That new film comes out and I missed it in theaters, but I rented it the first day it was on DVD. I call up my friends and we sit down, popcorn at the ready. It's quiet and the movie starts, perfect setup and atmosphere. Movie magic has begun and I'm pulled into the fictional world, then a few friends start talking and adding commentary to the onscreen actions. Me, mind blown. How could they talk? They're missing vital information to the plot by talking. My world of film watching is shattered. I'm a hollow shell. Okay, not really. At the most I'm slightly annoyed. Imagine that, someone is different from me. The way I watch a film you can hear every mumbled word of dialogue, every background noise, and every cricket chirp, or whatever crickets do. I'm called the listener or the escapist. I watch a film to get lost in the story and escape our world to enter the film's. But then there are those those others. They are the talkers. Talkers run the risk of missing half the movie because of their talking. How dare they? Now let's just calm down a minute. To everyone the right to enjoy and experience films in their own way. Talkers are not bad people. From my observation of the talker I have discovered that for them the act of watching a movie is a social act. For them the people they are watching the film with and interacting with during the film is more important then the film itself. It's a time of bonding and hanging out. Okay I accept that, they are not trying to ruin my good time but enhance it. This got the ole steam punk gears in my mind to turning and thinking. Are there other ways in which I watch a film that is completely different then other people? The answer that came to life was yes; mystery, mind twister, figure-it-out movies. I apologize for lack of genre definition but the films I am talking about are Christopher Nolan's films The Prestige and Memento, David Fincher's Fight Club, M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, and many many more. Again there are many more films that are like this but the basic crude definition is films that have a mysterious meaning or plot that have a surprising or crazy twist ending. The question with viewing these types of films is do you try and figure it out or just sit back and enjoy the ride the film takes you through? As a listener or escapist film watcher I get completely sucked in and never really attempt to try and figure out the film before the film ends and is revealed to me. And then after the fact I am usually expressing a combination of what, no, woah, no, what, woah. I have talked to many people about the above mentioned films and half the time the conversation with a group of people is how quickly they figured out the film and what it was about. It goes something along the lines of Dude I figured out Fight Club like a quarter of the way through the movie and if you watch it again you can really see all of the stuff going on. How long did it take you? My answer is usually not until the very end because I'm not actively seeking it out. I guess the joy of it is trying to be Sherlock Holmes and putting all the clues together. The first time I saw The Prestige I was asked to try and solve the film and figure it out. I can say that happily in Holmesian style I deduced the clues of the film a little over half way through the film. For me though it still was not as much fun as just sitting back and becoming lost in the film. I think it's important to remember and know that there is no wrong answer or way to watch these types of films or any films. People enjoy in equal amounts being Alice and wondering through the rabbit hole and being Holmes and deducing Moriarty's next move. So I guess the question is: how do you watch films?