The Trailer Addict site‘s embed button didn’t work, but it is worth clicking through from here. I must see this film. You could also go to The Secret of Kells site directly and see amazing images. Thank you, JES, for cluing me in. If it doesn’t come to Austin, I will cry.
Do you see many movies? Are you a renter or one of those folks who stands in line for hours to be among the first to see a new release? I know people who go to the cinema and see “whatever.” These people say things like, “Oh, that looks good. Why don’t we see that?”
When I was single and dating (or trying to date anyway), I went to see movies because they were there and some guy wanted to see it (View to a Kill, Lethal Weapon 4, Police Academy #?). Now, I only watch movies I want to see. Really want. I don’t see many movies, but I’m rarely disappointed.
I can’t explain what it is about a film that compels me to see it. It isn’t an actor. I love John Cusack but have seen very few of his films. It isn’t a director. A dose of magic helps. Loving the book a movie is based on helps. Art helps (look how gorgeous The Secret of Kells is!) Then again, there are plenty of fantasy flicks I don’t watch. And I hate that ready-for-an-Oscar-lighting some movies blind me with in the trailer.
What is it that gets you to a movie? (It is a far cry from a book, but almost every movie began with a writer telling a story.)
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
This isn’t entirely original with me, it having emerged over a long, somewhat beery conversation with the late William Styron, who lamented about what the film version did to his novel, “Sophie’s Choice.” I allowed that given the entirety of the novel, the movie was like a short story, or perhaps, given the quantity of beer, I was led to believe I had said that. Nevertheless, it is true: Unless a script is developed directly for the film medium, a novel is written down into a short story, extracted from the novel. I love short stories and think they translate better into film than novels. All of which is the long way around to saying I go to perhaps two or three movies a year as opposed to reading at least fifty novels and at least a hundred short stories a year.
In some ways, it is generational, other ways geographical. At the time I was undergrad at UCLA, there was a film school turning out men and women who went into film and made names for themselves. A number of chums in the Theater Arts Dept. tried to get me “over” from my English major to TA, but the idea of a story having dramatic dimensions was as far as it went for me and still, to this day, I’d rather see a play than a film.
This attitude sets me, like those paperweights of a house fly or bug, encased in clear plastic. My favored movies accordingly would seem like a list of obscure golden oldies. Who ever heard of “Harry and Tonto” for instance. I guess my most recent had to see was “No Country for Old Men,” but in mitigation, I think I would make a point to see anything with Philip Seymore Hoffman in it (even that dumb Robin Williams movie about doctors).
I wish I saw more plays. Short stories have got to make better films than novels. Or maybe they should just take chapters of novels and run with them.
I really don’t know what makes a movie look interesting to me. Good effects helps, but a hokey or lame plot kills it (Avatar, e.g.). If someone I know and trust says a movie is good, it has a better chance with me, but I’ve found few have the same taste I do.
I honestly have no idea. None. Great question; time for some introspection, I guess. 🙂
Let me know what you come up with.
Shelly — I loved “Harry and Tonto”! Saw it in a movie theater in a small town in Connecticut, while on a motorcycle trip through New England by myself in the mid-’70s. Favorite moment: I don’t remember the details, but Art Carney beats the heck out of some miscreant, in a ferocious fight scene. Finally he’s able to take a breather; huffing and puffing, he sits on a flight of stairs (?), and says — to himself? — “I’m not as young as I used to be.” Ha!
(Oh, and Tonto: best movie cat ever, maybe.)
Some films definitely draw me to them because of the cast and/or director. Anything by the Coens. And then there’s your guy whatzisname… Miyazake? I can never remember his name, but I don’t think the guy can put his name on something without imbuing it with magic (both as a plot or thematic element, and as an effect in the viewer). Shelly mentioned Phillip Seymour Hoffman: somehow, “Doubt” had escaped our attention until one of us saw it in the video store, with Hoffman’s name, and Meryl Streep’s, and we knew it HAD to be good (as it was).
I just love movies. I very seldom sit down to watch a movie, in a theater or at home, and come away thinking I just wasted my time. That said, there’ve been at least two films I couldn’t finish watching: “Bad Lieutenant” and “Dead Ringers.” I may love movies nearly indiscriminately, but there are limits.
(Oh! Just remembered, I never told you — we saw “Inkheart” a few weeks ago. *thud*) (That’s a good thud, btw.)
There are movies I still need to see, plays to see, books to read… endless. Of course, I don’t know “Harry and Tonto.” But now I wish I did. Oh, Miyazake! Yes. One of the few people whose name alone will get me to watch. And I’ll probably watch anything written by Russell T. Davies. Honestly, I love just about every movie I see. I’m a sucker. There are only 2 movies I can think of that I turned off in the middle, and not necessarily because I thought they were bad, but because they just hit the wrong buttons–“Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” and “M*A*S*H.”
Now that you say that, JES, I want to buy my own copy if “Inkheart.” I mean, Helen Mirren! Helen-I-love-Prime-Suspect-Mirren. Jeez.
I haven’t set foot in a movie theater since 2001 when I was expecting my son. Since then, we wait for movies to come out on cable, or the library on DVD where we can watch for free. And I usually end up feeling like a I got a deal. 🙂
Some movies have such fantastic visuals, I want to see them on a big screen–Star Trek,for instance, and “Daughters of the Dust.” But I rarely go these days–there is way too much I don’t do enough of these days!!