(UPDATED)
I have been thinking about what makes films worth watching. There are, indubitably, a number of factors to consider:
- artistic merit
- originality
- entertainment value
- technical proficiency
- philosophical depth
- historical significance
- giant insects
- grace kelly looking fetching
- etc.
I’m considering all this as the Supreme Being and I compile a list of films we recommend to you, the internets. It’s curious to watch that document come into shape. SB’s put some films on there that I like, or which I appreciate, but which I wouldn’t have called out as need-to-see.
I would expect he feels the same about some of my additions.
There is no definitive good/bad, no right answer—it’s subjective. And that’s why I feel disinclined to share flat out film criticism. It’s boring. What I’d much rather do, and what I intend to do, is to comment on what makes the films I appreciate worth watching. The hope is that even if you disagree with my opinions, when you watch what I recommend, you see what I’m talking about. Maybe, I dunno, learn something? Wouldn’t that be nice?
So if you look at our list of recommended films and wonder, “why that one?” Ask us.
UPDATE:
Interestingly, I woke the morning after I wrote this to see that FILM CRIT HULK had written a similar although vastly longer essay on the same subject.
I have a lot of respect for HULK (although, honestly, the all caps thing has served its purpose and just makes him harder to read now). His dissection of Mulholland Drive is invaluable to the viewer who seriously digs that film but who is only on step 1 of 20 in re: understanding what the fuck David Lynch is on about. As was I. HULK is a very smart gamma-radiated-post-human what’s been to college.
This latest essay of his is… well, if you can read it all without skimming you’re either better than me or don’t have any work to get done today. That doesn’t mean that HULK doesn’t have valuable points to make—some of which were subjects I had intended to get to with this theme eventually and some of which are on a different track and worth mulling.
If you’re in a rush, I’d say read Point 3 first and then see if you want to read more.