Every Young Man's Battle [2003]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

This movie was based off an apparently award-winning(!?) book that is a guide for young men to avoid masturbation and pornography, truely some of the worst of the sins. The full title of the book is actually "Every Young Man's Battle: Strategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation" and while none of us heathens have read this good Christian book, the film did come with a bunch of study guides that ask questions about the movie and ask that you refer to Bible verses to further your understanding. About halfway through the brief, hour-long film, Adam paused it to go get his Bible, for learning purposes of course, and passed Kay a book saying, "This one's for you, Kay." It was the Satanic Bible. After that he also got his copies of the teachings of Buddha for Keith and a book on Wicca for Sarah as well as the Jewish Tanakh, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon. Perhaps we were overly prepared for a movie on the evils of wanking but we're thorough like that.

The movie is a bit difficult to explain structurally. It started with a weird metaphor about how the battle against the hypersexualized modern world is just like the Battle of Gettysburg, espoused by a man standing at Gettysburg. Then there was an overarching plot about a kid whose friend gives him the URL of a porn site and then invites him over to his house for . . . group porn watching? We think. Either that or he was coming onto him. And either way, that's totally unrealistic. Group porn watching among men is only really acceptable if it's so gross you have to show people or if you're in the military, as Adam can attest. Intercut with this semi-coherent plot are testimonies from guys who gave up porn and couldn't be happier as seen on their websites like xxxchurch.com (yes, it's real and not what you're hoping), guys whose lives fell apart entirely because of porn addition (homelessness! prostitution! drugs!), a bunch of Christian rockers talking about the inspiration for the music they wrote for this movie (spoiler: it's Jesus), and an extended football metaphor that we all just made sex jokes about. They also talked about the importance of "starving the sumo" which apparently just means "deflating your sex drive by avoiding sexual materials."

All in all, this was a decent descent into the early 2000s PSA aesthetic but a poor excuse for a movie. The study guides were a silly little addition full of repetative questions, gendered nonsense, and references to Bible verses that we had fun shouting out the answers to. Our answers were mostly, "Masturbate." In conclusion, Sarah, who is a registered nurse, wants you to know that there are many medical benefits of masturbation. Perhaps the people who promote things like this should realize that starving the sumo might just make the sumo so hungry that it will eat absolutely anything. 

BMN Quotes:
[while reading hatemail on xxxchurch.com]
Adam: "Faith cleansing asshole? Like a holy water enema?"
Kay: "I used to play bass for Holy Water Enema."

[while reading the study guides]
Kay: "Making a covenent with your eyes? A bukake covenent?"
Adam: I used to play bass for Bukake Covenent."

Spoon Rating: 6