The Art of Picking Movies (for groups)

We've all been there, possibly dozens of times, sitting in a room with multiple people all trying to figure out what they want to watch.

"Braveheart!"
"No, The Notebook!"
"The Dark Knight!"
"27 Dresses!"
"That one stinks, that one is boring, I've never heard of that one... "

An hour later, some finally just puts something in, and most of the time only a few people are pleased and the rest wish they hadn't come to the movie night to begin with.

So how can a movie quickly be chosen in large groups of people without creating enemies while pleasing most everyone? What's the secret way? There isn't a way. Democracy crumbles in this scenario, and any compromises decided democratically take forever and are usually very "blah" for everyone involved.

The only way is to pick the movie beforehand. Either the host picks it or the host and a few previously selected individuals can go with the democratic process. Here are some things to think about when choosing your movie:

• If it's a mixed group (males and females), throw out all blatantly male and blatantly female movies. Don't even make them options. Why? You automatically alienate half of your audience. This should get rid of The Notebook, any musicals, and 300.
• If it's a social event and you think people will want to talk and laugh during the movie, then throw out all serious films. Most 2-3 hour movies and academy award winners/nominees shouldn't be options. Why? It'll frustrate people that like the movies, and it'll create the completely wrong atmosphere for new people to see those films in.
• If you know anyone that is always adamantly against certain genres (horror, musicals, whatever else) and you know they are attending, then throw out those genres. If your party is going to be focused on one of those genres, let them know before coming.
• If you know some people attending hate cursing or anything else that may appear in some R-rated movies, then throw those movies out (unless you know the rating is for different reasons). Either that, or be selective in who you invite if you know that's the type of movie you're going to watch.
• If the group you're watching the movie with are comprised of Homo Sapiens, then don't pick horrible movies. That should take out any movie involving Larry The Cable Guy, all Wayans Brother movies, and Wolverine. If you think you have good taste in movies, test yourself first. If the movie you pick has less than 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, chances are you're the one who is wrong. This isn't always true, but it's a fairly good bar.

Bottom line: Know the group of people that is about to come to the event and plan accordingly beforehand. Pick the movie before they show up, with possibly 2-3 alternatives (no more). Don't bring out the alternatives unless your main pick is shot down. The 2-3 alternatives will allow for a much quicker democratic process if it comes down to that. If the group hates the 2-3 alternatives, then you either A) didn't follow my above helpful tips, or B) you need to get new friends.

Or there is always the option of picking a movie before inviting people, and invite people based on the flick! That'll weed out the nay-sayers.

Not sure what provoked me to write this... last group movie experience was good, haha.

Review - The Box

So, I actually didn't think I was going to be able to catch this one in theaters. I kind of wanted to see it, but had my reservations. The Box is directed by Richard Kelly who is best known for Donnie Darko, which I personally loved. In fact, I just watched Darko last week by myself for fun and still thoroughly enjoy it. Anyhow, The Box is Kelly's 3rd film. His last film, Southland Tales, is pretty much unanimously viewed as a poor movie that isn't worth the time to watch it (so I didn't!), so my expectations on this one were somewhat low. I knew I really liked Donnie Darko and the trailer for The Box was intriguing, as was the fact that The Box is based off of a Twilight Zone episode, but that's basically the only positives I had going in... the rest was a worried backdrop of Southland Tales and the acknowledgment that he's still a pretty young director.

So, on to the movie. How was it? Well, let's first keep in mind that I have extremely, how shall I say it, eclectic taste when it comes to movies. And I know from personal experience that this movie does not please everyone... or the super-majority of people I went to see it with. However, as you can probably guess, I actually found it thoroughly captivating.

The premise of the movie is that a paycheck-to-paycheck family receives a package in the mail containing a mysterious box with a button on it. They are soon told that if they press this button, one person that they do not know will be killed. However, they will also receive $1,000,000 in cash (tax free!). That sets up their delima. From there... well, everything gets kind of wacky. Let's just say that the whole situation/conspiracy ends up being much much larger than a box with a button, though in the end that's all it comes down to.

The first 20 or so minutes I found to be pretty boring. Cameron Diaz has an absolutely atrocious accent, and the whole build up of figuring out who these people are and why we should care about them was just plain tedious. But once The Box came into the picture, I latched on and didn't let go. Scene after scene introduced something different and weird and mysterious and creepy, and it all built and built. Honestly, I had no idea what was going on for 80% of the movie (randomly chosen statistic), but I really actually liked being confused and trying to figure it all out, and it was rewarding when I had a guess about something and the guess ended up being correct (or close to it). When the end of the movie came around and finally began revealing a bunch of things, I actually lost my breathe a little at the implications of what was going on. I'm still thinking about it right now. The movie deals with everything from free will, to God, to love, and the overall selfish human condition. Though I don't quite understand exactly what it's trying to say about all of those things, I'm enjoying trying to figure out. At it's core that's what the movie really is - a mystery. Figuring it out is part of the fun, during and after the movie.

The cinematography for The Box is top notch. Some of the ways the scenes are framed really show that Kelly knows what he's doing behind a camera. He knows what he wants, and he captures it perfectly in every frame. The style of the movie is also very interesting, in a good way. The film takes place in 1976, and the movie looks like it was made in 1976. It has this glowy-70s-sheen to it that really helped bring me into the time and place. It's a unique post-production (I assume) effect that wouldn't work for most movies out there, but worked for this. And the soundtrack... the soundtrack was pretty crazy. It's not something I would choose to listen to while studying, but it's absolutely top notch. It's creepy and unnerving at times, and the music hits all the right queues at all the right times. Quality.

Having said all of that, the movie definitely has its flaws. Like I said, Cameron Diaz has a horrible and somewhat distracting accent (admittedly I forgot about it about halfway through). The whole people-staring thing was very very overdone, especially in the library sequence. I enjoyed the creepiness of the people through the end, but a little subtlety would have been greatly appreciated. And then, not necessarily spoiling anything big here, the scene with the 3 "doors" as choices... I really really don't understand it. Why was Arthur (Diaz's husband) at the library to begin with? Why was he lead into that room? Why is it 3 doors and not 2 (it mine as well be 2!)? I have no idea how it connects to the rest of the movie other than providing a loose connection to a vision that Arthur has. It takes up a decent amount of the movies time, and literally seems to have no point at all that I can grasp. Maybe a directors' cut will reveal a little bit more, but right now, I just think it was a really annoying sequence in the movie.

So in conclusion, if you enjoy being extremely confused, can withhold disbelief, and like weird things like me, you'll probably like it. But if you can't withold your disbelief about some of the weird things that go on in this movie, then you'll probably just view it as unrealistic, strange, confusing, and pointless. Personally, I'm glad I saw it and will probably want to watch it again if a directors' cut is released, which will hopefully fill in some of the gaps. I still prefer Donnie Darko to The Box, and The Box was certainly not a great great movie, but its qualities kept me captivated enough to look past its flaws.

Potential based on Preview: 8/10

Actual movie: 7/10