Ann Hornaday is the chief film critic for the Washington Post. In new her book "Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies," she unpacks how she watches movies as a film critic.
The book is like a how-to guide for casual moviegoers who want to understand what makes a good movie a good movie.
Hornaday shared some of the things she pays attention to while watching a film.
Writing
The best writing is about subtext rather than explicitly saying what's happening, Hornaday said.
One of Hornaday’s favorite film writers is Kenneth Lonergan.
The film "You Can Count On Me," which Lonergan wrote and directed, is focused on the relationship between a brother and sister. It’s a modest movie production-wise, "so the writing really does shine," Hornaday said.
Lonergan won an Oscar for his most recent project, "Manchester by the Sea."
"Nothing is on the nose. He really leaves it to the viewer to figure out what’s going on between people while they’re talking about defrosting a freezer or finding the keys to the car. It’s just simmering with so much drama and unresolved issues," she said.
Story > Plot
Plot "is when things feel mechanical, (like), 'Oh, they need to have a conflict here, so boom — I’ll just bring in some kind of plot device that either splits the couple up if it’s a romance, or make the two cops fight if it’s a buddy cop comedy.' It feels kind of cobbled together from preordained things that the writer might have read in a how-to screenplay book or something," Hornaday said.
"A story is really about people. A story is emotional," she said.
"Wonder Woman" was very focused on story until the end, when it devolved into a "generic, fill-in-the-blank, kind of check-all-the-boxes action scene that could’ve been seen in any movie," she said.
"The character was very well-grounded. You understood exactly where she was coming from and why she was doing what she was doing," Hornaday said.
Acting
"Really at the end of the day, it’s the actors who matter the most," Hornaday said.
What makes an actor good? Part of it is enigmatic; some actors just shine.
"There’s just a certain relationship some actors have with the camera that is magic and you can’t quantify it, and you can’t account for it," Hornaday said.
She gave the example of Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate."
Hoffman was "the most counterintuitive choice for that role," Hornaday said. And the director, Mike Nichols, feared he’d made the wrong choice as he watched Hoffman acting. Then Nichols saw the result, "and it was great," Hornaday said.
There’s also a definable aspect to good acting, what Hornaday called "transparency."
"It has something to do with being expressive enough that the audience can kind of read you, but then withholding enough that we want to know more," she said.
Hornaday pointed to Robert DeNiro, "who is so galvanizing and can be so electrifying on screen, but he always holds a little thing back. It’s just being alive in the moment. It’s knowing exactly what that character would do at that particular time," she said.
Cinematography
Cinematography — the actual mechanics of how a shot is taken, how the camera moves and where it points — "is hugely important," Hornaday said.
She gave the example of "All The President’s Men." In the scene where Robert Redford’s character is trying to figure out why $25,000 meant to help re-elect Nixon ended up in a Watergate burglar’s bank account, the camera slowly zoomz into Redford’s face as the tension mounts, all the while giving the audience a really detailed view of what’s happening in the background.
"He’s infusing what would otherwise be just a static shot of a guy on a phone with information, tension, emotion and propulsion, all through just the camera, where it is and how it moves," she said.