Why Are They Made?

Sometimes while watching a movie, usually one which is not very good, I wonder why it was made. People can have a good reason for making a movie, but then make it poorly. Talented people can do a good job with a movie that did not have much reason for being made in the first place. When people with no talent try to make a movie which never should have been made, the result is a bomb.

Pushing the envelope of still photography, inventors came up with moving pictures. One celebrated example is the machine that was made to prove that a galloping horse does at some point have all the feet off the ground. Another famous early film is the one of the belly dancer, and then there is the one with the rocket hitting the face of the man in the moon.

Commercial use of movies was first to titillate and entertain and maybe later to educate. The first nickelodeon theaters provided cheap entertainment to immigrants and also educated them about American culture, at least as filtered through the eyes of the movie makers. Nickelodeon operators learned early on that they could make more money selling popcorn than selling 5 cent movie tickets, so they pushed for the production of longer movies.

Entertainment and education can blend in a movie, with education coming in a variety of ways. I like to ask myself after watching a film, how I can relate the people and events in this movie to what I know and wonder about real life.  Sometimes it is hard to see much of a message in a film that seems just very entertaining, but I believe it is always there in a good film.

So many films are made, not because there is a need for a new message or a better delivery of an old message, but rather just because there is a whole industry that lives off making films and a whole bunch of people, more young than not, who love to go to the movies. Unfortunately the result is sometimes endless sequels, prequels and remakes.

Movies often disappoint us and sometimes pleasantly surprise us. To paraphrase a famous movie line, "Movies are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get."

Is this where we came in?

When my brother and I were young kids and able to get a few coins on a Saturday, we could walk to the neighborhood movie theater. In fact I seem to remember one coin, a quarter, was enough for two tickets. As the youngest, it was my job to solicit the money from our step-dad, a task made easier after his first few Olys of Saturday morning had time to work their mellowing magic. Olympia was the beer of choice, not because it was brewed with artesian water, but because it was cheap. The corner grocer knew it was OK to let two kids with a wagon pack a case home on credit, and in payment of our delivery services, movie money seemed appropriate.

We just walked to the theater, without any idea of what movie was playing or what time it started. When we got there, we looked at the posters in front to get an idea of what was on, and then bought our tickets and went inside, where we had to pass through the heavy curtains protecting the aisle from the lobby lights. Once on the dark side, we had to do that walk of faith, with our hands in front like Frankenstein, hoping there wasn't some obstacle in the aisle or maybe an unexpected drop off, all the while knowing how foolish we looked to those already seated with their eyes adjusted to the dark. Sometimes we had to just stand in the aisle until a bright scene exposed the audience long enough for us to get our bearings and grab an empty seat.

The matinees were usually cowboy movies or adventure serials and it was easy to tell what was going on because the plots were all the same, with the heros fighting the villains and ultimately winning. But since we did not start watching at the beginning, for us the victory usually came in the middle of our viewing and then we had to stay for the next beginning and keep watching until we recognized that "this is where we came in". As we graduated to more distant theaters with musicals and dramas, the plots were a little over our heads, which made it harder to recognize where we came in, particularly in the dramas.

Some screenplays are written a little like our matinee experience. The story begins in the middle and then flashes back and forward until we recognize that we have been given the whole thing.  A scriptwriter on a recent special feature I watched said the only flashbacks that are proper are ones that advance the plot. I don't know if I can explain what he meant, but I agree with him.  Starting briefly in the present and then telling the whole back story straight through is fairly common and works well, as when "Citizen Kane" dies with "Rosebud" on his lips, prefacing the telling of his tale. Too much time shifting is often a screen writer's way of trying to mask a weak story.

Deciding What Movie to Watch

Is there a difference between watching a movie and seeing a movie? To me, seeing seems deeper, involving a conscious effort to find the message or meaning, while watching is more akin to TV channel surfing. I watch a movie and if there is a message or meaning that I get, then I see.

By nature, I over think, and so it is with deciding what to watch. In the years before computers and film guides, movie critics were the best informed source of advice. I found the recommendations of John Hartl of the Seattle Times a good match for my tastes. Then Siskel & Ebert came to TV, with the tastes of Siskel the better match for me (I still like his guideline, "Do you care about the characters?"). Maltin's film guide was handy and extensive, but the accuracy for me was mixed, probably because of the team approach that had to be used to review so many movies.

I used to subscribe to the magazines Films in Review and Sight and Sound, but by the time the magazines arrived, the films were usually gone from the theaters. Foreign films were only shown at the Ridgemont in Greenwood and sometimes at a couple places in the University District. The University put on a quarterly film series which concentrated on films from one country each quarter. The only movies shown on TV were old Hollywood ones.

The most reliable referral source for me now is the Netflix algorithm, based on my own ratings compared with those of other members who rate like me. After watching a movie, I use the Netflix filmographies of the director and actors to find other films of interest. I also look at the reader reviews and sometimes the critics reviews (though Ebert rates so many movies good that I suspect he is influenced by the Netflix desire to keep people renting). I still check out any other recommendations I get from Netflix, family, friends and various media sources, by seeing what the Netflix algorithm predicts for me.

My Netflix queue usually has about 200 movies. If a movie is available from the King County Library (which a little over half are) I get it there, so my Library queue has about 250. I tried to maintain this second queue at Netflix, but found it cumbersome, so now I keep a database with both queues and can sort movies by genre, date, length, language and Netflix prediction. I watch 4 or 5 a week each from Netflix (which is making a smart business move during a down economy by working extra hard to keep the movies coming fast) and the library, with the mix designed to go with my mood and to provide some variety.

Susan is my resident movie watching companion, but she works full time and our tastes differ somewhat. She retires at year end, so may become more involved in movie picking after that.

In November I watched 33 movies, dated 1936 to 2009, all dramas except for 3 comedies, 3 romances, 2 documentaries and 1 sci-fi, all in English except 4 Spanish, 2 German and 1 each Hungarian, Italian and Japanese, predicted by Netflix from 3.4 to 2.8 and rated by me from 3.8 to 2. For my mathematically inclined readers (especially John), the Netflix predictions were accurate on the average to within .1, with only 4 being off by more than .5, and the median being an exact match.