It's not something that we like to think about, but it's true: complaining comes with the territory of being a film buff. After all, when you're passionate about something, it's going to upset you when you see that thing being done badly. Alas, science-fiction author Theodore Sturgeon's claim that "ninety percent of anything is crap" is just as true for film as it is for everything else. Therefore, we film-lovers encounter a ton of cinematic garbage while looking for gems. Naturally, we're going to complain when we come upon yet another tritely-plotted, poorly-acted, badly-directed piece of junk. Have you ever considered, however, that we film-lovers sometimes sabotage ourselves? We sometimes go to a movie with negative preconceptions. Such movies might include a sequel to a bad movie, a lead role acted by an actor we hate, or a film helmed by a director that we've deemed horrible. In other words, we sometimes convince ourselves that we're going to hate a movie before we watch it. Therefore, we fail to give the movie a fair chance. Yes, we film-goers have just as many negative experiences as good ones. This doesn't have to be the case, however. There are simple things we can do to make every movie-watching experience more enjoyable. In this article, we'll look at five such ways.
Alan Howell is a native of Southern California. He loves movies of any and all kinds, Hollywood, indie, and everywhere in between. He loves pizza, sitcoms, rock and pop music, surfing, baseball, reading, and girls (not necessarily in that order).
