What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

I did search for this topic and came up empty. If there is a similar topic that already exist please point me here and I will delete this thread and post on the original thread.

I have noticed that some of us have been or are still confused between the distinction between our favorite movies and movies that might be called the "greatest of all time". Just look at the difference between your top ten favorite movies for this site vs the AFI or BFI list of great movies as an illustration of this point.
What I am interested in is a discussion of how you determine the films we call our favorites. Your criterea might just be "it entertained me", but surely there might be more criteria than entertainment. If you were going to argue that this movie is better than that movie you would list your reasons.
Here is one of my criteria to start the ball rolling
1) Wide audience appeal? Look at my top ten and you will see that this criteria disqualifies most of my favorite movies from "the best movie" category immediately. There are some that would argue that universal appeal limits the creativity of the film maker. I agree with this criteria because I believe the truly great film makers have managed to produce great films for a wide audience. Look at the films of: Hitchcock, Welles, and Capra to name a few. You can have wide audience appeal without catering to the lowest common denominator, if your story rings true for many.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

Enjoy-ability and how well directed it is along with the performances

My top 10 list is simply the films that mean the most to me personally, irrespective of quality :).

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

Criteria #2
2) relevant over time- Another aspect is that some movies appeal not only to an audience of a particular kind, but also to an audience over a large span of time. If a film make hits that universal appeal chord it might move beyond a particular adience at some point in time to audiences over a vast period of time. Look at the films of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Look at "Casablanca", It's a Wonderful life", or "Lawrence of Arabia". if m examples are not sufficient come up with your own. Surely there are old movies you can appreciate that were not made in the last decade or so.

Mine is too. But isn't it possible to name some reasons why they mean something to you personally? Are there not some movies that we should all of us could acknowledge as great even if they were not our favorite?

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

3) Watchability- Stands up to repeated viewings. (This criteria is obviously not as relevant to mysteries, suspense, or other genres that rely on some sort of surprise) I'd rather watch the same two hundred movies over again rather than just watch some eye-candy just to be entertained. There are also movies designed to be watched more than one time: Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive, Sixth Sense, Momento, Angel Heart. Movies that are able to slip something by you in the plot or require you to see the whole before you can understand the various parts.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

What are some of your criteria? If you enjoyed a movie, what be some of your reasons for recommending it to somebody else?

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

I determine my movies by how much they entertained me. The Room is considered one of the worst movies ever made but I gave it an 8/10 because it was really entertaining. The Godfather is a nearly perfect movie on a technical aspect but I gave it a 6/10 because I didn't find it particularly entertaining.

Anyone that pretends they have some serious insight into the (objective) quality of a film will be unfathomably boring about films in actual conversation, not criteria but definitely fact.

Depends what the creator is capable of, my expectations, and how far the film goes in both.

Like I would celebrate a child counting to 10. Not so much an adult. It's all relative for me.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

Your question of "how one ought to evaluate art" actually cuts deep into the origins of art criticism itself because there is a rather annoying contradiction at its heart that's difficult to resolve.

If all of art is subjective, then what good are critics. Why should their opinions get published and not yours. As you say, in most cases there are clear distinctions between your list of favourite films (or films you consider to be the best) and other critics polled lists and the question is why is there such a huge difference? Now you're asking if there exists an objective criterion for determining what films are genuine great and what films are just personal favourites. I think that any attempt at developing such an objective criterion for judging films is both futile and self-defeating. It discards the most sacred feature of cinema, its ability to speak to everyone differently. One is defined by one's biases and I see no purpose in judging a film from an unbiased perspective (if such a thing is even possible).

Let me give you 2 examples to illustrate what I'm saying. For instance Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is widely regarded as not only one of the great war films of all time but one of the greatest films, period. Now although I can admire its technical virtuosity, its beautiful visuals and its narrative ambition, from a philosophical point of view, I think it's a big bag of hooey. It seems to have a lot on its mind with regards to the corruptibility of men in the face of war, about men becoming killers and so on but it doesn't know how to say any of it. It's 3 hours of preaching with no justification or truth behind any of it. Also if Coppola wants to examine the subject of war honestly, I don't think he can do it with by starting with a preconceived notion of war being the worst thing that's ever happened to human beings. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely anti-war and I'm very saddened when I see footage of what's going on in Iraq and Syria today but these grand claims of war being very unnatural and having fundamentally political origins are largely unfounded. Our entire history as a species has been entirely defined by wars so Coppola's statement about "war corrupting man" is the sort of pseudo-intellectual drivel that fills the books of Pharaoh's magicians. Does he really think humanity conquered the earth whilst suppressing all other species, by being loving & caring? War is at the heart of evolution, natural selection at its absolute pure. I've always hated it when film-makers pretend to be philosophers without having anything meaningful to say. This is a subject matter that requires a certain level of intellectual maturity that lacks in Coppola.

Clearly I already had strong opinions on the subject matter before I saw the film and perhaps if I didn't have any I might have enjoyed it more. So one could say that it's not the film's fault, because in both cases the film was the same, it's about the thoughts I bring with me. But I think this point of view is about as unhelpful as it gets. I think the fact that I personally feel a certain way about this subject defines me as a viewer so the fact that I completely despise how the film explores its ideas is indeed a valid criticism of the film from my point of view which is all that matters to me.

Similarly another film I really quite despise is Jean Luc Godard's Le Mepris, a film that is so easy to laugh at on so may levels it's hard to imagine that it's often rated as one of the greatest films ever made. Le Mepris depicts the death of cinema coinciding with the death of romance in classic Godard-ian fashion. If you thought Coppola couldn't be taken seriously as a thinker, he comes of as an offspring of David Hume and Immanuel Kant in comparison with Godard. The problem with Godard is that he's not just a fan of cinema, he's a fanboy and an annoying one at that. If he could be reduced to a single genius idea, it might go something like this - "Cinema is love, cinema is life. To love cinema is to love life". Just give me a break but that doesn't stop other people from singing his name and calling him the greatest living director.

Anyways my point is the only real criterion for judging films that matters is how much it inspires you. There is no objective means of judging a film and even if there was it would disregard the whole purpose of art itself. Personally I don't care much for any of these critics polls such as the sight and sound or BFI or AFI or any other. Critics often admire technical and stylistic innovations over content but should I really care if a director comes up with a new way of shooting a segment of film? I'm only interested in the complete finished product and what it stands for. I think it's very telling when films like Breathless (although enjoyable is as shallow as a film can be) and Battleship Potemkin get voted amongst best films ever. Stylistic innovations are admirable only when they're backed by thematic substance, otherwise it's just pointless and a waste of money. This is why I have so much respect for film-makers like Buster Keaton, Orson Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni and Alfred Hitchcock, film-makers who did introduce a lot of stylistic innovations but used it for interesting thematic reasons to support and enhance their film's content.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

Believable extraordinariness.

I agree with you in a sense, but I think a movie can most certainly be criticized on a technical aspect. Whether Apocalypse Now's philosophical point of view is good or not is entirely up to the opinion of the viewer, but there's no denying that the films pretty beautiful from a technical point of view, if a little boring.

But you have listed some reasons you like or dislike a film. I'm not trying to kill the art work in order to dissect it, "as Heidegger might describe it". I mean there are different film elements that people focus on when enjoying a film: plot, cinematography, misc-en scene (what is in and out of he frame 'the world the film creates'), etc. These are all academic, but there must be some common elements we share when we say "a film entertained me"

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

It depends on the movie itself, and different types of stories and genres require different criterias I find.

A movie like The Naked Gun for example, I don't know if you need a criteria, you just judge it by whether or not it made you laugh enough maybe?

I think you are helping me with my request for criteria. One criteria is that you enjoy films that make you laugh. One criteria I seek in films is black or absurd humor. That includes films like Brazil, Dr. Strangelove, but it also includes moments in films that are not comedy's as a result of pushing things beyond any reasonable limit. David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart come to mind. One excellent example would be Man Bites Dog. Any reasonable person, in my opinion, would be offended by any number of things in that movie, but pushing things so far past any acceptable norm makes it absurd and opens itself up to a laugh (it might be an uncomfortable laugh, but there is some humor there.) maybe criteria is to formal a word. "What do you look for in films might be more appropriate." I do like Naked gun, by the way.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

I judge a film by the three A's....atmosphere, acting, attitude.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

I took two classes from a small art school several years ago, because I enjoyed film. One was film history and the other was film elements. Just enough exposure to allow me to make a fool of myself. In those classes the professors sought to explain that watching movies, for whatever reason, was a worthwhile use of your time. Enjoy a movie for a laugh, for two hours of escape, or whatever. However they said understanding a few basics about film did not necessarily hinder your enjoyment of a film. it just provided you with a few tools to enhance your enjoyment, just like a literary critic expands their capacity to enjoy literature. discussing symbolism, narrative, style, etc. Given the time, I would enjoy learning more about film, but the cost to my personal life at this time is to high. So I joined this site to discuss and listen to other peoples thoughts about film on whatever level. It's not snobbish to want to not only like films, but to understand those that have something to understand. And for those of use who look for that kind of thing, it is great to have somebody to discuss those things with. I think many others are here for the same reason. And I like to be entertained as well I like Naked Gun, Happy Texas, Wedding Crashers, etc.. I just don't find much to discuss in those films.

Re: What criteria do you use to evaluate movies
 

I'm one those people who don't believe in objective values in art. For me the only thing that matters in movies (and art in general) is whether I enjoy it or not. I put some thought to why (how could I write reviews otherwise) but in the end it's really difficult for me to pinpoint what exactly makes any specific film good or bad. Most technical aspects can, of course, be evaluated somewhat objective but technical proficiency (or lack of it) doesn't alone matter that much to me. For me the best films and my favorite films are same thing.

When I first got into watching films, it was largely for film history. Film history is human culture history...and understanding who we were. Which helps one to understand who we are now, and where we're going.

It's cool you took those film classes, sounds fun to me.