This guide will help you introduce yourself to the vast and ever changing world of cinema, and provide you with tips to becoming an expert of all things cinematic!
Step 1
Purchase a film guide. There are many available online or at bookstores. You can start with Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin if you wish, but if you really want to be familiar with more obscure films, try something more comprehensive. The Time-Out Film Guide is a great resource, and it's widely available.
Step 2
Scan the guide, the summaries, and the commentaries. Don't look for exciting plots or melodrama, but rather see what the aesthetic appeals of the film are: visual beauty, quality of acting, screenplay, the film's overall meaning and depth, etc.
Step 3
Watch more films. Even ones that look only mildly interesting. Sometimes they surprise you. Don´t limit yourself to one or two movie genres; you will be the best if you have seen a good number of movies with a variety of themes. Be sure to include both current films playing in theatres, as well as films released on DVDs and video tapes. Be sure to include older movies and foreign films, too; there can be some gems among both categories.
Step 4
Purchase more films. You can watch movies as many times as you wish if you own them. Repeated viewings allow you to see things in the film that you may have missed the first time that you watched it. Details are often lost when you are trying to take the film in for the first time. Watching for details can help you familiarize yourself with directors' trademarks, and they give the film more meaning.
Step 5
Check the Internet for some info or trivia that you may have missed. Wikipedia is a great resource, but a very comprehensive one solely devoted to films is the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB), which has cast, crew, production staff, and technical listings; plot summaries; links to major reviews in newspapers, magazines, and online sources; and lots of trivia and memorable quotes about each film listed. IMDB now has parental advisory content in case you plan on taking your kid(s) to a movie.
Step 6
Repeat this process for quite a while. Just remember that there are many films out there, and it will take you some time before you are really familiar with a wide range of directors and genres.
Tips
- Keep an open mind. Not all films are appreciable on the first viewing.
- Share the love! If you see a great film, tell everyone you see what you thought of it! Recommend it to your friends, relatives, co-workers, random passers-by, etc.
- To the devil with VHS. If you really want to become a film expert, you will purchase a DVD player. It doesn't have to be a fancy or expensive one; what matters is that it can play DVDs. The DVD format is the greatest thing that has ever happened to film lovers (things like widescreen picture, subtitles, and original language tracks), and it would be a sin to pass it up.
- Make sure you watch the widescreen version. Stores often sell "full-frame" versions of films, and it's sometimes hard to tell which version you've picked up. Check the box.
- Get a portable DVD player for viewing your favorite films on planes and trains or in your car (for passengers only).
- Read newspapers, magazines and websites regularly to familiarize yourself with what is happening in the cinema world-wide.
- Read reviews by movie critics. This way, you can see whose opinion is closest to your own, and you can find what movie to watch, when you're bored. Don't be surprised if you disagree on a movie, because no one else is you.
- Watch the Academy Awards (Oscars®) every year, usually on the last Sunday in February. Browse books about past Oscar® winners, concentrating on best films and best actors, best supporting actor, etc.
- Memorize highlights of films in certain years. You might memorize best actress, actor and best film if the year of your birth, for example.
- When you watch a film on DVD, also view the "extras" on the DVD; many of them contain very interesting information on the making of the film, creating special effects, shooting screen tests, and earlier versions of the same story.
- If you want to go high-def, purchase a Blu-ray Disc player.
- Avoid renting unrated editions of movies; frequently they aren't any better than the rated editions. The film industry can make unrated versions of movies as a tactic to get more people to buy or rent the movie.
- Always try to watch a film from the very beginning and complete it in one sitting. You can often miss the cumulative impact intended by the film's director and editor if you don't view it completely from the beginning to the end.
- Avoid watching too many TV shows. Though some are good, be careful of the ones you watch, as soap operas, TV dramas, and sitcoms are considered a lower grade of entertainment in the movie business. An episode of a TV program can only take a week to put together, whereas movies can take closer to a year. It is the choice of quality over quantity. In other words, most of them will ruin your fine tastes.
- If you're just getting started, here is an eclectic list of filmmakers from different countries. Their films are often categorized as "great":
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Stanley Kubrick
- Jean-Pierre Jeunet
- Akira Kurosawa
- Federico Fellini
- Fritz Lang
- Sergei Eisenstein
- Krzysztof Kieslowski
- Alfred Hitchcock
- David Lean
- David Lynch
- Terry Gilliam
- Steven Spielberg
- Martin Scorsese
- Tim Burton
- Sergio Leone
- Ingmar Bergman
- Peter Jackson
- Quentin Tarantino
- Charles Chaplin
- Again, if you're just getting started, here is a list of movies often considered great. Included are dramas, comedies, and "popcorn flicks" alike:
- City Lights
- Gone with the Wind
- Casablanca
- It's a Wonderful Life
- Sunset Boulevard
- Singin' in the Rain
- Some Like It Hot
- Psycho
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Dr. Strangelove
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Metropolis
- The Godfather trilogy
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Jaws
- Star Wars saga (Please watch it in the order of the releases, not the order by watching Episode I first and Episode VI last.)
- Apocalypse Now
- Raging Bull
- Indiana Jones trilogy
- Goodfellas
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Schindler's List
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Pulp Fiction
- Titanic
- Eyes Wide Shut
- Magnolia
- Rear Window
- Fargo
- The Big Lebowski
- The Gold Rush
- Citizen Kane
- Here are some more obscure or foreign films for the serious film buff:
- Intolerance
- Greed
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- The Battleship Potemkin
- Sunrise
- The General
- M
- The Rules of the Game
- Children of Paradise
- Bicycle Thieves
- Rashomon
- Tokyo Story
- Seven Samurai
- The Seventh Seal
- Wild Strawberries
- Vertigo
- The 400 Blows
- The Searchers
- 8½
- The Trial
- Five Easy Pieces
- A Woman under the Influence
- The Decalogue
- Three Colors trilogy
Warnings
- Avoid full-frame DVDs. You will most likely appreciate the film more if you stick to the filmmaker's original visual intent. This is because most films are filmed in the widescreen format. Full-Frame actually cuts out some of the action/characters on the side of the frame. Full-frame films also may have pan and scan (the camera will pan to the left or right in order to get character that have been cut from the frame). This is one of the worst things to happen to film!
- Some (actually most) of the films listed as examples are not for chidlren. If you are not allowed to watch any of then do not push your parents' limits.
- Anyone can get an account on the IMDB and edit the parental advisory content, so the parental advisory content can sometimes be inaccurate. More useful sites are Kids-In-Mind.com, and screenit.com. Talking to people about the content of a movie is also helpful. The MPAA rating system actually encourages parents to talk to other people who have seen the movie and find out as much information as possible.
- Do not get in the habit of leaving DVDs or other entertainment devices in your car or out in the elements. DVDs and almost everything else that's plastic can warp, or they will get stolen. This will either ruin your movies or ruin the DVD rental place's movies.
