How often do you go to the movies? Let’s say once a month or a quarter. So you decided that today is the same evening, found time and went to the premiere. And you didn’t like it at all. Or tuned in to enjoy the series, which everyone around admires, and again by. It’s a shame. How to avoid it? How to choose a movie so that it is not excruciatingly painful for the time spent without pleasure?
“Everyone praises the N picture, but I didn’t like it”, “I don’t understand why there is so much noise around the Z series, in my opinion, it’s about nothing at all.” Familiar? Let’s try to figure out why this happens.
It’s not that everyone is different, that goes without saying. And not that you did not understand something such that you understood the conditional “everyone”. You may have chosen the wrong moment to watch this particular movie. Or, if you go the other way, this evening you stopped at the wrong picture.
Choosing a movie is a story about you and your desires at a particular moment in time. It’s like with food, right now you may want something hot, thick and enveloping, and two hours later – crispy and spicy or cloyingly sweet. If in general it is difficult for you to understand what you want, in a cafe you study the menu for a long time, and change clothes ten times in the morning, this is a topic for a separate detailed discussion.
So, when choosing a movie for the evening, ask yourself what you want to get, what emotions. “Turn off your head” or think, look at the world from a new angle? Unwind or get aesthetic pleasure? The genre of the film will depend on this at least.
Remember to check your internal compass
It is strange to go to “Ika”, “Factory” or “Capernaum” if you are not ready to reflect on the imperfection of the world, social problems and the complex nature of human relations, and it is no less strange to expect from “Alita” or “Captain Marvel” the same depth that and from the author’s cinema that you are accustomed to (there is certainly depth there, but this is not about that now).
When you have more or less decided on the general direction, you can select two or three films and read the reviews of a film critic, blogger or another person whose opinion you trust, but after that, again, you should check your inner compass.
What not to do:
1. Start off trailers
Yes, it happens that we like both the trailer and the film, but we must understand that trailers are edited by specially trained people, as a rule, not from the film crew, and their task is to attract viewers. So, in 2,5-3 minutes you need to fit all the funniest / spectacular / soulful. Does this reflect the main idea of the film, what will happen there, how fast will events develop? Hardly.
2. Rely on ratings
Many users rate the film, guided by very strange principles. And it would be nice if it was only about the subjective “like” / “dislike”. It happens that the film is appreciated by people who simply did not watch it. A vivid example: the rating of the film “Movement Up” on KinoPoisk, which collapsed after a negative review by Bad Comedian.
The less expectations you have about movies, the better.
IMDb is also not perfect in this regard. If you really want to start from numbers, take a look at Rotten Tomatoes – there, at least, the average rating is calculated based on reviews of film critics, people who write reviews professionally. Although even here one must understand that critics watch the film in the original language, and any, even the best translation and voice acting, change the film, and not for the better.
And, of course, if you are not sure that right now is “that” mood, it is worth postponing the film until better times than spoiling your first impression. True, and this is not a guarantee that you will like the film, but at least this way you will know that you did your best.
It seems that this approach requires too much time and effort, but we spend no less time, including a film chosen at random and after 15, 30, 45 minutes realizing that we do not want to watch it.
Yes, and one more thing. Often we are disappointed in those pictures from which we expected too much, which were too actively praised by others. So the less expectations you have initially associated with cinema, the better, however, not only with cinema.