Talking Pictures

April 3, 2017
Washington Post film critic Hornaday’s new book gives the reader tools for watching films more intentionally and with more discerning taste. Breaking down a film into separate components—screenplay, acting, production design, cinematography, editing, sound and music, and direction—she emphasizes the importance of taking a critical perspective. In each section she poses several key questions for readers to ask themselves: in the screenplay section, “Did the story ‘want’ to be a movie?”, and under production design, “Are the colors helping to tell the story, or are they providing quote marks around emotions and information that are already perfectly clear?” For direction, “Whose eyes did we see the world through?” Together these highlight both the project’s value and its chief flaw: systematically evaluating films requires a toolset like the one Hornaday provides, but also a level of active engagement many viewers are not accustomed to. Further emphasis could have been placed on this challenge, though Hornaday does state, “The days of passive viewing are over.” Her philosophy is that nothing happens in filmmaking by accident, and so “the least the rest of us can do is notice.” Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, ICM/Sagalyn.

April 15, 2017
A film critic for the Washington Post offers advice on watching movies.Hornaday isn't the first to write a primer about critically assessing films instead of subjectively responding to them as simply good or bad. Avoiding critical jargon, she hopes to guide novice viewers into "appreciating movies more fully when they succeed, and for explaining their missteps when they fall short." She has conducted extensive interviews with film folk over the years, which adds an informed, insider's quality to her discussions. Hornaday smartly divides the book into seven sections: screenwriting, acting, production design, cinematography, editing, sound and music, and directing. Within each section, the author poses a number of questions that she then answers ("where was the camera and why was it there?"), giving the book an unfortunate textbook quality. The narrative is also heavily prescriptive. Hornaday is quick to give her likes and dislikes: "I've never loved the films of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu...credibility might be the chief problem." On acting, "the most fundamental element of cinematic grammar," she cites John Sayles: "casting the right actors is easily 90 percent of the [director's] job." But mistakes are made. Cameron Diaz was "fatally miscast" in The Gangs of New York. One of the stronger sections is production design, often overlooked by general moviegoers. It encompasses backdrops, locations, sets, props, costumes, hair, and makeup. Done well, writes the author, it establishes "the overall look of a film, the sense of richness, texture, and detail." In the cinematography section, Hornaday confesses that one of the "few things I truly despise in life...[is] 3-D." She was "awed" by Sandra Adair's editing work in Boyhood; Raging Bull and GoodFellas are "masterpieces of editing and rhythm." The section on sound and music is also good, the one on directing poor, and because the author's picks are very American-centric, the book's scope is limited. If uninspiring, this is a user-friendly, nonintimidating guide to appreciating movies.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2017
Hornaday, a film critic at the Washington Post, breaks movies into their component parts and identifies what critics and audiences look forthe elements that distinguish good movies from bad. The book is broken into seven sections: screenplay, acting, production design, cinematography, editing, sound and music, and directing. How much does a screenplay determine the final look and feel of a movie (you might be surprised)? How much can a miscast actor affect the success of a film? Does a movie have a fresh look, or does it feel like a rehash of things we've seen before? Is the editing choppy and incoherent, or do the images and scenes flow together naturally? How does a director stage a scene? Does he move the camera because the scene demands it or because he's being showy (beware, Hornaday says, of scenes in which the camera tracks endless circles around two people who are simply talking)? A successful movie, she concludes, is a combination of many elements working harmoniously. A master class in filmmaking and a celebration of why we love the movies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)