Mind Over Movie #2 Clarification and Explication

In apparent contradiction to my last post, I just made a post at a board game design Web site, in which I argued that movies are conducive to developing games. "For me, designing board games is about giving an the player an opportunity to participate in an experience, which is the same goal of good movies. A good movie engages both your senses and your mind, and good board game does the same. A good movie allows you to discover a great story; a good game allows you to become part of the story yourself--to encounter it at a fundamental, decision-making level."

My post on bgdf.com argues that movies can be inspirational because they share core attributes with games, whereas the previous post on this blog demonstrates how we can convince our friends to open their minds to a different realm of entertainment.

I believe that good movies can have a distinct purpose in our lives, whether by speaking to a difficult emotion we feel at the time or by teaching a particular lesson that we need to learn, or simply by arousing nostalgia, and while for each of us, the definition of what is "good" varies, I think deep down we know--if we want to know--what that is. At the same time, however, bad or mediocre do the opposite. They distract us from our vision and can clutter our thinking space: they are noise that can diminish quality social opportunities.

Good movies, then, like good games, serve a purposeful function in our lives and social interactions, but we should be careful that neither games nor movies should lose their distinction and become an emotionally blunt and hollow filler.