Enjoying Movies

I was thinking about my review for "Fifty Shades of Grey" and... you know what, never mind.  I'm tired of talking about that movie.  I know it's generated a lot of controversy, has inspired two articles on my website, and has brought me lots of financial success through hits, but I'm done talking about it for now.  Movies like that might bring the eyeballs to the site, but they are not fun to think about.  Most of the time bad reviews are fun to write, but this time I just wanted it to be over with.  I'm amazed it managed to have enough Joyce to get a second blog post out of me.  Contrary to what I make it sound like sometimes, watching bad movies isn't the worst part of this job.  No, remembering bad movies is the worst part of this job.

If a movie is bad we normally like to move onto other things.  It's not fun having to decide whether "Freddy Got Fingered" or "Norbit" is the worse film of the two, because at the end of the day they are both so atrociously terrible that watching grass grow would be more worth your time.  That's one of the reasons I love Oscar week: Because friends and family members want to watch as many of the nominated films as they can and they usually invite me along for the ride.  Now of course I've seen these movies before, but if a movie is truly good you want to watch it again.  There is value in revisiting a good movie.  There are small things that can stand out more the second, third, and sometimes forth time.  You can share them with people who might not otherwise have seen this movie and will be thankful you recommended it to them.

As much as we like hearing that you loved our bad review, we love it even more when you say you went to see a movie you normally wouldn't have seen and loved it.  I mean, that doesn't even happen much anymore.  I wrote a review for a movie and concluded it was little more than physical abuse you witnessed, and people managed to make it the number one film of the weekend.  I mean, THAT hurts!  Not only because what I did professionally didn't really make a lick of difference, but you just think of all those people wasting away in a theater.  Tonight I was watching "Birdman" with my parents (or one of them anyway; the other slept the whole time).  It was a different kind of experience because I had already seen the film, I was watching it with a review not needing to be written, and sharing it with someone who was seeing it for the first time.

That helped make it funny the second time around.  It was fun to get a reaction from someone who doesn't do this for a living.  It was just a good experience overall.  It was a reminder that movies are supposed to be enjoyed.  They are supposed to be shared.  They should make you want to go back to them over and over again, to soak up the experience and gain new things from them.  This "Fifty Shades of Grey" crap does none of this.  Life is way to short to be giving it any more thought than need be (heck, the book the movie was based off of was Twilight fan fiction, so you know there was no thought put into that from the get go).  Movies should be enjoyed.  If they aren't enjoyable, they aren't doing their job.  I watch bad movies so you don't have to.  I'm supposed to convince you not to waste your money.  I'm also supposed to convince you to see movies that are worth it.

I don't know if I always do a good job at that, but I try the best I can.  The Oscars are airing Sunday.  There are eight movies up for Best Picture.  In a rare situation, they are all excellent movies and more than worthy of your time and money.  Many of them are in theaters and some are even on DVD now.  Spend the weekend watching these movies.  Watch them with friends and family.  Tweet about them if you must.  Remember that movies are to be enjoyed.  So be sure to do that, please.  Alright... I think it's time we move on from that pornographic film and start talking about real movies again, don't you think?