A Good Movie Is Like a Good Car
Watching a well-made movie is like buying a new car: you walk around the outside – there’s something that visually appeals to you. Then you take it for a drive – how does it handle? Does it respond the way you hope it will, does it surprise you and drive better than you thought?
Then, you look under the hood. I’m out of my league when it comes to looking under the hoods of cars, but looking at the production value of a film is similar to that. How well do the mechanical parts of your car work? Does the film have good “production value”?
After you’ve been driving your car for a while, you start to notice different things. Do you hear weird sounds? In a film, that would be a distracting sound track, or one that isn’t synced properly with the film (that happened last week during Knowing – it was terribly distracting).
Does your car sputter when it comes to a stop? When the plot doesn’t make sense and you’re jolted from one scene to the next, it feels awkward and unnatural. Is it bad editing or a screenplay with problems?
Does the steering wheel jiggle so that it feels like the car is out of alignment? When characters don’t relate well with each other, or the relationships seem jarring, it’s just a little uncomfortable.
If the car is mechanically in good shape, you don’t think about any of those things when you’re driving it. Likewise, if a film is well-made, you don’t think about the soundtrack, the dialogue, the scene transitions, or the character relationships. They all flow together to make one good movie.
So, go drive a BMW or watch a great movie.
When a film is well-made, you don’t think about the mechanical aspects of it – you just enjoy the drive.
I wonder if some good films are like a new car but aren’t great films… but because the film is popular right now you can’t see through it’s flaws. After you drive it for a while you start to realize there are some problems that you didn’t notice during the “honeymoon” stage. Some new cars aren’t made well, but they look good on the outward appearance and it takes some time to realize the problems with it. A great film is like a new car that’s made well because even after you drive it for a while, it still holds up. These are the movies that you buy and watch over and over again. We love Hondas in our home and find that even used Hondas are worth purchasing because these cars hold up. And you can tell with a Honda because the used ones still retain their value and are closer in price to a newer one than other used cars. So a good film for me is like a Honda
April 4th, 2009 at 7:50 pm