Saturday

I wrote this article yesterday, then dismissed it and posted something different (as you know). But last night I was reminded of its relevancy, and my reasons for believing it. The question was: what do you do when you find yourself watching a film you don't like? Of course, it depends on the situation. If you're in a cinema you may just have to sit there and say to yourself 'well, I paid money for this, I'm not leaving'. But what if you're at home? If you've rented it, the financial impulse is similar, although marginally less. You could just stop watching it, couldn't you? You've given it a chance, after all. It's just not your type of movie. Fair enough. If it was on TV, though, your hands could be on that remote control faster than a hobo's on a ham sandwich. But stop. Haven't you forgotten something? If I find myself watching a film that doesn't emotionally engage me I instead start looking at its mechanics. I ask myself why it doesn't engage, and what it has done wrong on the level of script, plot, direction, photography, editing, music, etc. I make a dull film interesting, or at least I try to. Every movie took a considerable amount of time and skill to put together. Although the number of people who creatively said 'yes' to it was quite small, it still took effort. For me, every film deserves a chance to be analysed. Me personally liking it or not comes later - I don't like to overstate my own importance. A statement the busy critic might say is: 'I just don't have time for bad movies'. That position, though, in the end is untenable. You can't only watch good movies, and you can't really know the full significance of a film until the titles start rolling. Go on, give a bad movie a break.