on movie reviewing

I'm on a movie review/film critique/whatever you want to call it kick. This is because 1) I have been watching many a movie lately (I have ample time, and I decided to do the one-month free trial of Netflix, which is going to be very hard for me to cancel in a couple of weeks!) and 2) (and most importantly) I love movies. If you know me at all, you probably know this. I love to watch them, talk about them, quote them, and learn about the stories and people behind them. I love them so much that I'm embarrassed about it. When I was 14, I started a list to record every movie that I had ever seen up to that point and every new one that I saw from then on (I stopped recording a few years ago). I have kept every movie ticket stub from every theater visit since 2004. I'm a huge imdb.com advocate.

And so what is it that I love about the screen so much? I'm discovering that it's a combination of several things. I'll go ahead and say they're entertaining (it is the "entertainment business", after all). Oftentimes, we want to just relax and see beautiful new places and faces. We want to laugh when life isn't so funny. But that is not all they can do for us. Some will say movies are an "escape" of feel-good bliss, but I'm finding the movies that are sometimes best are the ones that challenge the viewer to face something, some truth or difficult question. Also, film is an art form, a visual and audible story-telling. And what would we do without story? Through movies, we have the opportunity to digest stories in a visually-stimulating way. Screenwriters have a story to tell, whether it's their own or a famous novelist's or playwright's, and directors and producers and a multitude of others make that possible, with moving pictures. I think of movies as a reflection of human life, of our minds, our thoughts, of the questions we have and the joys we have seen and want to see.

It would be amazing to be a part of movie-making, but for now, I will enjoy sharing what I love, along with what I don't, about the films that are already out there. I have no formal way of reviewing, I just want to share a simple recording of my thoughts after viewing a new film (new for me, not necessarily new). And I promise that there will be no spoilers.