Hi.
My name is Paul, and I like watching movies. I’ve watched movies for most of my life, but I don’t think I started really getting into them until about ten years ago. In the past few years I’ve tried to document the movies that I’ve seen in a meaningful way—to think a little more deeply about why I enjoy them and which ones in particular were very impactful to me. Without further ado, let’s get into two key components of this blog.
This name of this blog is titled No Trailers. That is because in the past couple of years, I’ve proven (with science) that watching a movie without having seen the trailers increases the enjoyment of the movie-watching experience by roughly 92%. If I know that I’m going to be excited for a movie and that I will definitely be watching it, what’s the point in having some of it ruined for me? I realize it takes a lot of self control to not watch trailers, but I can assure you it is worth it. “But Paul,” you scream, frothing at the mouth, “How do you do it?” Below is a compiled list of frequently asked questions (asked by no one and definitely not frequently) on how to abide by this principle.
Q1: How do you avoid trailers if you’re in a theater? They play trailers for 20 minutes straight now!
A1: I close my eyes, or I pull my hood over my face. The problem of course lies with hearing the trailer. Well, if you’re any normal human being, you’ll most likely forget the dialogue from the trailer after the movie is over. I pretty much bank on my forgetfulness to remember nothing that I heard prior to seeing the movie. If you have photographic memory for hearing (is there a term for this? photographic hearing?) then don’t fret. You’ll have remembered 2% of the movie’s dialogue, but have no visual pairing to go with it. Make up something to go with the dialogue so you’ll be equally surprised when you do see it.
Q2: How do you know what movie to be excited for if you don’t watch any trailers?
A2: If you read any movie websites (Collider, Slashfilm, IGN, etc.) then they frequently have lists on what movies to be excited for. I like following directors, so that makes it a little easier to figure out what to look forward to in the upcoming year. Reading small headlines about movie news is a great way to get excited about stuff without knowing too much.
Q3: Do you really not watch ANY trailers anymore?
A3: I do watch trailers still. The only difference is that I watch trailers for movies I know literally nothing about, or if it’s for a movie I most likely won’t care about. I will say that if you MUST break the rule of not watching trailers, the best ones to watch are the teaser trailers. Those are what trailers SHOULD be. Here’s an example below:
That is the definition of a perfect teaser trailer. Doesn’t reveal anything big, but is intriguing enough to get you hooked. Movies nowadays try to make trailers that are movies in and of itself.
In line with the principle of No Trailers, all my reviews will also be spoiler free. Unfortunately this means I can’t talk as in-depth about them, like analyzing specific scenes and what-not, but oftentimes it is worth keeping a secret about them.
The last thing I’d like to leave you with is how I will grade my movies. I find that a numeric value or a letter grade scale does not accurately depict how much I really like or dislike a movie. However, the marriage between the two grading scales creates a far superior product of critique−the PH scale. Some of you may have heard of the PH scale when you were in 7th grade biology. Thankfully, that scale no longer applies to your everyday life like this one will. Below is the reverent makeup of the PH scale:
A+ = 96-100
A = 91-95
A- = 86-90
B+ = 81-85
B = 76-80
B- = 71-75
C+ = 66-70
C = 61-65
C- = 56-60
D+ = 51-55
D = 46-50
D- = 41-45
F = 0-40
Growing up as an Asian American, I was told that an A+ is standard excellence, an A is well…not an A+, an A- is pushing it, and anything below that is a knock on Death’s Door. I always felt that our current grading scale gave too little space for great and excellent movies to be critiqued, while average to bad movies got almost the entire scale space. By adjusting for the PH scale, movies with a B+ grade will be more distinct from a B movie, and equally have more weight to it. I hope that through this revolution, movies with a C+ rating won’t be immediately tossed aside without any consideration of watching, but still be an enjoyable movie that just may not be as impressive as its peers.
To conclude, if anyone is actually reading this, I hope you can get something out of my thoughts. I don’t tend to write with very flowery prose, I won’t make you cry tears of wonder at my description of how John Wick headshotted thug #91, and I won’t try to make you laugh and be super entertained by my thoughts because that would take me way longer to write up reviews than I would want, and I don’t want to be burned out writing about the 214th Marvel movie. This is really more of an open diary of my thoughts so that I can look back fondly and see how utterly wise I was since the inception of this blog.
I am of the mind that everyone is entitled to their opinion about movies, even if their opinion is wrong. If you find that your tastes line up with mine, then I hope I can serve to be a useful Personal Netflix to you. If you find that your tastes consistently are polar opposites of mine, then you can also find use in that by knowing what not to watch and what to be intrigued by. Also, I hate you.
I’ll be posting next week on my top 10 favorite movies of 2016 just before the Oscars start. Stay tuned. Or don’t.
No Trailers. 