February 1, 2007

Movies - The Second Time Around

Recently, I’ve been watching re-runs of movies I’ve watched before. Just been having the urge to watch certain movies that I really liked and a lot of others that I didn’t like, despite the hype then, and have just now felt like giving them a second chance. These are the movies I didn’t particularly enjoy before, but suddenly had the urge to give them another try:

1) Amelie – That French movie was really “in” back in my early days in Beijing. Everyone was talking about it. I watched it. I’m no expert but I really liked the cinematography lighting; the whole green and red concept of each scenes where just beautiful. I remember liking how the movie introduced the characters and setting through what they liked and disliked. I thought the idea of that was simple and original. It didn’t hurt that the guy in the movie was quite cute, but overall, I couldn’t understand why people had it in their most favourite list of movies of all time. I just didn't find it that entertaining; just fell short of expectation I think.
Watching it for the second time and not looking for indications and expectations of what others are talking about, I got to enjoy the movie a lot more and ended up liking it more than the first time I saw it.

2) Dreams May Come – This is one of those movies I didn’t really have expectation for. before watching it. In fact, I had no idea what it was supposed to be about. Overall I found the movie simply discomforting but found it very beautiful all at the same time. I guess it’s true, I do have a thing for fantasy worlds. So yes, I also liked those scenes in “The Cell” (with Jennifer Lopez) when she went into the mind of the patients. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cinematic concept and designer where the same for these movies.
Knowing that I wasn’t going to like the movie and just wanting to see the beautiful scenes once more, I actually ended up liking the movie a lot better.


3) A River Runs Through It – Like many people who’ve seen this movie; Brad Pitt was the only thing keeping me awake. I was young and didn’t pay much attention to movies with plots as flat as plains. But I was looking for a boring movie to watch so I wouldn’t feel guilty doing other things at the same time. Well guess what? I didn’t get to do the other things I planned to. I actually sat back and patiently watched the entire movie and enjoyed doing so.

…. And that, is the power of low expectation.

No comments: