Watch lots and lots of YouTube video essays. Soon you too can find meaning in small director decisions.
Be warned, it is a super power those watching movies with you may regret.
Be warned, it is a super power those watching movies with you may regret.
Like laughing about the setup of a scene that is about to unfold.
Or getting frustrated about a movie breaking (or lacking) consistency in the underlying mechanics of the world its drawing.
I'm constantly in this situation, starting to laugh about something that is building up below the surface of a scene, just to frame something (entirely else) that is then presented directly to the viewer in that scene. While people sitting next to me look bewildered at my face and back at the screen...
Usually it's very small things - some background character gleefully shouting out the obvious in the only line they have in the production.
"Maverick's re-engaging, Sir!" From the radar operator in Top Gun.
"It's gonna blow!" In every bomb scene ever.
Etc.
Most blatant example: "The Bone Collector"
I don't even remember the turns of the story in that movie, as it was clear within the first 10 minutes...
for me the quintessential example is "Phone Booth." starring Kiefer Sutherland, you say? i wonder what role he plays.
i think the movie "Seven" (Se7en) managed to keep the surprise bad guy out of the trailer and unbilled until the end credits. that was badass.
For me the most memorable time was "Captive State". Namely in how the film subverted the heist tropes. The film did poor in the box office, but personally I found it the best film in recent memory. Exactly because I noticed how the film raised tension never relieving said tension. I'd say more, but I truly think you, the person reading this comment, should watch it.
Adam Sandler films are another good example. In that his films do not subvert tropes. Which in part makes watching easy for mainstream audiences. Which will cause you to laugh at his jokes a scene early.
It's really nothing as elaborately intelligent as it may sound.
Just that the experience of a movie or series can be good/bad for entirely different reasons for me.
A really serious scene like Joe Pesci getting upset in Goodfellas [1] makes me smile because of how the tension of the scene keeps building, despite being a very serious scene (and not being funny at all although actors in the scene are laughing).
Watching Anthony Hopkins in the Restaurant scene of Westworld [2] deliver so much more than just the content of his dialogue is just stunning for me to watch, while for others it might just be a scene like many others.
Or even more basic, I already have to laugh just watching Gavin Belson in the series Silicon Valley, just because the character is crafted to be such an awful tone-deaf person...
The other night during a minor scene I said aloud "what a great camera setup"
(it had beautiful bokke or possibly focal plane manipulation to put the character in sharp focus while what was beside or possibly behind him was softened)
Also: "what a crazy location they found for this!"
I file that under "reacting to moments in a movie which others would consider uneventful" :)
For a fashion person, going out can be frustrating.