What I Talk About When I Talk About Movies

I’m going to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what caused this, but I’m trying to think about how I’ve been evaluating the movies I’ve been seeing. When I started being a “movie person” (as a coworker of mine calls it), a lot of my opinions were based on other critical opinions. Whether that was just out of fear that my own opinions weren’t worth much at all or because I was putting way too much weight on what others say or even a mix of both, whichever it is, I realized it was a problem. And in an effort to fix that problem, I wanted to, well, I guess not exactly write down “how I’ll aim to in the future” but reflect on what I do like.

I’ve said stuff like this before, but I look for creative flourishes. To steal a quote from The Beginner’s Guide, “It reminds you this was made by a real person.” And yeah, that does get really close to auteur theory, which a lot of people consider an outdated model of thinking, but it’s not like I’m looking for touches by one single person. Anyone involved can make a film enjoyable. For example, the film The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot is, mostly, kind of mediocre, but there’s one camera move when Sam Elliot says “...and this knife” that I thought was really really good. Again, the film isn’t that great, but if it had more things like that, I think it would be.

I’ve also found I have a weakness for neo-noir crime films. Destroyer is a good film, but I enjoyed it much more than I think the movie deserved. Does that make sense? Or Goldstone, which did something similar. And honestly, because the releases for these movies aren’t as big as the really big ones, it’s possible that there’s a little bit of “you haven’t seen this and I have” to it as well, but if it’s there, I think it’s minimal.

But those two paragraphs are at odds with each other, I think. The first one looks for technical performance, whether that be mastery of the film’s style (one of the reasons I liked Phantom Thread and some people didn’t), while the second one is emotion based. I don’t mean that they have to be at odds, but that’s often how it feels. The phrase, “I really liked that movie, but…” or something similar comes up a lot in my discussions, and there has to be a better way to say that because the “but” in that sentence feels like it dismisses the first half way too much.

I’m still learning. I tried earlier in the year to have a full review blog, and that fell through because of other commitments, but I still do talk about movies with friends and family. And like every other skill, it can only get better over time.

-F