How To Watch Movies Like A Film Critic

Whether you love American Fiction, Barbie, Oppenheimer, or Past Lives — or their creators and stars — the 96th Academy Awards offer a chance to root for your favorite nominees.

But the Oscars can also be an opportunity to discover films that aren’t as well-known, or that haven’t piqued your interest.

Ahead of the Oscars ceremony this Sunday, LAist reached out to film critic Carlos Aguilar. He grew up in Mexico City and Southeast L.A. and studied film production at Pasadena City College. After earning a Roger Ebert fellowship, he’s gone on to write for outlets like Rolling Stone, Variety, and the New York Times.

Here are his thoughts on how to expand your movie palate:

(This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Find what speaks to you

LAist: You likely watch dozens, maybe hundreds, of movies every year. How do you approach watching a film, especially when it’s not something you’re interested in?

Aguilar: In a sense, the films I'm not already interested in can offer the most exciting experience. Those are the ones that could turn into a great discovery.

But, for example, if we are talking about a franchise film or a major release that is going to have dozens of people writing about it, I try to focus on the details or scenes that speak to me, and I write about the film using those specific elements as my point of departure. That way, I can perhaps write something that doesn't feel generic but rather unique to my point of view.

Of course, there are films that are so slim in terms of ideas or formal experimentation. Those are sometimes the most difficult movies to write about because they mostly evoke indifference, not even a strong negative reaction.

The plot is just one part

When it comes to evaluating films, do you have any advice for the average moviegoer?

We often focus solely on the plot, on what is happening in the story, and can lose sight of cinema as a medium that utilizes image and sound to evoke a certain emotion or experience. I would say: Try to observe what the filmmaker is doing with the cinematography.

Ask yourself: Why is a certain scene shot a certain way? What are they doing with the sound or the music, or lack thereof? Even if you don't arrive at an answer, you can try to notice how those choices make you feel or how they affect the way you are experiencing the film.

Try a film class

At Pasadena City College, you learned about the craft of filmmaking. Did this experience shape your approach to film criticism? 

My time at PCC opened me to the world of cinema through the people I met. I'll give you an example: When I first attended PCC, I had no idea what the Criterion Collection was. I was an avid movie watcher already, and I was watching films from around the world; but it wasn't until a classmate in one of my film production classes told me about it that I learned there was this company that creates beautiful editions of some of the world's greatest films.

Learning new terms in my film production classes also expanded my appreciation of cinema. One example is the concept of “diagetic sound” in a movie. These are the sounds that exist within the world of the story, like a song that a character listens to on the radio. While I may have vaguely known that there are different types of sounds in movies, I didn't have the language to describe them.