If you don’t want to do the bear, follow the following rules to watch films from a professor of Film History and Film Appreciation at a Bogota university…
1. Movies look complete. If you arrive late, you can miss key elements to understand the story (as in The sixth Sense either Macabre game). Likewise, going to make chichi or running to avoid one more hour of parking before the end of the credits can be fatal, since many films currently offer vital information about the story (or its continuation) at the end of the credits ( as in the four parts of Pirates of the Caribbean or in Marvel superhero movies).
2. Say NO to dubbed movies. Unless you are a child under the age of 7 or illiterate, movies must be viewed in their original language. The actor is body and is voice. The acting can be marred by lousy dubbing (as with Heath Ledger’s Joker or Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort). In cartoons, the character is created around the actor’s voice and not the other way around. Watching a cartoon dubbed makes you lose the essence of the character (as happens with Eddie Murphy’s Donkey in Shrek or Jim Carrey’s Horton). In addition, dubbing kills many jokes and sometimes raises inconsistencies where there were none originally. Don’t be lazy.
3. Don’t be fast and furious. Many people prefer to buy a pirated movie that is poorly recorded (mobile towards the screen with the audience included), poorly copied (only pixels), poorly subtitled (How Are you = how old are you, Fine, thanks = Five, thanks) or in anamorphic (people look like squashed accordions). Hang on a bit and wait for the original DVD or Blu-Ray to come out, or better yet, watch it in theaters.
4. In movies, size matters. See a tape like Gravity -which seeks to get the viewer lost in the immensity of space with Sandra Bullock- on a cell phone, it’s like looking at garbage. Movies seen on tablets, cell phones or laptops are not cinema. And those multiplex rooms, which look like Girardot cabins with built-in TVs, take a lot of the impact out of the movies. Remember, the bigger the screen and the more sound channels a movie theater has, the better the movie will be appreciated.
5. Multi-tasking people are a myth. Watching a movie and chatting on the cell phone at the same time makes neither chat well nor watch the movie. Groping the girlfriend while watching the movie makes neither watch the movie nor grope well. That’s not counting the poor spectator who has to put up with the damn light of your cell phone or the mating ritual that takes place next door. If you’re going to the movies, watch the movie, if you’re going to chat, stay outside and take advantage of the Wi-Fi. And if you’re going to grope, go to a motel, there’s also a TV and Wi-Fi there.
6. Sleeping the movie is not the same as watching the movie. If you fall asleep watching the movie, your mind will complete it as if it were a dream. Many people believe that they saw a bad movie, when what happened was that their unconscious projected a different movie on them. If you are going to sleep, the best is the bed. Cinema chairs are not designed for sleeping and cause torticollis.
7. The best movie is the one discussed at the exit. When you leave the movies, try to exchange ideas with the people who accompanied you to see it. This exchange may change your perception of the movie or allow you to «see» things you didn’t see on screen. But that exchange, please, do not do it in full function. Talking at the movies makes others uncomfortable and makes you not really see the movie. Do not visit the cinema.
8. Have youu own criteria. If you didn’t like a movie and everyone thought it was great, don’t be afraid to state your position and expose your liking with arguments. Keep in mind that saying that a movie is bad without justifying your opinion, or even worse, without having seen it or leaving the room after 20 minutes, is all nonsense. Don’t say a movie is «fictitious» either. That term, in addition to grating nerves, does not fit with the cinema. Every movie is «fictitious», including documentaries, if you don’t want something «fictitious», don’t go to the movies. Use the money from the ballot to travel, climb, share with your loved ones. Although some philosophers propose that these experiences are also «fictitious» and that nothing really exists.
9. Push yourself a little. Many commercial movies are very, very, very entertaining and even profound (the lego movie, Special command, Captain Phillips, are some recent examples), but it is always good to see something more demanding. European and Asian cinema, as well as independent North American cinema, invite us to different rhythms, different mise-en-scenes, to immerse ourselves in silence and contemplation, and to break out of gender structures. At first you will think that the film is slow or that nothing happens… but after acquiring a taste for that «other cinema», you will realize that you were the slow one and that things do happen. Cinema is appreciated by watching cinema.
10. Don’t say “art cinema”. That is absurd redundancy. Every motion picture is an artistic expression (just as it is part of a business). There are movies, good, average and bad. Difficult and easy to understand. Deep and light. This concept of «cinema art» is a concept snob and stupid that many mamertos use to seduce bruticas.
Would you add another rule to this list?
We thank Professor André Didyme-Dome for his advice on this note.