how I watch movies

on watching and scoring movies

I feel like I've talked a lot with my friends about scoring movies. 

With John, he rates movies with precision (down to the decimals), and rates them in a more clinical and standalone manner, judging them based on what they set out to achieve. (an approach that has been the topic of much discussion on our long calls)

With Mabroor, he rates movies more discriminately and honestly, he either likes it or he doesn't. His marking criteria is based entirely on how he feels. 

I used to base how I felt about movies on context. Is this movie widely regarded to be good? There must be a reason why so many people enjoy it, I would tell myself, so I must find something to appreciate about it as well. 

Nowadays I feel like my ratings of movies at the moment are more based on what kind of feelings they elicit from me, and kind of hinge more upon the depth of feeling they capture. That immediately kind of seems strange, that sort of thing is subjective, is it not? How would you even begin to calculate that on a scale of 1 to 10? 

At this point, it feels more like a gut feeling, I suppose; as I watch more movies, that provides more of a context and lens to view things through. It's almost instinctual now, how an 8/10 or a 7/10 feels. Mabroor has told me before that he thinks I am way too lenient and liberal with my scores. 

He once said to me: "A 5/5 should be reserved for the very very best, the masterpieces." 

I guess I can agree with that, but I think if you limit your experiences to that kind of standard, then that can affect your uptake in quite significant ways. And again, it's all subjective isn't it?

I mean I'm not championing the way I score movies as The Way To View Movies, that much is clear to me. That sort of snobbery kind of directly betrays what I appreciate about film. I think I view movies as capsules of another's experiences, a chance to look inside the mind of another, where they control every factor in the sights and sounds presented. Intellectualism and Anti-Intellectualism always seem to butt heads in film discourse on my twitter feed, People turning up their noses at pretentiousness vs. People dismissing more commercially released movies as drivel. 

I think more along the lines of what Harmony Korine says about art. "It's just there." There's a lot of stuff that's been released, and it's very easy for others to judge it based on the good/bad metric. I think what matters to me is how much thought has been put into it.

Sometimes I watch a movie and the words just come to me naturally, I am able to write at length about what the themes are, and how they made me feel. Sometimes, I don't write much at all... but that's ok, I think. Inspiration strikes me less nowadays, and through the oddest conduits. 

I feel like in the last 5 years, I have taken it upon myself to expose myself to as many forms of media as I possibly can. I have attempted to reeducate myself on some level by absorbing as much as I can from the kinds of music and films I've experienced. (which still pale in comparison to a lot of my friends online) 

I've watched documentaries, thrillers, horror, comedies, gore... I'm just running through the world on the backs of those who create...

I'm a cultural sponge, I think.