Dateline- Hollywood, Beverly Wilshire, February 23, 2010
Dorsey, Pam, Jane Seymour, James Keach
What an exciting evening! We just celebrated our 18th Annual Movieguide Awards Gala at the ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire at Rodeo Drive with some 600 Hollywood executives and celebrities! We sat up front with our guests, actress Jane Seymour and her husband, director James Keach. We had rented their castle outside Bath, England a few years ago and have been building a friendship. Jane made the climatic film presentation of $100,000 to the executives of The Blind Side, whose writer/director John Lee Hancock promised the cash to disadvantaged youth causes. James had been nominated a few years ago for Walk The Line, which he directed about the life of singer Johnny Cash.
The purpose of the awards gala is to promote inspiring and uplifting movies aimed at the family audience, because the Film/TV industry has been shown to have a profound impact on our culture. In the late ‘60’s the industry took a turn for the dark side with increasing sex, violence and perversion. Fortunately, since Movieguide began its push, we’ve seen R-rated movies go from over 70% to only 22% last year; actually only 2 of the Top 25 at the box-office were rated R. Ten films were nominated in the 2 categories- Family and Mature Audiences. The Disney/Pixar animated UP took top prize in Family while The Blind Side walked away with Mature. Also honored were 4 others in each category as the producers/directors came to the stage to accept their awards after clips of their work was shown.. Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of Nelson Mandella in the South African sports flick Invictus showed how to unite a people after the end of apartheid. “We lead by example and that in this requires forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to reconciliation!” TV and screen-writers also got into the prize money. One aspiring writer received $15,000 for a script entitled “The Shoebox.” You can imagine her excitement when I introduced her to the lady who started the Shoebox Movement in 1984!
To see some of the excitement, you can check out the Movieguide.org web site which is running 7.4 million hits a month now. This non-profit group started by Dr. Ted Baehr of the Christian Film and Television Commission works on a shoestring budget and is worthy of donations you want to send their way. We have served on the Movieguide national board of directors for more than a decade, even working the Cannes Film Festival as press. Our mentor Dr. Francis Schaeffer of Switzerland taught us the value of trying to reach the influence makers in society for the good of future generations. Having a Ph.D. in social/cultural history and a daughter writing scripts in Hollywood also drew our interest here. Some of last year’s Movieguide Gala can be seen on You Tube.
If you want to see how Dr. Baehr would have voted for on the Oscars, see this link
/www.movieguide.org/articles/1/630/how-ted-voted