How to Review a Movie

"While reading gobbledygook of reviews, I read the dictionary more than I read the review; not that my vocabulary is poor but I am much beleaguered by how much the critics encrypt their tone with the words that are not found even in the dictionaries."

This is the one-liner, or probably two or three liners that I have written after being frustrated by some of the self-centered reviews that gave vent to personal views on movie reviews. All of us watch movies and most of us want to review the movies that we watch. We want to learn how to review. We want to learn how to write a review and post it on our blog or any of the websites.

But then, the large looming question is on what makes a movie review as successful as the movie is. If that was the case, which review was. Was any review more famous than a movie? This seems a pointless argument where a movie review does not actually take enormous amount of advertisement and is not the right entertainment proposition.

Let me come to the point, a movie review is nothing but the one in which you express your feelings post the movie watching experience. All of us do the same after watching a movie. We can instinctively feel that a movie has been good, bad or ugly. But then, when people with some common sense of the general thinking patterns of varied sects of people come up with a review, that becomes a review.

Let me clarify the point even further. The question of how to write movie reviews hints at a simple answer that movie review writing depends upon a fair amount of knowledge in writing and logic and nothing more. Many a times, mere audience of films seem to possess these skills. The reason behind the worst gobbledygook language is that it makes the review look like one of superior knowledge that observed the film right from all subtle details to the overt ones.

And also what sort of encryption they are to do with the masking of language is still in question. However, reviews must be ones that express honest opinions on films. If they are so, they will be appreciative of the smallest of efforts that filmmakers take towards reaching a wider global audience.

Despite the century of existence of films in this country, there has always been a premature approach towards film making. The film industry is still in its infantile stages of using plots, storyline, making, technology, marketing strategies and exposure to market films than the easy reliance heavily put upon plagiarized song sequences, commercial formula and fight scenes to do the job.

This understanding must be termed a gross misunderstanding of sorts. It is high time that reviewers helped this realization amidst the audience, the filmmakers etc. After all we are inching towards a wider commercial success involving a lot of new audience across cultures! This is even more of a great commercial success and breaks the barriers between the long extinct art films and commercial films.

These days, all the films are commercial and even films that belong to the genre of realism like the City of God is at its best entertaining! The new age developments are positive signs for the film industry and reviewers play a vital role in not discouraging them and help shape them!

I'd like to teach filmmaking

I've been requested by very freshers to teach them about film making as though I made a number of films that are being sent to film festivals all around. I'm also a fresher by industry standards but I think when you take film making as an art, you're hardly a fresher. Besides that, I may not be able to tell this in the industry to offend a number of technicians whose experience is my age.

Modestly and Honestly, I've learned a lot about films in a very short period of time. I mean some 10 years. That is, I learned from, "How does the camera move so quickly from one person to the other? Are there too many cameras? Cinematographer is sitting at which camera? And in an OSS Shot, are there two cameras?"

And the screenplay aspect of it, by mere watching. But any art practitioner could do so without much experience but for the practical, managerial aspect of it that requires some interpersonal, managerial and problem solving skills.

But a fresher director can work with the technicians and actors that he's best comfortable with, in the beginning, if the producer is to avert the immediate need of a box office hit, that he presumably thinks comes only from a MASS HERO and not from a good story and screenplay.

And I've been wanting to express myself and teach about film making. Because not all my ideas get executed due to limited scope. So would like to share it. Besides we don't have proper education or institution. I don't have the authority to teach and mislead but can express and I'm gonna do it.

Ok first lesson:
Que: What's a film?
Ans: A film is an art form just as any other art that exists like painting, writing, performing arts. But a film maybe inclusive of all or most aspects of the other art forms. Here, you can do anything and everything. But what one has to take care of is the quality. Any art sells by its quality. And so do films. Be it realism, fantasy or fiction. Anything maybe considered creativity and so can anything be done.

DINESH BABU M