Movie Manifesto A movie critique, or any critique for that matter, is very similar to the research of a scientist. Hypothesises are conjured and tested. Those that hold up the best will be kept, and the rest discarded. It's a series of falsifications. You may never hope to attain the ultimate theory. You merely hope to develope theories that become progressively more and more descriptive regarding the given data set. Thus we have my first criteria for a good movie: it should be complex and thought provoking. For me, I like the movie-going experience to be an activity, not a passivity. It's the joy of puzzle solving. A feeling of accomplishment at having used your mental faculties when there was no real need to do so. Don't you believe that there can be something intrinsically pleasing in the simple use of our rationality for its own sake, and not simply as an instrument to grades and employment? Some may disagree, and a charge of "thinking to deep" is often voiced. There are two reasons why I reject this annoyance of an objection. First, just think about the relative time frames involved in the course of movie making. Years are spent making and updating a manuscript. Casting, wardrobes, and backgrounds are meticulously chosen. After a great amount of thought and effort, the actual filming begins and itself may take years to complete. Months of preparing the public with advertising pass before we are allowed to view the creation. So my question is this: with the immense amount of work involved in making a film, and the mere two hours the audience is in touch with it, is it even possible that we could think too deeply? It seems to me that a desire to mentally sleep through movies drives this objection. I have no problem with that, it just doesn't appeal to me. Secondly, I must tell you of the hidden assumption working on this perspective of movies. Namely, that every detail of a movie makes sense, even if it is only a subplot within an all-encompassing unifying plot. Yet what if there was no meaning in putting a certain scene or object in a movie? I have two more objections to this objection. First, movies are a form of art. They should be somewhat subjective. I don't really care what was on the mind of the director when he made this film. His thoughts are not a part of the data set, and I only analyze based on this particular set. Yet, the analyzer is also a part of his own data set, so the results will obviously differ according to each viewer. There is nothing wrong with that. It's like religoius sects that cut and paste the bible to suit their own preferences. Why cannot they take what is meaningful to them and scrap the rest? No one has the obligation to pretend something is important to them when it is not. Subjectivity and relativism are scary words in any religoius or science based culture, but they are real, and frankly, more entertaining. Second, even if I were to take the director's perspective into play, and he were to say, "this part of the movie is entirely meaningless. I just put it there to confuse people," I would not cease my search to place in somewhere with my unifying theory. Perhaps because of my back ground in psychology, I cannot believe that there is ever any human action that is done without any reason or prompting. It's simply the law of causation, we do not have free will, get over with it. You don't and cannot know the future, so it is all the same either way. For example, say I were to ask you to give me a random color. Any color you named would not be random. Our brains are not random number generating machines. The color would be chosen based on the feelings associated with it, the last time you thought of it, or something, just something, is the point. So, in a movie, we have some fact that doesn't seem to fit. I shall make it fit! It will fit my intuitions and thought pattern and shall become a part of me. Perhaps I will forever integrate it into my thoughts. It will give me pleasure and a means of ordering the complex world. It is subjective, and not only is subjectivity not bad, it is good! Enough on complexity, there are other things that make a movie worth watching. First, there are the screen shots and imagery. If a movie can show a beautiful meadow or a breath-taking sunset - something you would want to see in real life - that alone can make a movie worth watching. Plus, there are a great many things that you would like to see in real life, but only the magic of flim can show. For instance, slow and fast distorted scenes, new color patterns, new angles, sky high angles, expensively exquisite props, multiple scenes at once, and such. Moreso, the soundtrack of a movie can add much, or detract much. Music is important because it can convey emotions more efficiently than words alone. Coupled with some fantastic imagery, the soundtrack can make a true experience of a movie. Also, there is the dialogue. With modern movies, it seems like every plot has been done and redone ad infinitum, it is the idiosyncracies of the dialogue that must carry these plots through. The dialogue should make Seinfeldish observations to connect the viewer and actor. Like Terrentino analyzing Madonna or Clerks talking about 'Star Wars.' Overall it should be either humorous or witty. Also, uncorny talks about life and/or philosophical questions are always a plus. So basically, the three most important criterion in judging if I liked a movie or not are: plot, imagery, and dialogue. Sub-criterion may include niceties such as acting, length, lack of annoyances, and interestingness of characters - though these are all associated with dialogue. As far as plot, I'd rather it be more related to ideas than events. And imagery, both dark and light suit me just fine, depending on the film. If you disagree with me on the importance of any of these criteria, you will probably disagree with my reviews as well.