Correct Movie Watching Etiquette

Filmmakers design movies to deliver information to the viewer in linear parcels (even “non-linnear” movies still play from beginning to end). They want you to have questions at the beginning to create intrigue, this keeps the viewer watching. Good filmmakers have the ability to predict questions that will arise and answer them with a well constructed stream of information over the course of the movie.

Some film-goers are in the habit of asking questions early to peers that might have seen the movie before, this is a bad habit. 99% of the time the movie will answer the question for you if you just keep watching, so enjoy the ride. The inverse of this problem is people who have seen the movie before abusing their power over the others by offering unsolicited explanations. Or in the worst case, giving away the ending… TRINITY DIES.

It’s OK to ask questions if it’s concerning something out of the filmmakers control. If you weren’t sure what a character said, it’s OK to ask “What did he say?” Though hopefully your question won’t drown out further dialogue from the movie. It’s also OK to clarify who did what or said what if you are confused about that, because the filmmakers cannot control your ability to hear every line of dialogue correctly or recognize every face, especially early on. Still, the best way to answer even these type questions is to just watch the movie twice if you can.

An example of a bad question to ask would be “Why?” That is a question to be answered later by the movie itself, and is also something better discussed after the movie.

In certain contexts it’s OK to voice predictions. That is just a fun thing to do, if your company is also playing along with their own predictions. But be warned, if the movie is good you will almost always be wrong, and bragging rights for a correct prediction are fleeting.

Another type of comment that adds to the filmmakers vision rather than obstructing it is positive energy comments. Laughter is the most obvious example. Also, things like, “oh my god” and “holy shit” (if sincere) are always welcome, especially in a heavily populated setting like a theater. The more the mob can get into the movie, the better. Comments like, “That’s a great shot” or “great performance”, while positive are less encouraged because they are lame and in some ways contradictory because the best shots fit in with the whole of the movie unnoticed and a comment like that breaks the link with the viewer. They realize they are watching a movie.

In the age of smart phones, many film-goers surf the web for new craigslist VW car deals with only one eye on the movie. They are then disappointed when the movie gets ahead of them and might feel inclined to ask a question to a friend who has been paying attention. That friend then has permission to tell them to shut up.

I should probably mention the infraction that I am most commonly guilty of, taking your viewing friends to film school. Pausing the movie to discuss awesome storytelling tricks or behind the scenes historical context can be pretty annoying I would think. Especially the abuse of the remote control part. It’s cool to do that before hand, as Quentin Tarantino often does with his midnight screenings or whatever. Some Art House Cinemas do this, too.

And finally, pointing out where you’ve seen certain actors before (“Oh that’s the guy/girl from…) Pisses me off so much. Who the hell cares? That defeats the purpose of the entire suspension of disbelief. Stars have to carry their baggage from other characters a little bit, but nobody points out every movie George Clooney’s been in every time his mug pops up. It doesn’t give anyone extra credit recognize actors in movies.

If all these guidelines are obeyed, the filmmakers get what they deserve, an attentive audience, and the viewers get to enjoy a good movie. I say guidelines instead of rules because finding exceptions to rules is always fun. For example, if 30 minutes in you realize you picked a stinker, you and your friend can start Mystery Science Theatering it. Sometimes this is the only way to get through a bad movie, to just make fun of the shit out of it.

21 jump street

A comedy on par with Billy Madison. There are guns and that’s the least interesting part, never thought I would say that. More dick jokes than you can shake a dick at. Welcome to 21 Jump Street.
Based on some shit from the past. Remakes tend to piss me off. But this remake can be excused because it sets the precedent for future meta movies about Power Rangers and stuff. A power ranger movie with dick jokes would be sweet. I also like remakes that change the venue, this used to be a TV show or some stupid shit, now it’s a movie. And example of something cool about this idea would be something that used to be a carnival ride and now its a movie. Or and illustration and now it’s a movie. inspiration can come from a whale’s ass. A more obscure metaphor would be something that used to be a man and now it’s a badass monkey with a gun.
Johnny Depp was less than a man back in his 21 Jump Street days, he was a boy. He busts out a crazy ass cameo. Got me thinking, don’t like cameo’s much. Johnny Depp’s cool though.
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill have good chemistry probably because of some real life behind the scenes dick jokes. Only time will tell.
This movie is big on suspension of disbelief, which I am totally down with. that’s kind of the point of movies in the first place so it’s fun to take it as far as it would go. The Muppets are the best example of this, but I will settle for Channing Tatum’s lats in this case.

Foot, thou art Loose

There’s a new movie on Redbox called ‘Footloose’, based on a documentary about Kevin Bacon from the 80′s. I had a hope going in that this might be the kind of remake that reinvented itself by not playing footloose the song at all, that would be unexpected… but right at the end they f’ up the streak of foottight they had going. Until that point, though, the tunes struck a nice balance between relevant and Kevin Bacon’s ass. Some of the tunes are hard to dance to because they suck and that’s impressive.
The new footloose still has enough montages to set records in the minds of those who haven’t seen the first one, like me. But it’s different in a lot of ways too, so I’ve gathered. I’m pleased to reveal that this Footloose is also a courtroom drama on par with To Kill a Mockingbird or A Few Good Men.
The movie is happy despite tons of tragedy and drama and they’re was a major plot point they didn’t wrap up, which was: Who’s the best dancer? I kept wondering that but the movie was never graceful enough to answers with a good old fashioned high stakes dance off. Or at the very least a line like, “so you’re the best dancer.” I guess the Kevin Bacon vessel might be the best dancer? Who knows, making this movie a great unsolved mystery.
I wouldn’t mind tuning in again to see the fellas dance and frollick to vent their teen angst once more, if they did a sequel. Because this was the best movie I’ve ever seen, ever. LOZENGER

The Six Pack Reviews Manifesto

I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and I can’t figure out why romantic comedies are always snubbed by the critics.  Wait I might have figured it out.  As far as I can tell there are two types of critics.   There’s critics who have an idea of where filmmaking should go, an ideal.   And There’s critics who just like good filmmaking plain and simple.  For example, the entirety of the latter group would applaud the movie Drive for all it’s badass minimalism, but the first group might chastise it for being too violent.  Roger Ebert is an example from the first group.  The second group is harder to define because it is based on personal taste, too.   But both groups are very important.

There’s a blind spot between the two groups is what I’m getting at, and it’s romantic comedies, and Boondock Saints.  It bugs me that they keep ripping on movies that are actually pretty vital.  I’ll focus on romantic comedies for this point because that’s all I can focus on because I’m drunk and I just watched one.  So here’s a few rom coms that got good reviews, When Harry Met Sally and Pretty Woman.  What the fuck?  The main thing they have in common is that the are old, those movies.  A movie like What’s Your Number, a movie I just watched, doesn’t have much different except that it is focused intimately on an original female personality in it’s story.  So yeah rom coms might be inbred til we know there’s gonna be the “oh crap they might not end up together” moment.  But rom coms are all different because of the people and the characters that they involve and create.

If I were to confront a critic of either type about all this, he would go back even further to the 1940’s or something and cite some movie like Some Like it Hot (they say that’s the best comedy ever.  I get annoyed when people do that because it clearly isn’t.)  Anyway Some Like it Hot is probably pretty good and funny but if that’s what both classes are gonna do, compare new movies to the good old days when culture and context where totally different, just for the sake of nostalgia in most cases.  Then we need a third class of critic.  The Drunk Critic.

A newer example of a good rom com, hailed by critics, in fact it was almost nominated for best picture I think.  Or maybe it was, fuck, I don’t know.  The movie is Bridesmaids.  And it’s one of the only movies ever to be written by women and starring women and just be all femme (Chris Evans notwithstanding) but pretty hilarious.  I got news for you, though.  The other movie is What’s Your Number.  It’s the exact same angle but got none of the hype.  And I think honestly it’s a tie between the two because they’re both pretty good.

So it was like instead of electing Hilary Clinton president, America decided to say that Bridesmaids was a good movie.  But no other movies, that was a good enough step forward.  I guess they gave James Cameron’s ex wife the Best Picture Oscar for The Hurt Locker, but that was it.  And they don’t even know her name, including me.

So who the hell talks about a problem without a solution?  I have a solution.  Any rom com you might want to see… check it out on rottentomatoes, the site that polls together all reviews negative vs positive and gives you a percentage.  For example and 80% means 8 out of every 10 critics dug it… and add 40-50 percent based on how good you think the trailer is.  50 is a big percentage, but seriously, most of these movies are getting in the 20’s on RT because they are in the blind spot I talked about earlier.

So as self appointed leader of the drunk critics, I propose a new manifesto for ‘good movie’.  It would be something like this:  If there is an angle you can look at this movie and suddenly it is something you’ve never seen before, then it’s worth a look.  About 100% of movies fit into this criteria, which is why you will need to be drunk all the time.

Bucky Larson born to be the best movie ever

Back in the day, Adam Sandler made crazy awesome stupid movies that were better than any billy or gene wilder movie from the old days, but i’ll get into that in a sec. but then adam sandler got a bit older and fatter and famouser and only made watered down comedies that made a lot of money. but he kept his dream alive through his friends, and it might not even be his dream at this point because his friends are pretty hilarious. Grandma’s Boy and Bucky Larson are the two post pubescent sandler fame movies that exist, produced but not starring Adam Sandler. that makes them indy films, and they are good.
I paritcularly like Bucky Larson because it parodies the whole steam poop that Sandler got sucked into in the first place… the movie industry. there is even a genre for it, it’s called the insider industry movie or whatever, and it’s boring as crap and the only reason it gets made at least three times a year is because rich as producers read the crap script and can relate so they think everyone else can. the insider hollywood movie is the worst kind of movie in that comes out of hollywood. bucky larson is a metaphor for how crappy that kind of movie is. it’s also a fantasy realization movie, but that’s a metaphor too. it’s all metaphors is what i’m saying. for example, this story structure could easily be The Godfather Part 2 or something, but these pioneers of comedy, seriously, sandler’s friends, they know you can mess with that shit, it can all be cryptic visuals of a kid with buck teeth and you can really say something with that.

The Thing, the origin the remake.

Here’s the thing, ha ha, The Thing, the original perfect movie, responded to a distress call from a local Hollywood Video, “GOOB (going out of business). And got taken over by this origin/prequel/remake. So now we can’t trust shit. I say we burn this one and watch the old one on untainted VHS complete with mono Carpenter score.
It’s a remake despite being a prequel because it is pretty much the same movie except not as good. Some other guy I kinda like takes the place of Kurt Russell, well, the girl from Death Proof and Scott Pilgrim takes his place but he wouldn’t have you believe that. He thinks she’s the girl that threw him off the boat in that one movie… Overboard I think it’s called… his wife, I think, is the actress who did that. This girl is not Goldie Hawn, Kurt’s wife. He’s become confused in his own age. But this new girl don’t go dumping whiskey on chess machines, no sir. She does torch some dudes in classic Kurt fashion though, hence the confusion…by Kurt, not me.
Based on how the old awesome movie starts, I was pretty sure nobody could live in this movie. So I thought that was the reason this movie didn’t get glowing reviews, because everyone dies and horror movies where that happens are pointless. In fact they are like negating their very existence because if nobody lived then who the hell told some screenwriter doushebag about it so he could tell his cousin to throw some tits on it and make it a movie? Anyways, somebody does live in this movie, which means I give it an A plus minus the constant denominator Kurt Russell, so an F.

Took ‘Drive’ for a spin… ‘Drove Drunk’ you might say?

After some winter ales I took Drive for a spin.  Had to purchase it on

Amazon for 15 bucks (it was actually the last 15 bucks in my account haha)

to see it early because it doesn’t come out til next week.

Love the gay credits in the beginning! LOVE EM!  sorry bout the cronological

dictum, let me fix that by giving away the ending: TRINITY DIES!
Ryan Gosling, in an attempt to prove he’s not that guy from The
Notebook, stars as a borderline autistic idiot savant who… likes
cars?  Alot?
This movie reminded me of the matrix because it implies great prequels
and sequels in true ‘based on the novel by’ fashion, but that’s the
fun of it is leaving it all to the imagination.  Except Matrix wasn’t
based on a novel, and it has crappy, crappy sequels.
What if Jason Statham was in this movie instead of Gosling?  And what
if Amber Heard was in it instead of Carrie Mulligan?  And what if
Micheal Bay directed it?  And what if they called it Transporter 4?
Oh my god we were so close to getting another Transporter movie!
These happy accidents that lead to new transporter movies are all too
common.  I’m glad Gosling can have an inferiority complex once in
awhile that leads to a movie like Drive.  What I’m saying is that
every movie is connected in the circle of Gosling.  Statham is but a
moon on planet Gosling i’m afraid.
In closing, I should address the violence of this film.  Hello
violence, I love you and let me just say that I think you’re great.
call me.  ok bye!