I'm a movie lover. I have lots of them, I've seen lots of them, I can quote lots of them... Some call a movie a bomb, I find a way to enjoy it; I even find benefit in the shitty titles.
I, unlike a lot of people, can differentiate between a good movie and an entertaining movie. Much like in life, you can complain about the scenery or you can find a way to enjoy the ride. Once you're trained in this skill of simple identification, you can make lemonade out of donkey urine.
A good movie is a film that keeps you thinking after the movie is over. A good movie is worth bringing up as it's own subject of a conversation. A good movie will affect your thought processes forever.
Simple objects, visuals or songs can be an instant cue to a powerful scene as evidence that you've seen a "good movie".
Without going too deeply into the idea, take the song "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. Most any person with a competitive drop of blood in their veins will hear that song and have a sense of motivation or excitement. A good movie took a shitty 80's song and turned it into a motivational energy that can literally be effective for a lifetime.
But there are also different levels of good movies. There are those good movies that everyone can agree on.
Good Will Hunting
Shawshank Redemption
The Godfather
There are the good movies that everyone understands to be a "good movie" but may not have held it so high.
Citizen Kane
Jaws
Its a Wonderful Life
Then there are personal favorites-- these can't be listed as a favorite movie without a brief justification to someone.
Hot Rod- Retardedly humorous
Labrynth- Ludo was a g... Plus my dog looks like Sir Didymus
Lionheart- I'm a sucker for Van Damme's jumping spin kicks
I'm lucky though... In darn near every movie, I can find something good about it. I watched The Expendables tonight and I loved it. Not because the cinematography was perfect or because the plot was good, I liked it because it was entertaining.
Throwing knives to the throat, unreasonable escapes, huge explosions and an absolute ALL-STAR CAST OF BAD ASSERY.
Bruce Willis, Gov. Schwarzenegger, Sly Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Stone Cold, Eric Roberts, Liutenant Batista from Dexter, Mickey Rourke and I'm pretty sure I saw one of the Noguera bros from UFC as a soldier... Which would make perfect sense considering some of the cast and fights included in the movie. Who leg sweeps a dude and pulls an armbar in the middle of a ten-person gunfight?
Stallone is getting old but is still ripped as hell and surprisingly Rambo did a good job of keeping the story moving so you didn't have time to reflect on the improbable progression of events. But Sly knew what he was doing.
Lets make a movie with lots of fighting, lots of killing and little time to contemplate a bathroom break.
At the end of the movie I found comfort in the fact that the group of 8 dudes would only attack Jason Statham one at a time, so he could defeat them with lighting fast reflexes. Some might have seen that as a bad part of the movie but I had the perspective where that shit made me laugh---typical action movie. I also liked the fact that Stallone got his ass kicked and that the only real female character wasn't some hot chick that had 8 years of combat training.
This movie had TERRIBLE CGI at points and had a flimsy story, but it was outweighed by the funny one-liners, group of superstars and unnecessary violence. I LOVED IT.
My compeletely unclear point of this all, is perspective. You control it and it's pretty powerful.
You could see a poorly written story or an opportunity to watch a crap-ton of bad guys get killed in a variety of grotesque ways.
If you got laid off, that sucks, but I'd be willing to bet you weren't at your "dream job"-- Maybe it's time to go after that dream job.
Maybe you develop an allergy to one of your favorite foods. Maybe it'll help you eat a healthier diet which ends up adding 10 years to your life.
POINT IS... when you see a movie, it doesn't necessarily have to be a good to be entertaining.
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