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I wanted to love this. I easily could have if it wasn't edited so choppily. The clips are rammed together so quickly I can barely follow. It's highly irritating and is a disservice to the content. Moving at a breakneck speed has its place, but a documentary about film isn't the place for it. For crying out loud let us savor what we're watching.

There was a time when to discover any thoughts on film you had to go to a book store and find a book by a director or actor or writer. Maybe you'd go to the nearest shop that sold movie mags and bought every single one, every month, religiously. Maybe you spent every single piece of currency you earned, or were given, on VHS rentals and later on DVD sales. Sometimes your choices of what to watch came from total chance, fate and luck. Maybe it was late night tv. You'd stumble upon something you loved, it spoke to you in a way that you felt nobody else understood and you realised you couldn't articulate those feelings. Now you could point at that film and say "That, that's how I feel". I realise that I am showing my age, for me this series was incredibly nostalgic. I understand that there is a lot of information that flys by. Use the pause button. Write down every single film and watch them all. Use the privilege of the internet and digital media. Before you criticize a few people's opinions on movies form your own opinions on them and learn to accept the differences there in. I'd imagine that's what the intention of the film makers was. Inspire the love they have for films in others. For me they succeeded.

Billed rather grandly as a series of video essays some offer genuine insite into movies and some are just an axe grinding excercise or a requiem for disfunctional childhoods. Skip the first episode. My favourites were episode 2 which examines revenge movies, episode 3 which looks at unlikeable protagonists and episode 5, a discussion of the difference between movies and TV. Episode 4 is about animation, so kid's stuff.

While decent in concept, I would rather hear from directors rather than critics because it all just kind of sounds like semi pretentious ramblings from a critic, heck I can get more nuanced thoughts from YouTuber film fans.

Didn't know much about this when looking through new Netflix content. Watching episode one, I enjoyed a Cinephile's musings, coupled with familiarity and shared experiences, such as the thrill of watching Jaws as a young girl. My interest picked up and I became tachycardia when in episode two I suddenly recognized a familiar voice... Could it be? Yes it could... TONY ZHAO!! From the still terrific "Every Frame a Painting" webseries along with his equally talented partner and co-creator of EFAP Taylor Ramos (who is a also a skilled animator), they now helm a new series continuing dialogue on cinema while also narrating two episodes, spanning 6 separate segments. An enjoyable and informative series of video essays on wide ranging topics. The topics are not always ones familiar to me, and the opinions differ from mine, which is why I enjoyed this so much--opens up my internal dialogue a bit and provides me with wider perspective.