Movie-meter-2

In my previous post i had cribbed a lot about how people use hype generated by movie , its star power and Box-office success as criterion to measure whether movie is good or not ... which i feel is not correct . Since i got started on it and also because i watch a lot of movies these days , i feel i should pen down how i pick out 'good' movies , what are the criterion's i use for choosing movies to watch.

Movie critic plays a very important role in guiding us on what movies to watch and in setting the basic expectations about the movie , again its not the rating given by critic it is the reason why he/she recommends/thrashes the movie that is important for me. Again critics are also humans and they would obviously write reasons why they like the movie , why they think the movie should be watched/not .... It may or may not match your view of world/movies ... critics' sensibilities and your sensibilities may or may not match ... I have a set of critics whose views/opinions i concur with on most occasions and i have mostly agreed with their recommendations , so it is pretty helpful in choosing movies.

But more than critics , my favorite method of choosing movies to watch is through imdb site ... again this is public opinion , unlike BO verdict , this is opinion by people who watch a lot of movies and whose tastes mirror those of an informed movie viewer , Imdb ratings are a very useful guide to determine whether to watch a movie or not, when you are not very sure.
But again recent movies , popular genres among the voting public always get better ratings ... but despite a few faults its more or less most accurate way of determining if movie is watchable
There are also sites like Rotten-tomatoes , metacritic which are aggregators of reviews/rating by critics and should appeal to more serious or more evolved film viewers.
The Top 100/250 lists (there are various versions floating around) represents another fascinating way of choosing movies , here are the best (in the eyes of certain experts) movies chosen and arranged in order for you ... whether these are best or not is not the point , but these are definitely movies which stand out in some way or other ... Lists represent a very good way to discover great movies , while on lists i think Imdb all time top 250 list is the most accessible to the average film goer , if she/he wants to undertake this journey to discover better movies.
Since it is voted by a public consisting of informed movie viewers this list would be the best place to start looking for good movies to watch , the list ofcourse is a bit lopsided with recent movies dominating it . Personally im targeting to watch all the top 250 movies from this list , as i discover a movie i discover a lot more about that genre/director and ending up watching a lot more movies made by the director/in that genre which may not be present in the list but are definitely enjoyable. This list in a way guides me to a lot more movies , i might deviate sometimes , but by following this kind of list i do explore all popular , highly regarded movies of all genres.

In various forums , i have noticed a lot of average film viewer complaining that most these top movies are over-rated or beyond their grasp and many don't see a point in viewing these movies and are happy catching up with latest blockbuster movies . They have a pattern for viewing movies and dont see a point in experimenting. But that is never the case , our choices and preference changes/should change during the course of time , hopefully for the better. As noted critic Roger Ebert puts it "one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America's hardworking film critics, arrives in"