Our Life is Not a Movie, or Maybe

Cinema Paradiso

I see quite a few movies. Sometimes I go with my friends, sometimes I take dyslexic boys to subtitled foreign films, sometimes I curl up on my couch with pretzels and Nutella and lately I have gotten really into going to the independent E St. Theatre by myself. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious asshole, I am going to try to write short reviews using the following rating system:

Oscar: This is the type of movie that you definitely want to see again. When you walk around the city in the days following your trip to the theatre, moments/things/people remind you of this movie. You find yourself telling your friends “Dude, you have to see this movie. It’s soooooooooo good. Seriously, check it out.” Examples: Amelie, The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke.

Golden Globe: A Golden Globe Award winning movie is a solid movie that you had a good time watching. Maybe something is a little off—the plot doesn’t hold your attention the whole time or Scarlett Johansson is the main actress or you can tell there is a lack of direction—but you remember it well and you watch it again when you stumble across it on TV. Examples: Notting Hill, Ocean’s Eleven, Shopgirl

People’s Choice: This is a movie that you wish you had rented instead of paying money to see it in the theatre. And if you did rent it, it’s the kind of movie that fell asleep while it was supposedly at the climax. It’s an okay movie—the past 2 hours of your life weren’t a complete waste—but it’s pretty forgettable. Examples: Garden State, Sex and the City, Once

MTV Movie Awards: When you come out of the theatre from an MTV Movie Award winning movie, you are more focused on what was wrong with the movie instead of what you enjoyed. You tell your friends they should avoid it and hope that it isn’t on the “Top Ten” list of the boy you just started dating. Examples: The Savages, Stop Loss, anything with Cameron Diaz.

Every once in a while a movie may exceed the system (Dr. Zhivago) or fall below the system (Transformers), but we’ll keep it simple for now.