Having as I have, completed a course on Film Appreciation, I feel it's more than overdue that I share some of my inner knowings with you people, to give you all the knowledge you need to really appreciate a film. So I've got together a few film phrases to help you in your film viewing.
Classic - A really boring movie that no-one likes.
Ten Best - The 10 worst movies. (Usually Classics)
Landmark - A really, REALLY boring movie. (Like 2001)
New-Wave - The directors a lunatic, and no-one can make head or tail of the movie
Review - A biased analysis of a movie made by people who care about things like plot, theme and acting; things that have nothing to do with the enjoyment of the movie; things like the number of car crashes or bad guys getting their just desserts.
Reviewer - Person who can't watch films without criticising them. Like those people that sit beside you in Rambo and tell you when he's going to kill someone before it happens, & then say it was predictable. (bastards!)
Plot - A very important film item, which is extremely small in it's physical size, which is why people can sometimes not see it. (I.e. In Reviews: "The plot was conspicuous by it's absence) In actual fact, the plot is a tiny peice of orange plasticine that usually sits in the corner of a scene. Goes down real big with reviewers
Setting - Where the film was set, Inside or Outside. Goes down big with the reviewer too for some reason.
Continental - A European way of saying dirty. A Typical Continental film is the sort of thing that your parents can't get into unless they can prove their date of birth and answer 15 multichoice questions about the Battle of Britian. Apart from this, there's only one way of getting to see a Continental film, and that's by saying that you're going to see it for academic interest (You big pervert!) An interesting sideline here is that because a film comes from overseas, it is judged valuable for the study of intercultural differences, and supported as such -but were you to go to the "Sunday Sticky" you'd be coming home with the odd excess rotten tomato on your clothes. What's the difference? I can't really say, except that in continental movies clothes are removed at the drop of a hat (and cloak, and..) and in the stickies, they're rarely on.
R RATED - This is a rating of age, that, once the viewer reaches such age and goes to see this movie they will be totally dissappointed that they went. Ratings go from: R13, R16, R18, R21 and Continental. An interesting sideline is that once you reach the Continental age, you are usually too old for your heart to handle the strain of watching the movie.
Dubbing - This is a film where someone has rerecorded all the speaking
parts because it's in a foreign language or because the actor
spits when he speaks. The unfortunate thing about dubbing is
that the people who do it quite frequently don't know the
original language and spend a lot of time guessing what is
going on. I.e:
Dubber 1: What do you think they're doing now?
Dubber 2: Um, looks like they're cleaning the curtain
Dubber 1: Ok, lets run with it.
"I HAVE COME TO CLEAN YOUR SHOWER CURTAINS"
Dubber 2: "WHY THANK YOU NORMAN, BUT DO YOU THINK YOU
COULD WAIT UNTIL AFTER MY SHOWER?"
Subtitle - Dubbing written on the bottom of the screen, usually placed over something important on the picture
Mise en Scene - A term that denotes a very poor Job. I.e.:
Director 1: Well, I made a real Mise en Scene of that one
Director 2: Yes, Pierre, it was a bit Diachronic.
Tilt - The light that comes on if you bounce a pinball machine around too much.
Tracking - That knob on the video that makes the picture break up.
Stereotype - Things like Sanyo, Pioneer, Onkyo, Alpine
Montage - Editing so that adjacent shots with seperate meanings come together to form a third meaning. I.e. Kubrick + Sex = This is going to be a "Classic".
Expressionism - Film-type word, meaning weird. I.e. "This shot here is very expressionist", "This film is mainly expressionist", "I'm feeling a bit expressionist since I took that jar of worm tablets"
Hope this helps you. Meantime, I think I'll take a look at my favourite movie - The Goodies and the Beanstalk.