To Avoid Confusion: Movies vs. Films

Hello, and welcome to Rambles and Reviews!  Mostly we’ll be reviewing movies on here, but you’ll be seeing other random musings pop up from time to time.  As an introduction, I just wanted to clarify some vernacular you’d be seeing a lot here:  namely, the difference between movies and films.

In my mind, movies are something you typically see during the summer, where a large studio has given someone an inconceivably large budget to spend on either effects or people, with complete disregard for awards.  Anything this movie wins is complete coincidence and did not go into the planning stages of the movie at all.  A film, on the other hand, was meticulously crafted from the start to make you think and elicit a deep, emotional response, hopefully so that you’ll remember the film when voting season comes around for whatever award show you vote for.  I’ll try and stick to these terms when reviewing movies, but no promises, these are more of guidelines.

On a related note, I’ll also use both theater and cinema in my writing.  To clarify, a theater is someplace that predominantly shows movies, usually in really, really large theaters with equally proportioned snacks.  A cinema is someplace you and a few friends can watch films, usually sipping coffee from the coffee shop down the hall from the theater because they are kind of apathetic about you bringing in your own food.  I tend to frequent theaters more than cinemas, mostly because theaters are more prevalent, and I like nachos.

Finally, I just wanted to give you a heads up that it is very difficult to disappoint me when it comes to a movie, so most of my reviews will be focusing on the positives of a movie.  I’ll point out flaws if they’re glaring or relate to the more redeemable aspects of the movie, but they won’t be my primary focus.  Hopefully though, you’ll find the reviews helpful in deciding whether or not to go see something.  Or, at the very least, you’ll find them interesting.  Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy our site!

John Hackert is a columnist and doesn’t understand that Optimistic Critic is an oxymoron.