Silver screen flirtations
CANADA (PP) — I find critics extremely anal when it comes to movies. Their myopic vision of a film is completely negligent of all the encompassing parts that help a movie, be, for the lack of a better term – a movie.
They always seem to miss the entertainment value, or mindless brain fodder element. This discrimination always resorts in a snort of contempt by some of the reviewers in Toronto dailies.
I tend to look at a movie in two ways. One: it’s got to be entertaining. If you want to torment yourself by watching something that will bore you to anxiety, then by all means pluck out your eyeballs when the credits roll. But, if you want to watch something that will entrance you through intelligent dialogue or goofy shenanigans, then you are true to yourself.
Two would be how the film is put together. I will admit a film has to be directed, edited and produced effectively. But it isn’t the only nuance required to complete a flick.
But then again, as Bette Davis says it in the quote I posted, don’t take movies seriously, and you shouldn’t. They are means to either entertain, spark debate or shock. Most importantly they are subject to individual praise or dismissal.
Here are some favourites:
- L.A. Confidential
- The Big Lebowski
- The Others
- Empire of the Sun
- Casablanca
- Inside Man
- Saving Silverman
- Sin City
- X-Men
- Dazed and Confused
- X2
- Gilda
- Blow
- Finding Forrester
- The Goonies
- Almost Famous
- Key Largo
- High Spirits
- Identity
- Kill Bill: Volume 1
- Kill Bill, Volume 2
- Pleasantville
- The January Man
- High Fidelity
- Big Trouble
- Underworld
- House on Haunted Hill
- Wayne's World
- The Island
- Backdraft
- Along Came Polly
- Still Crazy
- Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
- Fallen
- The Ghost and the Darkness
- Laura
- Lord of War
- Man on Fire
- Cape Fear
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Mulholland Falls
- Tombstone
- The Maltese Falcon
- Payback
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- The Rock
- National Treasure
- Big Fish
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- The Faculty
- Army of Darkness
- Big Trouble in Little China
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Shaun of the Dead
- Office Space
- The School of Rock
- Lucky Number Slevin
- Jaws
- The Day After Tomorrow
- Transformers
- The Mist
- GoldenEye