as time goes by i see myself getting more and more interested in the intellectual and artistic aspects of movies. i no longer enter the movie theater solely for a thrill, i go there to fully deconstruct a movie and understand the director. after taking a film arts class i got a deeper appreciation of movies and accepting it as indeed an art form with a (possible) intellectual side. It creates a means where directors and story tellers come together to share their philosophies. and it is another form of broadening our perspectives of life, when a movie isn’t misread.

But like every art form, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; some art resonate with the all of us, some art have fewer fans. we have our Da Vinci paintings and our children book pictures and everything between. And when it comes to seeing a movie, (if you’re like me), you are curious to know what critics or other people have to say about a given movie. One thing to understand is regular movie goers and critics have completely different views of movies.

Regular movie goers go for entertainment or are looking for something to identify with, whatever it may be. these set of people tend to be more forgiving about how the movie is made and concentrate on the story. and their rating of the movie depends on how well they liked the story, how scary it was, how much action, how funny and so forth. but that doesn’t mean they completely ignore how the movie is made, everyone will look at the same painting differently if it was done on a canvas or on a piece of toilet paper.

Critics on the other hand (or at least most of them) look for originality and movie making finesse. Most often than not, a story a critic has seen before is more likely to get a poor rating simply because of the predictability of the story line. despite how good a movie may be, if it isn’t a new concept or plot critics deem it as just the same thing in new clothing and pass it as a poor movie. they look for the inability to guess what happens next in some cases.

These are very brief summaries but enough information to give an idea. when i watch a movie, i try viewing as both a regular movie goer and a critic with a third dimension; Intellectuality, how much brain stimulation am i getting and how much does it get me thinking. one of the things i look for is character development, and how much u can understand the characters with the given information. one movie i love for character development is Kill Bill. if u can look pass the action and pay attention to the main character and listen to the dialog, you’ll be amazed about how well the director (Quintin) brought the emotions of Kiddo (accompanied by a great performance from Uma T) to life. kinda hard to explain but watch the movie again, paying attention to each character’s story and listen to the dialog. Each story gives motive and makes you understand even the enemy and it adds a strange “i kinda understand” emotion to the movie. this makes it fresh in a way and it stands out from other action movies.

Other things i look for are hidden philosophies of the director/story teller. this has nothing to do with the quality of the movie, but it is a bonus to know anyone’s way of thinking.

i could go one forever talkin about the different aspects of movies, but i’ll stop. maybe the next time u want to see a movie u won’t let a rating from other people affect a movie you wish to see. it may hold something useful to you on different levels. maybe from now on u may understand how i criticize some movies as a ” layman “.