I am a Bourne fan and went this weekend to see the latest, and probably final, in the Bourne movie trilogy. What shocked me were the previews.

Of the four movies previewed before the Bourne Ultimatum, three of them were absolutely gun centric. Two will compete for the same audience because they have the same plot--a senseless murder of an innocent family member ignites revenge in the girlfriend/father and all the bad guys get dead.

The third is mayhem on a larger scale. I'm not going to name the movies because if you like that kind of thing, I'm not going to make it easy for you to find it.

Don't think the producers are trying to make a statement about guns or violence, or justice or vigilantism. They are trying to get your body in a movie theater. Pure and simple.

I can take shoot-em-up in small doses. The first Matrix featured an all-time classic.

What brought my pot to boiling was three previews in a row featured big guns, huge violence and a disconcerting visceral response in me that cheered the bad guys' demise.

Movies are an incredible reflection of culture. In some--too few--cases, they help to shape the cultural conversation.

These previews arrested me because I'm wondering if this is the culture. Is there really this much violence? Am I totally a bubble boy, living with some protective germ suit around me?

If our culture really is not that violent, and these movies portray a fantasy land of horrific violence with the good guys as ultimate winners, what does that say about the violent urges that burble under our lids? Do these movies provide a pressure release that ultimately may keep us safe from our own instincts? We can go to the theater and cheer the mayhem, because the good guys win?

Or do we go home and double lock the doors, draw the curtains and schedule the locksmith to come on Monday?

If movies help shape the cultural conversation, how long before we start talking the lunacy that guns are the answer?

Can a movie have such overtly Christian themes that unsuspecting theater-goers must be warned? The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) thinks so.

On June 7, I received a press release from Sherwood Pictures touting it's new film, "Facing the Giants."

Sherwood Pictures is a subsidiary of Sherwood Baptist Church a Southern Baptist Congregation in Albany, Georgia, so it's not surprising that it has a clearly evangelistic purpose. As movies go, it's a quite low-budget affair ($100,000), but it's been picked up by Sony subsidiary Provident Films, to be distributed this fall with the help of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

A missions-themed movie entitled "End of the Spear" will open in theaters Jan. 20. It is a movie that missions-loving Christians will want to see, and one that might well inspire others who are not believers.

The $12 million project is based on the efforts of a small group of dedicated Christian missionaries who sought to win over the Waodani (or "Auca") people, a violent Stone Age tribe that lived deep in the Ecuadorian jungle.

Their initial contact was made in 1956, and ended with five missionary men being killed. One of them was Jim Elliot, whose wife Elisabeth wrote a book about the experience and later (more successful) attempts to evangelize the Waodani. Elizabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint, the wife of another martyred missionary, lived among the Waodani for years and led many of them to follow Christ.

In the introduction to her book, Wisdom Tales From Around the World, Heather Forest writes "In folktales, told far and wide, characters may gain wisdom by observing a good example or by bumbling through their own folly." Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride" is a retelling of a Russian folktale about a man who bumbles through a marriage to a dead woman to find true love.

Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp) is what some would consider a dandy of a man. Victor is fragile and sheltered. He is, also, son of the nouveau riche, and his parents want him to "marry up" so they can find social legitimacy. His father is a fishmonger who has made it big, but still considered a fishmonger.

Plain and simple, Because of Winn Dixie (20th Century Fox) is one of the most heart-warming movies I've ever seen -- one that left me smiling through tears and wanting to be a better person.

I'm not a professional movie critic by any stretch, and my liking of a movie is usually inversely proportional to the critics' opinion -- but I know what I like, what speaks to me -- and "Because of Winn Dixie" fits that bill.

The movie, like many films, is based on a book by the same name, this one written by Kate Dicamillo. I usually read the books before I see the movies, but this time it will be the other way around.

When the Southern Baptist Convention officially lifted its boycott of the Disney corporation this summer, Southern Baptists were freed to make the trip to Disney's theme parks, wear their Mickey Mouse neckties, and watch Disney movies without fear of social stigma.

Not that this affected a large number of people -- although Southern Baptists officially number about 16 million, most church members paid even less attention to the decree than many Roman Catholics do to papal edicts on birth control.

Even so, SBC leaders, following the lead of the American Family Association, said they believed the boycott had had its desired effect, and that Disney had changed to a more family-friendly approach.