MOOD - 2
The only time I really mind the mood is when a happy story is going along well and then all of a sudden, bam, bad shit. I guess I don't really like sudden shifts in mood, or something. I don't know, it depends on whether it works well in the movie or not.
CAST MEMBERS - 3
I don't care who's in my movies. For the most part. I have noticed that I tend to feel less toward movies containing any of the noticeable cast of
I Hate Huckabees in it, for example, Marky Mark's role in
the Departed just annoyed me more than anything else, but he didn't completely ruin the movie for me, I guess I don't worry about it all that much.
SOUNDTRACK - 4
Soundtracks do help me like a movie more. For a recent example, I really liked the soundtrack to
Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Even though at first I disapproved of Goldenthal handling the soundtrack to
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within over one of my favorite musicians period, Nobuo Uematsu, I eventually accepted both it and the movie. Extending outside of movies, certain video game soundtracks have made me appreciate their accompanying games more, so I do feel that this is an important aspect. But it's not always like "good music = good movie" for me
Scorpio Rising had a decent soundtrack, but despite all I've read about it, I just cannot see what was all the fuss about.
STYLE/LOOK OF THE MOVIE - 5
I wasn't quite sure I wanted to give this a 5, because I mean, I'm beginning to think the reason I like
Infernal Affairs more than
the Departed is because of the cinematography. (And that the plot had less mess to clean up.) But I mean, I heard that the western
Shane was more about style than the typical ride-em-in-on-horseback, shoot-em-out, ride-em-out-cowboy western, and that appealed to me, even though I never got around to looking into it. That, and the most convincing point of all, I love seeing animated movies of all kinds.
DIALOGUE - 3
I can't remember most dialogue. I do like me some good dialogue, with
Brick being a good example, but I've been thinking... music with vocals are fine, instrumentals work fine as well, but sometimes the music with little or no vocals work better for me. I'm listening to the S&M version of Call of Ktulu right now, actually. So one thing I might want to do, if I ever decide to start working on becoming a director myself, is how would I approach dialogue? And one interesting idea I came up with was stripping all of the dialogue out that wasn't truly essential and either seeing what would happen there, or try to include more realistic dialogue. Or maybe even do something like a more realistic version of what Tarantino or Godard style of constant-reference dialogue would be like; I've actually had rapid-fire conversations like Tarantino before, talking about movies and using constant examples, before, so his is not unreal, just uncommon.
STORY - 3
I don't really need a thick plot, because life doesn't really have a plot and if I need a good plot, novels are a better way to go, but I'm looking at my Top 20 and two come up in particular.
The Big Lebowski: no real plot, it's really just about the moments, kind of like how life is like; we go from one moment to the next, one scene to the next, not this big epic "fight der bad guys" style plot.
Waking Life has a general framing plot, I guess, it's been a while, but along the same lines, the moment is more important than the overall plot. I also have a couple that have well grounded plots, like
Grindhouse, both parts really,
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Enter the Dragon and
The Seven Samurai. Plots can be constricting, but if they work, they work.
PACING - 5
Actually, I don't mind slow paced movies, but I do mind boring-as-fuck movies. I probably do like some that could be considered the latter, and really the only time I don't stop in the middle of a movie is when I'm watching the movie with someone else or if it's on TV, but
the more stops or the more breaks I take while watching the movie, the less likely I'll probably like it. So the pacing, and thus the editing, must be done so I'm not sitting around thinking of taking a break, and getting distracted, and never coming back to that piece of shit movie.
(Not that that would be a golden rule, even though
I Hate Huckabees applies here, in that I had to stop about every five minutes to recover. Actually, physically, recover. But enough negativity, maan.
)
CHARACTERS - 4
I need enough to hold on to. Honestly, I can never tell most characters in most Japanese movies apart. I mean, even something like
the Seven Samurai, even though characters did develop and most did stand out from one another, I just can't remember Japanese names unless I see them a lot. More trouble in that you have a really long name, we'll go with Nobuo Uematsu since I mentioned him earlier. If the characters are familiar, they'd refer to him by his first name, Nobuo. If they were less familiar, they'd probably call him Uematsu. This gets even more confusing when you use the proper name format: Uematsu Nobuo, which is how you'll most likely see it on all your Criterions' subtitles. Then again, I do like samurai movies. The samurai war movies can be a bit over my head, especially with the Japanese history and the stuff. -- Overall, looking at my Top 20, I see a lot of movies where there are stand-out characters/people. The people from
7th Street feel like old friends, and most of the characters from
Grindhouse and
the Big Lebowski are really unique, so I think I'd give this section a 4/5.
SUBJECT MATTER - 2
I don't care about drugs, gore or maybe even perverse sex being in movies. I don't really feel like I have to agree with the characters, or what they're doing, I feel more concerned with how it all fits in. I think the subject matter for
the Woodsman may have put me off from giving it a better score than 8/10, but I really liked how they approached the subject. I guess it just didn't handle the subject quite as well as I would have liked it to; I just didn't really see it as like a "definitive" movie on the subject or anything. Also, I can watch a movie about drug addiction, like
Requiem for a Dream, and not be put off by the subject matter. I think it's important that any movie needs to be handled well - an irresponsible movie about growing up might be fun, but it's still irresponsible.
ORIGINALITY - 4
I'm looking over my Top 20 and beyond while thinking of this question, and I think that I've come to accept movies that are original easier than movies that might be tried-but-true conventional. There's really only so much you can do to make a movie stand out from the pack, but if you go that extra mile to make it original, it shows in all departments. If five movies are using Paint it Black in their soundtrack, even though it's an awesome song, you may want to delve deeper into the Stones catalogue to find something that, while it may not have the sitars and may not apply quite as well... hmm... and there's the flip-side. Sometimes convention works better than non-convention. Myself, in writing, I recently came across a situation in which I realized I was going to have a stereotypical, and a negative stereotype at that, kind of relationship for a minor character I haven't even
mentioned in my story yet, and quickly decided that to go against convention in that regard would lead to a better outcome. I would, when/if I ever am able to get to this point in my writing, be able to address the negative stereotypes of this issue head-on, rather than just leading it through a negative cycle. So, originality in movies is important to me, but if Paint it Black really works for a particular scene, hey, why not use it?
PHILOSOPHY - 5
I'm going to go with everyone else in saying that the ulterior motive of movies is one of the more important aspects of a movie to me. I mean, I can enjoy just an original stylish movie, but I need substance, even if that's just style. I feel that the best way to approach philosophy in movies is to either use it to create an external or internal discussion, such as
the Seventh Seal and
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and
Taste of Cherry, where there may be a general outcome, but it's not one-sided and you're not told what to believe at the end of the day. Also, philosophy shouldn't be the only thing going on for the movie. If you don't agree with the rapid-fire philosophy of
Waking Life, at least you can fall back on the animation, which could be seen as a weakening of the importance of philosophy. But in the end, I like the idea of referencing
the Big Lebowski in a junior level sociology class, because I feel/felt that the philosophical issues that it brought up, no matter how small, were valid. Perhaps not as impressive as citing Immanuel Kant (dance
), but it makes me feel that this whole big interest in movies is worthwhile; that there's really a point to watching movies.
Huh, I really got warmed up there toward the end.
(Not that that would be a golden rule, even though I Hate Huckabees applies here, in that I had to stop about every five minutes to recover. Actually, physically, recover. But enough negativity, maan. 
)
