America Movie Club

Welcome to the America Movie Club! Come on in. We’re glad you’re here!

You don’t often hear about movie or TV-themed clubs. And yet, most of us spend a pretty significant percentage of our conversation time catching each up on what we’re watching, reacting to what we’ve seen and/or repeating great lines. (All time favorite: “So we got that going that for us, which is nice.” We love you at America Book Club, Bill Murray. Please come visit.)

I invite you to join us at our new America Movie Club discussion page (hosted on Facebook as a “group” affiliated with the America Facebook page), where you can request to join the group and dive right in!

We thought we’d give a whirl at creating a place where smart, funny, spiritual people can come and chat with other smart, funny, spiritual people about movies. It’s a bit of an experiment; we’re all going to learn as we go, and hopefully have some great adventures in the process.

Two things to know going in: We’re big believers that God speaks to us in all things, and that secular stories have as much to offer in the way of big ideas and conversation as religious ones. So while some of the movies we’ll choose will be explicitly Catholic, we’re also all in for hard scifi or Spike Lee joints, Ryan Reynolds rom-coms or the latest profound Oscar nominee.

Along the same lines, some of the conversation prompts we’re going to offer will be about the big meaty issues of the movie in question; others will be more personal and spiritual. We think the characters we identify with, the events that move us or that one song from the soundtrack that we cannot get out of our head can sometimes be ways that God is speaking to us, inviting, encouraging or challenging us.

Does that sound strange? We did say this is an experiment! We’ll see how we go.

Everyone is welcome; the only ground rule is respect. We might have debates about issues in a film, but let’s just agree we’re not going to go after each other. Your favorite character can also be someone else’s least favorite . That doesn’t say anything other than you’re different and God is big and crazy enough to speak each of you in the ways that work specifically for you.

And if we listen to each other, maybe even our disagreements can be a source of blessing and encouragement. We’re all in this together.

That’s it. Turn on the popcorn popper. Cue the overture. Someone get ready to pull the curtains up.

This month we’re watching “Romero,” the 1989 film from writer John Sacret Young, director John Duigan and Paulist Productions about the life and death of the about-to-be canonized Archbishop Oscar Romero. I’ve written about the making of the film in the October 15 issue of America.

Our conversation begins October 8, and we’re going to dive right in. So if you want to join us, you should have the movie watched by then.

Got yourself a good seat? Here we go.

(By the way, my name is Jim McDermott. I’m a Jesuit priest, a writer for America and a screenwriter. Looking forward to the conversations.)

Not sure where you can watch “Romero”? Here are a few options:

• iTunes ($7.99 to purchase, $3.99 to rent)
• Amazon Prime ($7.99 to purchase, $3.99 to rent)