Movies, How you found out about them and advertising influence

When you hear about a movie, how do you find out about it? What type of advertisements do you see? Do these advertisements affect what your preferences in film are?

Not the most interesting question, I know, but it would help me out to know.

Generally, I either find out about it through trailers, Flixster, or just the word of mouth. Trailers can give the viewer an idea of what the movie is about, but they can also be misleading and manipulative (LOOKING AT YOU LAST AIRBENDER). That's why my final deciding factor is either positive reviews or strong word of mouth.

So, what if I ask you this. Do you know a movie called The Danish Girl?

Mostly I read about movies, either here or elsewhere online, through news about upcoming movies, rather than seeing adverts.

I don't really understand the last question in the op - how could an advert affect your preferences in film? Surely the advert either appeals to your preferences or it doesn't. I can understand that watching a film might alter your previously held conceptions about your taste in films, but I can't see how an advert would do that.

Edit: RE The Danish Girl, I can't recall where I first read about this film, I have subsequently seen the trailer advertised on imdb's homepage.

I tend to avoid trailers as they often give away major plot developments. I learn about movies here at MoFo and by researching directors, actors, etc at IMDB.

It's mostly IMDb for me.

I always look out for news of upcoming films with my favourite actors or by favourite directors.
Then I read as many reviews as possible - Rotten Tomatoes is a good source - and also read other opinions in movie forums such as this.

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Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.

As a PS to my last post, I've seen The Danish Girl - certainly one of the best films of this year, with another superb performance by Eddie Redmayne. Certainly the subject matter wouldn't appeal to all, but it's handled with delicacy and restraint, and I found the film very moving.

I do watch the trailers of movies that I like. I identify one out of five movies I watch this way. Otherwise my pattern up until the last four or five years has been to identify movies in a review source I trust. Now that Halliwell is gone I am looking for a new review source. I might have to go back to subscribing to Film Comment for recommendations.

Trailers ruin the movie...like Avengers 2. I mean the whole stuff about chaos and destruction and AGE of ultron (specially thinking about the little sequence where we see cap's shield broken...the movie was horrible and the shield thing was only a dream...A DREAM!!! I agree with Honest Trailers when they say ''One week of Ultron'', it didn't last THAT long.


I mostly avoid trailers now and IMDb my stuff

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Overall...[Rocket_Sam]

I think this is one of the most fascinating questions in a while. Great question. If I love a film, I like to find everything by that director. If there are people here who share many of my favorite films, I'll look at what they grade more carefully.. I also look on TCM on-demand, and read a line, and if I see a critics and a user percentage over 90%, I'll probably give it a shot.