What is it that makes a movie compelling, noteworthy, or deserving of an award?

                What is it that makes a movie compelling, noteworthy, or deserving of an award? In my opinion in order for a movie to be compelling, noteworthy, or deserving of an award it needs to have  three simple things; a great cast, a story that’s going to keep the attention of the viewers and myself, and a plot that’s easy to follow.

                A movie has to have a great cast; both leading and supporting. The actors don’t have to be famous or attractive (although in most cases that does help) they just need to be able to act. I want to be able to believe that they are happy, sad, hurt, or scared. There are so many times I’ve tried to watch a movie where the acting just bugs me. Facial expressions don’t match the reaction or hey I just got shot in my leg but wait until the next scene and you won’t be able to tell from the way I am talking and I can walk fine now.

               If you can’t get the original cast or at least some of the characters to continue the story don’t make a sequel. While I have never been a fan of the Terminator movies past the original, once you lose Arnold you lose your series just give it up and move on don’t try to go another direction with it. XXX is my biggest problem you can’t replace Vin Diesel with Ice Cube and expect the movie to do anywhere near as well as the original. If your actor was signed on to do the sequel and then changes his mind maybe you should take a step back and reread the script maybe it just isn’t very good, and clearly by the reviews it has gotten it isn’t very good. I am however all for remakes and in some cases the prequel. Batman Begins, Tron, Captain America, all have new actors and some new characters but all are amazing movies.

                If a movie doesn’t have a story that keeps your attention you are going to fall asleep, not pay attention, walk out, or change the channel and it won’t make any money. If the plot is too hard to follow you won’t have any idea what is going on and you aren’t going to want to watch it. Nobody wants to watch a movie where you have to keep asking the person next to you what is happening or who that guy is and nobody wants to be the guy who has to keep answering all the questions. I like to be able to watch a movie and if something distracts me for a minute I’m not going to be totally lost at what’s going on. While I hate lulls in movies and scenes of what just seems to be filler, as a parent I do need to take my eyes off the screen at times. I have no problem with the what’d I miss I do have a problem with the whoa did I miss something I am totally lost. My friends love Memento, I personally can’t stand it. I’ve watched it four times. I’ve fallen asleep twice was totally lost once and finally figured out what was going on the last time. I understood what was going on but all the flashbacks just got me lost and I found the movie to be boring overall. Syriana, I don’t know if I spaced out or fell asleep but I have no idea what that was about. I recently watched Visioneers I am a huge fan of Zach Galifianakis but that movie was just hard to watch. I kept expecting it to get better and it never did but I couldn’t turn it off in hopes that it would.

                You can’t have a good cast and expect to be an award winning amazing movie without a great story and plot. At the same time you can’t have a great story and plot and expect to be a noteworthy award winning movie without the cast to support it. It takes a combination of everything to be a great movie, you take away one part and you might as well save your money and find a new movie to produce.

  Le voyage dans la lune A trip to the moon Georges Mlis 1902 if it weren’t for the narrator I’m not sure I could have followed this film in the majority of it. While I understand it was about a guy trying to get to the moon and eventually getting there it was hard to tell what was going on. It may be a noteworthy film simply because it was about a guy who wanted to go to the moon in 1902 that in itself was pretty clever. It could have done without some of the scene changes with the smoke coming off of the roof and some guy falling in a bucket really pointless and without a narrator who would have known what was going on in those scenes especially since the film quality back then was so poor you could hardly see the details. It was acted fairly well the actors did a good job at going over the top in expressing themselves making up for the lack of dialogue.

The Great Train Robbery while not as creative of a subject as going to the moon was a very good film. It had a very simple plot that kept me watching and easy enough to follow even if I had to look away. They could have put a little more effort in to making me believe the ragdoll was a person while being thrown from the train but the movie itself was acted very well. While filming isn’t on my list of qualities of an award winning movie I do have to say that this movie was filmed and spliced together very well for being from 1903 there was a very nice flow to the movie and I never had to stop to think where they were or how they got there. They really could have done without adding the music to it, I know it wasn’t original to the film but it didn’t fit with the movie at all.

Two of my favorite movies that I feel meet my ideas of an award winning, noteworthy, and compelling are Fast Five and Back to the Future.  While Fast Five didn’t win an academy award or a people’s choice award it was nominated and should have won. It met all of my expectations and criteria for an award winning movie. If you didn’t see the first three of the four Fast and Furious movies you may have been a little lost in where some of the characters came from but they did a pretty good job at updating you. It also had their top stars in Vin Diesel and Paul Walker return and added to it with Dwayne Johnson. The story was fast paced and action packed and kept me watching. I never lost interest or had to stop and figure out what was going on and there were just enough twists to make me wonder what was going to happen next. Fast Five or any Fast and the Furious movie will probably never be a classic but it will always be one of my favorites. Back to the Future on the other hand already is a classic. It has won numerous awards including academy awards and it’s easy to see why. Even though most of the cast was fairly young they had a lot of talent. Back to the Future also meets all of my criteria for an award winning movie; a great cast with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, and Crispin Glover, a memorable story that kept me entertained and was super easy to follow. I can watch Back to the Future over and over and not get tired of it unlike some movies that I’ve seen once and need a break of a couple of months at least before watching it again.