Since it’s my job to read every Christian-press movie review every week, I am constantly reminded that Christian media is in dire need of TRAINED EDITORS, writers who know how to use the English language.

I include myself in the lot of those who need watchful editors to catch mistakes.

After all, if God cares about the number of hairs on our heads, and if he watches over the sparrows, surely he cares about split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions.

So, here is the first installment of my Christian Movie Review Editing Lessons.

Periodically, I will lift sentences directly from Christian movie reviews and challenge you to point out the problems in the examples.

I will not include the names of the writers or the links. You can hunt them down if you wish.

The point is not to ridicule, but to draw more attention to the need for good editors. It’s to IMPROVE THE WORK, not MOCK THE WORKER.

In the interest of fair play, I will, occasionally, include mistakes I myself have made. I have two helpful volunteer editors who regularly catch my mistakes. If I made any profit from Looking Closer, my first move would be to pay editors.

So, here’s today’s lesson, from a review of “I Heart Huckabees”….

So much of the movie is philosophical ranting and raving and overwrought humorous drama that it really is a fun piece for these actors, providing most of the entertainment.

With hints of “Magnolia” and dashes of “Rushmore,” this film does carry some appreciative originality. The dialogue is well written and the characters well played. However, while the laughter is there, it is usually short-lived and overall doesn’t give you much to walk away with.

So, how many mistakes do you count, and what are they? I count at least five problems. You?
 

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