I keep hearing about Departed and decided to see it.  MISTAKE.  The acting was great and the story was compelling.  But it was so violent and so pointless.  The message of the movie seemed to be that is doesn't matter how you live your life, if you are good or evil, because in the end you get shot either way.

This movie also raised one of my pet peeves.  All of the love scenes were filmed by suggestions.  The audience sees just enough to know what is happening but the actual act is off camera so as to keep the rating low.  But the violence is all shown full force, all the blood, all the guts, all the death and that doesn't keep it from the dreaded adult only rating.

So why do we hide bodies and sex which are natural and sometimes loving but we display killing and violence which is unnatural?  Why do we feel sex is harmful to young people but violence is OK?  This seems backwards to me.  When my son was young I let him watch sex and I let him hear foul language because I could explain both of those to him.  We could talk about what was appropriate and what wasn't.  But violence I censored because I could not explain it.  I still cannot.  This movie reminds me of that.