Scribblings

One of the things I do and do quite often is watch and read about movies. So naturally I have my favorite columnists (Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper) and web sites (Rotten Tomatoes) I visit quite often. I always felt that movie reviewing is a tricky business but what’s more complicated is to figure out the movies would like; so I wanted to write about how you go about deciding which movies you would want to see and which to avoid.

Since all of us don’t share the same psyche, our liking and choices differ. That movie which worked for me might not for you. Example, I personally think Pulp fiction is the greatest movie ever made, you might certainly disagree and you might not be wrong. Even though RT or another site of sorts can give you the general opinion about a movie it’s up to you to dig out those gems. Basically, you would know what arouses your attention and what moves you, you would have genre and actors you fancy and the ones with “no-no” on any cost.

I’ll give you few examples to illustrate this better. Take “Knowing” for example, RT hated it but my fav reviewer Roger Ebert loved it (Four out of four stars). What do I do? Now ask yourself why these people liked it or hated it. Then you get an idea. For me, I’m not a big fan of Nicholas Cage, and just saw Bankbook Dangerous and hated it, and with no gorgeous heroine in tow, I knew this is not for me. But take movies like fast and furious or the recent Funny People, I absolutely don’t care what others think. I waited for them all year and nothing is going to stop me.

This neatly brings us to another category, the movies you really expect and hope to deliver, like “Year One”. I love Michael Cera. And Jack Black recent outings weren’t that bad either. Tropic Thunder was a blast but can hardly call it his movie. But I was really impressed with him in Holiday. Then the reviews for “Year One” were a disaster and knowing Black (when he is off track he can be ‘stinking’ bad). I stayed clear, though might catch it on DVD. Roger Ebert thought this might be a movie about Adam and Eve (Cera is drag, ha).

Then there are the critically acclaimed “Limited release” movies. By limited release, the movie was made by people possessed by an idea and they live by it. It’s obvious then that most of these movies are well received. But I’m generally skeptical about these, again the trick is to find a reviewer who mostly shares your taste and find what’s so good or bad about the movie. So its quite possible that you might hate a movie which was showered with praises and love the ones which are thrashed. Take “Cars” for example, it’s the worst reviewed movie by Pixar and WALL-E is one of the best reviewed, in fact it’s the best reviewed of 2008. But I love “Cars”, (forgive me, I’m stealing this line but its so apt) If sally was a little more real and I was a little nuttier, I would marry her. And I found WALL-E to be so-so, even occasionally boring

Now that you got an idea how to navigate through the endless sea of reviews and movies and pick the one for you, let’s move on to the actual “Writing” of the reviews themselves. You might wonder why I like Ebert. Is it that we share same taste? Nope, most of the time I disagree with his choices but I love the way he writes, he always says that writing a critical review about a bad movie is always fun. So it is to read. About Transformers he writes,

“A horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meagre joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination”

I’m linking another review of Ebert to which I share the same sentiment. Happy reading and hope you have a better time at the movies.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090729/REVIEWS/907299997