Why I Write Movie Reviews – by Gary S. Smolker

Everyone has his or her own limits in the appreciation of books, movies, and the so-called “news.”

Many people refuse to regard or even to understand their immediate present.

What I Try To Accomplish By Watching Many Movies

I want to glorify movies as no-one else can.

For the past four or five years I have watched movies to become a “sharper”, “better informed” and more fascinating person who above all knows how to glorify movies.

• By learning what is going on in the world from a variety of different movie-makers, screen-writers, authors, and a multitude of experiences and interactions to give me a multidimensional perspective.
• By learning about the existences of other people: their lives, experiences, challenges, thoughts and changing trends and circumstances and states of mind to get as close to reality as possible.
• By learning things about events, people, topics and subjects that make me want to learn more.
• To uncover big ideas.
• By studying how the best story tellers tell stories.
• By watching how the best actors and actresses present themselves and conduct themselves.
• By learning how to emotionally connect to other people.
• By learning what triggers persuasion, captivation and fascination.
• By learning how to tell stories that stick and move people to act.

Movie makers are much better at telling stories in pictures than I am.

Going to movies, reading books and articles, and talking to a variety of people gives me lots of things to think about.

I study the minutiae of things, the tiny bits and pieces of everything I read and see and of everyone I am exposed to, so I can communicate depths of meaning beyond what others can.

What I Try to Accomplish By Writing Movie Reviews

My goals are as follows:

1. To bring to people’s attention to movies worth watching.
2. To give credit to people who have done a great job by committing themselves completely with talent and imagination to their work.
3. To share information worth sharing, including (a) thought provoking ideas, (b) insights and (c) interesting facts.
4. To stimulate thinking.
5. To initiate conversations and exchanges of ideas, opinions and analysis.
6. To display my knowledge.
7. To insure the survival of good taste, to make people understand it, and to spread its message in a barbaric world.
8. To make “The Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog” an essential read for everyone who wants to follow the development and the work of innovative movie makers.

I love to hear what other people have to say about movies and about the things I bring up in my movie reviews.

Writing movie reviews stimulates me to think deeply and to communicate intelligently and amplifies and solidifies my own thinking.

I enjoy talking about, and writing about good movies.

I want to have a reputation for perspicacity, for having a rare flair for understanding and talking or writing about movies, books and current events, to have a reputation for having the ability to identity and talk about outstanding work and for having contacts in the best society.

 

Movies and Other Communication Media Are A Common Ground

Six of the world’s 20 wealthiest people are from tech or related industries like media and entertainment.

Virtually all self-made billionaires under 40 are techies.

Silicon Valley has become Software Valley.

Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and Google have more dollars on hand than the US government because their products connect people.

More and more people are spending more and more of their time looking at screens.

Watching movies is a BIG TIME communal activity because going to movies leads to intellectual and social pleasure and gain.

Copyright © 2015 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved