Thursday, October 02, 2008

What constitutes a good or bad movie?

Went to see the film The Women with some friends tonight. The idea was to go out as girlies and just see a chick flick. Two hours later my mind was definately numbed, but it was followed up by a conversation about what makes a film good or bad. Tastes are different, that's for sure. For example one of my friends enjoyed the fim simply because she hates chick flicks and got to make fun of it. Another liked it just because of who was in it, while another was undecided as it seemed to jump genres a lot ... comedy ... to rom com ... to just plain over acting!

Chick flicks, in my opinion, are fantastic. I love them! It always seems to work out in the end which I really like, the girl always gets the guy, friends make up, families truce and find common ground ... the sky is blue and there isn't a cloud in sight. For the hour and a half they run you can loose yourself in a story bigger than yourself where 'reality' doesn't really exist.

That's all well and good, but while my friends were discussing our thoughts and planning our next girls night in (I just got the Sex and the City movie!), a strange question popped into my head. In creative homeletics we're looking at a book called the Four Codes of Preaching by John McClure which takes four codes that are present within our sermon communication and breaks them down to see what kind of intertext we're sponsoring.

The book is quite complicated and not written in easily accessable English and so I spent some of this afternoon in conversation with a couple of the others in the class breaking down the basic ideas, trying to make things a little clearer.

The question that popped into my head tonight as we talked about chick flicks, having just come out of a not particularly good one was this ... what intertext was it sponsoring? And is that intertext as good as I would like to think? And what does what I watch say about me? While I know films are different to sermons, 'codes' (albeit maybe different ones) are at work potentially (depending on how you want to look at it), and so the questions were sparked off in my mind.

I really need to stop thinking so much ... my brain hurts and I just can't keep up ... plus would be nice to just watch a film once in a while without it leading to either "oh, I could use that scene" or an over analysis of what is going on. Still, the intertext question was there in my thinking ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What constitutes a good or bad movie is the many ingredients that make a film, some of which take a higher priority such as the script, director, cast, cinematography/photography, location, music, fashion/make-up, etc... you could say the ingredients are similar to the function and body of a church, but sadly the church today never reflects a sound example to the world, which I believe was a source of inspiration for Casting Crowns song 'If We Are the Body'. Personally, if I were to watch a movie, I tend to focus on the cast and script and make a judgement upon watching the movie trailer, which all major motion picture companies produce for advertisement purposes. If the trailer doesn't captivate my interest and imagination during the extent of the available teasers and trailers, then I would give it a miss. If however, I believe there is some hint of liking, I would try to source out more about the movie. But in relation to the church... a script is the living text and with the source of the Gospel - you've got a wonderful script. The director views all scenes/characters/lighting from different angles and consults the crew for expertise and follows the conceptual artwork (i.e. a storyboard of the script), before moving forward with the vision to bring the movie one scene/chapter closer to completion... <><