Film is an extremely successful medium in expressing and even in the dramatic evocation of human emotion. The art of moving pictures has been prevalent, providing dramatic storytelling to large audiences ever since the vernacular arts arrived on the scene, the film has quickly earned itself as possibly the first ever mass form of amusement. Since the medium’s beginnings in the late 19th century, cinema has been churning out block-buster movies every summer, producing a huge amount of disposable income for the movie industry and a slew of awards for best picture and actor of the year.
Film critics, however, are not as excited about this fact as audiences. Although it’s a fact that movies are entertaining, oftentimes critics also tend to be critical of the medium. They often point to the technological aspects involved, such as computer animation and other technologically advanced special effects. They may also point to the lack of originality, a favorite complaint of film critics everywhere.
But what most critics of film miss is the fact that film theory is just one part of what makes films great. For example, what makes Meet The Parents great is not the story at all, but the intense portrayal of family life and the way the director managed to weave this through the medium of film. The same thing goes for the newer movies like The Girl With One Red Shoe and Edward Scissorhands (the newest Scorsese film ever made!) – both films use brilliant screenplays and breathtaking visual images to tell compelling, thought provoking and memorable stories, but neither of them takes itself too seriously nor does it ever try to be as elegant and “classy” as films such as The Matrix.