punctuation and tense

like it! But my dad thought Lord Of The Rings is a religious movie.

Should 'the' be in lower case and should 'was' be used instead of 'is'.

Personally, I adhere to the old rules that sentences should not start with a conjunction, so I would have written:

I like it, but my dad thought Lord of the Rings was (yes, it is past tense because "thought" is past tense - verb tenses always have to agree) a religious move.

You would say: but my dad THINKS LOTR IS a ...

Thanks.