ENGAGING CULTURE

If you didn’t know, I love movies. I love to watch them and I love to talk to other people who love movies too. I love movies because they are our society’s preferred medium for the telling of stories. I love that in approximately two hours they have the power to bring me to tears of joy and sadness and to make me shout in excitement and outrage. It also has the ability to share beliefs and ideas in a way that (if its done well) doesn’t sound like a sermon but the loving encouragement of a friend. This is powerful and an be dangerous because not all the beliefs (in fat very few of them) are Christian beliefs. Yet, to ignore this medium is to remove ourselves from the realm of cultural engagement.

But I might go farther than most in that I like to know the business side of Hollywood. I like to know and discuss the latest news and trends. Because if I know about it I can respond to it from a biblical perspective. Above all I want people to be equipped to make well-informed decisions about what they and their families will watch. I raise questions and engage with movies because too often we just sit back and allow it to wash over us not even aware of the underlying themes and teachings that we are absorbing.

Well, I’ve found a fun and addictive new game/tool that plays on my love for movies. It is called the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX.com) and if you have even just a casual interest in movies you will find this game wildly addictive. If you’ve ever played a fantasy stock market game in a business class you already know how to play, only instead of companies, you buy shares in movies, stars, and even TV shows. Here’s how it works. Sign-up for free at HSX.com and you will be given two million Hollywood Dollars (H$) to buy shares in movies (stocks), stars (bonds), and even mutual funds run by successful longtime traders. But the greatest gains are to be made by playing the weekend box office game.

Each major upcoming release is assigned a predicted opening weekend box-office take. If you think a particular movie will make more than its predicted “strike price” then you should buy shares of a “call,” if you think it is destined to be a bomb then buy towards a “put.” When the final numbers are released on Monday, you “cash out” on your successes and cut your losses.

For instance, this weekend I played a “call” on Kung Fu Panda. It’s strike price was 40 million. I thought it would do better so I bought 10000 shares at H$2.00 apiece. It looks like I made a good investment because the latest estimates put it at making around 60 million. That means that each of those H$2.00 shares will cash out Monday at H$20.00 because the movie made 20 million over its strike price. So my original investment of H$20,000.00 will turn into H$200,000.00 in just a few days. However, I thought that Zohan would fall short of its 35 million dollar strike price, so I invested H$20,000 in a put, but it is set to beat it with a 40 million dollar opening. The good thing is that I won’t lose any more than my original investment on this misstep, because this stock will cash out at H$0.

As much as I’d love to, I can’t spend all day watching stocks rise and fall. So Thursday’s will be my HSX prediction day, learn which movies to keep on your radar, stars with big upcoming roles, and movies sure to turn you a profit over the weekend. Start playing today and join my league (I’m engagingculture, leave your username in the comments). I’ve only been playing for 10 days. See if you can beat me to 5 million.