One thought.

I’ve been writing film reviews since I was in college, but I suppose I’ve been thinking about movies for considerably longer than that. I first understood the power of the medium in an introductory course to film sound, way back in seventh grade.

It didn’t take me long to realize that people essentially want one or two things from their film watching experience: they want to be entertained or they want to be enlightened. The first group is considerably bigger, as mainstream films have joined their television counterparts in providing a healthy dose of escapism. Most people want to sit in a dark room and watch a movie because they want 90 minutes to forget about the problems that exist outside the theater cave. If the movie sufficiently distracts them – and makes them laugh or cry in the process – they’re satisfied. These people usually care little about mise-en-scene, or dynamic characterization or the effect of a non-linear narrative, unless those elements directly diminish or bolster the tears or the laughs.

The second group – the group who comes to be enlightened – is smaller, but often believe that film has the potential to be a great artistic medium, if only dollars and cents didn’t dominate the conversation.

While blockbuster films are often subject to endless hype and cross promotion, it is often the more artistic, or character-driven, pieces that are celebrated by year’s end. These films will be the ones that are endlessly dissected, written about, and promoted as classics for decades. And these will be the Monets and Picassos that people return to when the world becomes endlessly littered with Warhol knockoffs.

A reviewer’s duty is to see both the high concept blockbuster and the high-brow art house film and think primarily of its readership: Will they like it? Why will they like it? Does this film advance the continuing conversation about what defines this artistic medium? Or did it succeed because it was well executed, well organized or had the best writers or cast?

We also cannot avoid the films that show little promise, because sometimes we are most pleasantly surprised. My friends often ask: Why bother with the low-brow, the miscast, the one-joke premise films? It’s all part of the spectrum, and it’s important to know what truly belongs at the low end as much as discovering what exists at the high end.