How Do You Judge Movies?

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PantherProud

Well-known member
How do you judge movies? Just saw someone say that "boring" is the worst thing you can say about a movie.


Would you rather watch a fun bad movie or a boring good movie?
 
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I've only ever walked out of one movie in the theater* and that was August: Osage County. It has a 7.2 on IMDB, 67% on Rotten Tomtoes, stars Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, and Chris Cooper, and co-produced by George Clooney. By all metrics it is a perfectly solid movie made by talented people.

And it was booooooorrrrinnnnggggg

Boring is the worst thing you can say about a movie. A movie should be entertaining/engaging with interesting characters, captivating story, and inventive or at least technically competent effects and cinematography. Any genre can accomplish this, from big budget summer CGI action fests to dialogue-only dramas (BTW check out "Margin Call" for a captivating dialogue-only film).

If you can nail characters, story, and tech, you're an 8/8 using vamps' scale in my book. Movies like "Hot Fuzz", "Aliens", "The Sandlot" will never win Best Picture, but those are 8s.

*Nearly walked out of "Joy" and "Fences" for the same reason.
 
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I judge different movies differently, depending on what the film maker is trying to do. So, whether I judge the film on its art, whether it makes my skin crawl, shocks me, takes me to a place or time I have not been before, thrills me, cracks me up, or just takes me on a fun ride, a decent film can never be boring.

So, I agree that boring is the cardinal sin of movie making.
 
oxat622 said:
I've only ever walked out of one movie in the theater*
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The wife and I walked out of a few movies, but only because they were so over-the-top they became excruciating. I think "Hot Shots" with Charlie Sheen was one of them. Came very close to hitting the exit during "Django Unchained".
oxat622 said:
(BTW check out "Margin Call" for a captivating dialogue-only film).
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Ooo, that's a great example! Happened to catch that by accident a few years ago, became riveted. But it could easily not have been so riveting were it not for the sheer scope of the problem that drives the movie.

Sometimes I think it's all a crapshoot. But my standard for movies is, am I absolutely captivated by something in the flick? It could be snappy dialogue, a food fight, a supernatural or Twilight Zone element, or a really big explosion. A moment that was filmed perfectly from a cinematographic perspective. Pure pathos. Killer action. Sometimes pure pathos AND killer action ( see: "Highlander (1986) ).

The older I get, the fewer SFX it takes to captivate me. Good example: "A Sense Of An Ending" (2017), a low-key British film I caught during another channel surf. Felt like it was made-for-PBS modern melodrama (aka, boring). But I saw enough in five minutes to make me sit thru the whole thing. Afterward I contemplated what regrets I had from my younger years, and what I wish I would have understood or known about back then. Then again, 9 out of 10 folks who see the flick might go "eh".

Another example: "The Age Of Adeline" (2015), which I selected for one of our movie dates that year simply because I was intrigued by the synopsis. I absolutely loved it. Mrs. Z was barely whelmed.

Yeah, sometimes it's just a crapshoot.
 
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The only movie I almost walked out of:

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) - A Mexican produced film centered on a road trip made by an unlikely threesome and their sexual exploits. The characters were not very likable and the story was not compelling. My wife was tugging on my sleeve to leave, but it had gotten such good reviews that I stuck it out.

I shouldn't have.
 
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I've never walked out of a movie, however, since the advent of movie streaming, I have bailed early on a bunch of movies. I don't waste two hours on something that is obviously crap in the first half hour.
 
I've never walked out of a movie. I would say the closest I ever came was Battlefield Earth, which I still think is the worst big budget movie I've ever seen. I've seen some low budget turds that were probably worse, but Battlefield Earth is the low end of my judgement scale.
 
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