Movie Magic - What Makes the Silver Screen Spectacular?

I’ve always enjoyed movies. Unlike loads of people my age, my first cinema memory isn’t Jurassic Park in ‘93. I don’t remember when I actually first watched the monumental dino-flick, but I had the toys way back in the day, so I must have seen it pretty early in my life. My first memory of seeing a film at the cinema was Hercules in 1997 (I was 9. I know people had memories way before they got to 9 years old but I basically don’t really. I remember one Christmas where I watched Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on TV - you know, the one with the hideous costumes? Yeah, that one. And I have some more vague football-related memories, but other than that, it’s kinda bare in the memory bank) on a family trip to Orlando, Florida. I remember the smell of the popcorn and how the air conditioning was too cold in the cinema. I remember that the cinema was a treat back then. Even whilst I was on a dream holiday visiting theme parks almost every day for two weeks, it was the cinema that felt like the treat. The holiday was just that - a holiday - whilst going to the pictures was a context I understood as rare. From that day on, I was hooked. As I said, I’ve always enjoyed movies.

A triumph in CG and physical effects, Jurassic Park was a cinema spectacular

As you get older and begin to understand your tastes, movie magic tends to wear off. Maybe it is because you understand the finances of making a film, you get that the characters are actors who, at the end of an 18 hour day, go back to their homes, or their hotel rooms, and emote the same way we do. They’re just the same as us. They eat, they worry, they shit and they become tired. Four very human traits. And the human trait you learn as you get older is to critique things because, that too, is a context you understand.

I remember around the time I decided to try and let films happen at me. As in, I decided to not expect the world and just enjoy a film for what I look for, not what I think I should look for. I don’t really watch trailers now, save for the odd one, and I stopped listening to pundits and critics before I went into films because these are essentially just people with opinions. This isn’t an insult or belittling of what they do, because I eat up reviews for films after I’ve seen them. But in terms of pre-viewing, I steer clear. And it’s this steering clear that’s helped me fall in love with going to the cinema again.

The essence of movie magic, to my mind, is the excitement and the possibility. It’s the show-stopping action or the cheesy love scene or the unrealistic, against-all-odds storyline that grips you. True movie magic casts that spell whereby you’re concentrating so hard that you don’t realise you’re in the cinema - you have tunnel vision for the picture in front of you and no level of popcorn-rustling, door-slamming or ‘who is she again?’-ing can draw your attention away from what’s happening in that town, on that planet or between that couple on screen. That truly spell-binding feeling is movie magic.

My favourite part of seeing a new movie is the possibility that I may fall in love with a picture. The magic of love is a delight and a dream and all other wondrous words. I fall in love with films so easily. So easily it’s probably embarrassing. But I do so because I have such formulaic and well-defined criteria that means I will fall in love with a movie. And that criteria really doesn’t require a lot. Charm is a big marker for me. Charm is a character being well meaning, and doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good themselves. Charm doesn’t need to come from the personality of the characters per se, but it needs to come from their intentions and the direction the movie is travelling. It’s probably why I love a romantic comedy or a coming of age movie so much. They take all manner of characters and turns them into heroes, then into villains, then back to heroes. Good triumphs evil, if only for 90 minutes once or twice a week.

Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece The Shape of Water encapsulates movie magic.

There’s a part of movie magic that comes from the set, the setting and the world created by the directors, writers and cinematographers. One of the best examples of movie magic in recent years was Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. It has a feeling of a classic film about it. Whether it’s the ‘monster’ of the movie (which could be a few characters, depending on whether you’ve seen the film), the year it was set or story being a romantic battle between right and wrong, the magic is there for all to see. It has that sheen and authenticity mixed with the Hollywood glow. You’ll find it in Jurassic Park, you’ll find it in Back to the Future, you’ll find it in Casablanca. I also think you find it in The Shape of Water. Feel free to @ me.

Being under the spell of a film is one of my favourite feelings. In a way, it becomes a part of my personality and a sentence in the book of my life (WHAT A PRETENTIOUS WANKER). It’s this magic that I search for in every picture I watch. And once I become spellbound by a film, I know I’m in for one hell of a ride.