"Oh man, that movie changed my LIFE!"
I hear this all the time. Often it's Fight Club or The Matrix or American Beauty or some other brainfuck of a movie. Sometimes it's "that book" or "that CD" instead. But in any case, it's one of those phrases that gets my hackles to rise.
Life changes your life. A sensory phenomenon filtered through someone else's senses should not. Yes, movies may make you think, they may make you reconsider some things about you, your relationsips, or the outside world.
This is acceptable. This is more than acceptable. The human organism should be constantly changing.
A movie can plant a seed of thought that matures into something later. A movie can bring things you've already been thinking to a head and make something click and fall into place.
But to say that POOF! everything has magically changed in two hours? But for one single mass-produced, commercialized bit of entertainment to have that much impact? Are we as a race that easily influenced, that easily swayed? I don't understand. And I don't think I approve.