Movies? Blockbusters? What makes a good movie?

Bobby

“Hey! Have you watched Shang-Chi yet?” It is the most popular prologue of my friends in the past few weeks. Their blinking eyes shut down because my answer is always “NO!”, which is a common situation for me to encounter when there is a blockbuster coming out in the cinema. Although I am not keeping up with the latest famed movies, it does not represent that I am not enthusiastic about movies. On the contrary, I enjoy watching movies as I force myself to spend some movie time once a week. The reason I insist on having movie time every week because I profoundly believe that movies are like a combination of most of the intermediaries, such as it provides me the storyline of books, the rhythm of music, and the authenticity of photographs. People love movies, and people love to share their emotions and opinions after they have watched the movie. The question I would like to raise is: Is there a correct answer for a good movie?

Holding grudges is not my style but I thoroughly remembered the conversation of one of my new classmates, James. He is fanatical about the superhero movies while I am totally not familiar with any characters and relationships between those superheroes. On Wednesday, I went to school canteen for lunch with my new classmates after class. We started to discuss which movie is worthy to watch in recent weeks, and James started to deliver his “honored” speech of superhero movies to us. Out of the blue, other classmates were living and breathing his speech and they had a heated discussion about superhero movies. All of them have showed their confusion when they heard my perplexed perception of superhero movies. At that moment, I started to ponder what is the value of movies and what is our purpose of watching movies.

The value of a movie can be simple and complex. Movies can be a subjective presentation of creators which is decided before the formation of a movie. For instance, the creators wanted to inject some comedy elements, to reveal the injustice in a city and reminisce the legend with their stories. However, the presumption of creators injected may not be opportunely conveyed to the audience since the audience also got their presumption, even though they are watching the same scene. Therefore, the final value of movies is diverse and personal.

Personal interests and sympathetic resonances might be key elements determining the evaluation of the movie. Take me as an example, I do not feel the same resonances with James and they do not feel the same resonances when I love watching some old blockbusters, like Back to the Future series. I used to think that those people who watched commercial films or superhero movies have bad taste. However, when I started to ponder the true value of movies, I found that there is no model answer for a good movie. Finally, yet importantly, if we enjoy the movie and we get some rewards when you step out of the cinema, that is the ultimate goal when I watch every movie.