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Appreciating film is easier if you know how to watch movies and why it is important to watch them from a critical perspective.

You may be thinking “I know how to watch movies” — but participating in a piece of cinema means more than keeping your eyes open and shoving popcorn in your mouth.

The history of watching flicks

Movies have been around a long time now. The first movies were crude, devoid of sound and color, and mostly used to document life rather than imitate it for the sake of art. In the early days of cinema, movies were an interesting distraction, a plaything, a cheap form of entertainment that no one could have predicted would become the phenomenon it is.

Once films overtook the theater and eventually radio and television as THE entertainment venue of the entire world, people began looking at the movie industry as a producer of great art.

Now that films are recognized as works of art rather than just cheap thrills for the description and documentation of everyday life, we have to watch movies with a different eye. Why would you want to look at a work of art as a functional piece of entertainment? You wouldn’t approach the Mona Lisa with the same eye you’d use to inspect a toaster. How do you look at a movie if you’ve made up your mind to think of it as art?

How to watch a movie

Here are some aspects of film to pay critical attention to.

1. Direction

Though everyone’ heard of a film director, many people may not have a good idea of what a director does.

When you watch a film, ask yourself who is in control of the story, the “look”, the acting, and even in many ways the script. The director is the person with the greatest single hold on all aspects of a film, from the lighting to individual props and set pieces. One of our greatest directors Alfred Hitchcock once said: “At times, I have the feeling I’m an orchestra conductor . . . At other times, by using colors and lights in front of beautiful landscapes, I feel I am a painter.”

The best directors are artists as well as technical experts. If you’re watching a film by a great director, you’ll notice that every section of the film carries the director’s touch. Think of Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane”, the precise details in each scene, from costume pieces that echo the period to the volume of dialogue.

Since directors are paying such close attention to the art of their film, you should pay attention to.

2. Screenplay

Okay, so directors get most of the acclaim — but their work would be impossible without a solid script.

The lines on paper are the essential element of any film these days. How creative is the plot? How original or lifelike is the dialogue? Are the characters three-dimensional, meaning do they seem fleshed out and real?

See also: Best Action Movies.

Have you ever sat there staring at the paper, ready to write, but unsure where to begin? Want a solution that will overcome even the worst writer’s block? Anyone can start writing poetry today using a few simple techniques.

One, two, …?

Did you say or think three when you saw the above? If not, you certainly would when I asked you to fill in the blank. Your mind is a powerful machine that recognises or creates patterns. To make this work for you as a poet, you simply have to lay out the materials in an implied pattern, and let your mind do its thing.

The “materials,” in this case, of course, are words or ideas. So let’s round up some materials for an example. If you want to write a poem about thunderstorms, you might start by writing down relevant words, and then choose the more evocative ones: flash, blowing, rumble, night, deadly and rain, perhaps.

Now you set the pattern. In this case, we’ll write a four-line poem, using one of our words in each line. We’ll only decide if we want a ryming poem after we start. This is what I came up with after five minutes:

Rain stands still in the sky

Trees dance as in a painting

In a flash it is here and gone

And night grumbles at being revealed

It doesn’t matter if most aren’t good poems. You just have to write a lot of them, and then work on re-writing the ones with potential. With a little practice, you can write a dozen poems in an hour, then pick out the gems. My wife has had poetry published using Deal-a-Poem, a game we created based on this technique, so we know that it works, and it’s fun as well.

More Tips For Fast Poetry

The technique above works because when your mind focuses on a word with the intent to use it in a line, it is stimulated into action. It wants to find the pattern – or create it. To make this work even better, try the following:

1. Start with words that are evocative and metaphorically rich. You’ll be more inspired and probably write a richer poem with “howled,” “torn open,” and “festering,” than with “said,” “broken,” and “rotten.”

2. Use this or any other technique as a starting point only. If you have a great line already in mind, don’t force one of the words from your list into it. If a poem starts to write itself, and becomes ten six-line verses, forget about the technique. Treat it as a tool to be used when you need it.

3. Don’t sit there waiting for inspiration. Write anything NOW. Start with any topic, or even random words. The surest way to get inspired in your poetry is to start writing a poem.

Steve Gillman has been playing with poetry for thirty years. He and his wife Ana created the game “Deal-A-Poem,” which can be accessed for free at: http://www.dealapoem.com

While many guests of Asheville NC cabin rentals come here for mountain getaways that are back to nature, a tour of the public art on Asheville’s Urban Trail is recommended highly for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

The Urban Trail, featuring more than 30 bronze sculptures and plaques by a diversity of mostly local artists, begins and ends at the center of downtown Asheville at Pack Place. The walking tour covers 1.7 miles and takes most people about two hours to complete.

The works are presented in five eras: The Frontier Period, The Gilded Age, The Times of Thomas Wolfe, The Era of Civic Pride, and The Age of Diversity. Started in 1991 by a handful of citizens who had a vision for downtown revitalization, The Urban Trail marks its works with pink granite markers in the sidewalk.

The works include tributes to the era that produced some of the oldest buildings now used as Asheville NC cabin rentals: bronze turkeys and pigs marking the old Buncombe Turnpike, a busy route livestock drovers traversed in the 1800s.

Commemorating other parts of history, bronze musicians stand before the Asheville Civic Center. A giant iron commemorates the triangular Flatiron Building. An art deco monument honors the history of transportation next to Market Street, the citys last remaining brick street. A medicinal herb-inspired bench and metal sculpture pays tribute to former Asheville resident Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., the first woman in the United States to earn a medical degree. And these are but a few of the artistically inspiring and highly educational pieces of art along The Urban Trail.

The Urban Trail is often called Asheville’s “museum without walls,” and a must-see attraction that is very convenient to Asheville NC cabin rentals.

More information and tour reservations are available at 828.258.0710 x108 or online at www.ashevillearts.com/trail.php.