Trying Out A Classic: City Lights

I’m new to writing film criticism. I’ve been talking and thinking about movies since 2001 when the development of my preadolescent brain coincided with the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie that ever made me want to discuss a movie with other people, but writing about what a movie is, and what it means, is something with which I have little experience.

So I asked Google “How to be a better film critic” and several great tidbits of knowledge appeared. I read through many of them, taking a mental note, hopefully benefiting both you, the reader, and I. The one that stuck the most was ‘Expand Your Cinematic Vocabulary‘.

Now, could my verbal vocabulary use some improvement? Indubitably. When it comes to older films, many considered essential to the history of cinema, I admit I’m sorely lacking. I’ve never seen Scorsese’s Raging Bull or Ford’s Stagecoach or Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. And that’s just three. The Venn Diagram of ‘Classics’ and ‘Movies I Haven’t Seen’ is nearly a circle. This blog provides more motivation to get a few great films knocked off my list.