My partner and I have this running joke. Whenever a movie comes on TV and I say I’ve seen it, he’d ask: Was it when you were four?
The story behind the joke is that I grew up watching tons and tons of movies with my dad. We’d settle on the couch in our living room and binge through endless stacks of DVDs (those were the days). We’d watch new releases, old releases, classics, obscure films no one has heard of whose posters intrigued us, anything we could get our hands on.
So, when it comes to “movie watching experience,” I’ve got it in droves.
But—and here’s the interesting bit—if you asked me whether any of the movies I watched growing up were good, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
I can tell you which ones I liked: While You Were Sleeping, Bring It On, Center Stage…1 But I can’t actually say if these were good movies. “Is this a good movie?” was not a question I asked after seeing these hundreds of films. I only knew if I enjoyed it.
Hence the running joke: It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen the movie. I can never tell my partner if it’s a good movie because it’s as if I’d seen them when I was four.
It’s only after I’ve met my partner (who actually studied film as a subject) that I began to ask the question and scrutinise the movies I’m watching.
But the question “Is this movie good?” only begets another: “What makes a good movie?”
Some movies are clearly bad. Wooden acting. A plot line that makes no sense. Dialogue so cheesy it makes you cringe. Choppy editing. Forgettable cinematography.
But what makes a movie good seems far less clear-cut. Loads of movies have good acting, great plot lines, clever dialogue, smooth editing, beautiful cinematography. But are they all good movies?
Is it a simple tick-the-box exercise where we rate each of the elements and come up with a composite “good movie” score? How many ticks would one need? What if the acting is transcendental but the dialogue a bit strange in parts? What if the cinematography is breathtaking but the editing sloppy in places?
Or do we need that je ne sais quoi that makes it? That inexplicable and illusive cherry on top that makes you go: WOW, that was a GREAT movie.
My partner and I have a running list of movies we want to watch together. These are either movies one of us considers good and the other hasn’t seen, or interesting ones neither of us has seen. Last year, while working our way through the list, I discovered two movies that I’d categorically say are good and now top my “favourite movie” list: Memento and Ex Machina.2
But ask me what makes them good, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
Both movies made me go: WOW, that was a GREAT movie. But I can’t actually tell you the specifics of why they garnered that reaction.
Even though I’ve seen many, many movies in my lifetime, I still don’t feel I have the requisite knowledge and skill to explain what makes a movie good. Maybe I need to get a degree in film, or something.
So help me out here: What makes a movie good? What are your non-negotiables? Is it an exact science or just a feeling?
Leave a comment, send a reply, share this with a friend who might know, and maybe make a (good) movie about this in the process.
Until next Friday… Stay cool, stay safe, stay thoughtful,
Val
See a trend there?
I am a fan of both Christopher Nolan and Alex Garland, and I think these are their best works.
Three things:
The movie needs to engage me to the point where I forget what is going on in my life outside the cinema.
The characters need to be written in a way where I can understand their choices and actions as being consistent with who they are. I may not have made the same choices, but I need to believe THEY made the choice they would have made.
The story needs an emotional arc. I need to care about the characters and what happens, otherwise why bother? I may not like the characters, but I should be curious to know what happens to them.