Book on how to watch movies advice

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I was thinking of buying a book on how to watch movies in a less amateurly way. By that I mean a book that teaches you how to evaluate a movie, what to look for in it, and so on.
It should be not too long, and I should be able to buy it online.
Thanks for your help.



matt72582's Avatar
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I'd recommend watching a movie alone, with no one else in sight.

Turn off the phone, TV, and everything else. Try not even knowing the length, looking at clocks., - stop any distractions.

If you miss a word, rewind. If you're not in the right frame of mind, it could be hard to concentrate. You can be looking at the screen, but not taking it all in.

And the more movies you watch, the wider your spectrum becomes. Watch movies from all eras, stuff from 70 years ago, and go from there.



I recommend James Monaco's How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media, Multimedia: Language, History, Theory. It's comprehensive (but fairly easy to pick through for just the aspects of cinema you care about) and has been through a ton of editions.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
The more you know about life, the more you'll get out of movies, so I would say life experience will help you to understand the language of movies. Most movies are intuitive - the ones that aren't, you'll just have to experience as many as possible to try to get a handle on how they communicate. But most movies you can understand what they're communicating just as much by what they omit as by what they show. Of course, it's not only important to understand the who, what, where and how of what the movie details, but the why is probably the key. It's one thing to understand a plot or at least what's happening in a film, but what it means is difficult for some to grasp because of different time frames, cultures, techniques, history and politics. So I say best of luck in your endeavor, and experience is the best way to go to help you understand life and movies better. But check out the book linespalsy recommended too.
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I'd recommend watching a movie alone, with no one else in sight.

Turn off the phone, TV, and everything else. Try not even knowing the length, looking at clocks., - stop any distractions.

If you miss a word, rewind. If you're not in the right frame of mind, it could be hard to concentrate. You can be looking at the screen, but not taking it all in.

And the more movies you watch, the wider your spectrum becomes. Watch movies from all eras, stuff from 70 years ago, and go from there.
I find this very interesting because these days I much prefer to watch films alone. And I pretty much vary between just flicking through the channels and watching bits and pieces of films, or actually planning to eventually watch films, such as The Witch.



I was thinking of buying a book on how to watch movies in a less amateurly way. By that I mean a book that teaches you how to evaluate a movie, what to look for in it, and so on.
It should be not too long, and I should be able to buy it online.
Thanks for your help.
I'd be surprised if a decent film book was short! I remember a cracking couple of books just on Blade Runner and they were like doorstops. One was Future Noir, the other's title I forget, but it had some very interesting discussion about sexuality in relation to the replicants, which actually fed back nicely to Ash in Alien.



matt72582's Avatar
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When I was younger, I liked to watch a movie with a friend, and he brought it to my attention how we always end up talking to each other so at 17, I started watching them alone and really studying. Soon I remember getting a Blockbuster Special Membership where you'd rent one, get one free, so I was watching 5-10 films every single week. After so many movies, you can better identify and be more accurate. Sometimes I can only muster the strength to watch 1-2 movies a week, so I don't wanna watch any junk.

I wouldn't focus on books; that's their perception. Practice. Watch movies on a wide spectrum until you see a correlation, noticing favorite directors, themes, actors, etc etc...

I notice SO many friends who were big movie fans don't ever watch any more. I keep hearing "They're not good anymore" - but at that time I was recommending 70's films. I notice people a little younger than me not being able to sit down for 2 hours. I was talking to a friend while he was watching a movie - I thought "how is that possible"?

Earlier this year I was telling my cousin about a movie, and he sounded so interested, and the more I told about "Birdman of Alcatraz" the more he got interested. I even ordered it via youtube (even though I just saw it), and the minute it came on, before the credits, he had a face like he just saw a dead body. He said to me, "It's black and white?" - never got past the title...

2 weeks ago, I went over a girl's house with "Harry and Tonto" - and she is such a cat lover, which is why I mentioned it in the first place. We didn't get a 1/3 of the way through - constant text interruptions, or having to pause it for phone calls (at one point she told me not to bother pausing it), and then when it started quieting down, she says "It's kinda boring". I asked her about it, she didn't absorb a thing, and she's older than me, so it's not just a "generational" thing. I know there are some teens in here with great taste.



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Never understood how someone can watch a movie and not be bothered to pause it.
Sadism.. She knew for weeks how much I loved the movie, so she tried her hardest not to. She thought she would lose I guess... It's just like sex, but I won those rounds



Registered User
I was thinking of buying a book on how to watch movies in a less amateurly way. By that I mean a book that teaches you how to evaluate a movie, what to look for in it, and so on.
It should be not too long, and I should be able to buy it online.
Thanks for your help.
Not an expert on film criticism.

My advice would be to learn on what the "schools of thought" that critics use are, and pick one.

The reason reviewing movies is tougher than... deciding how well a football team did is because not everyone is evaluating it by the same set of rules, and there's no single formalized system.

So criticism is similar to if 10 people had 10 different sets of rules that they used to determine the winner of a sport, while arguing with each other over which set of rules was best