Here's what I like

Since I've started writing screenplays I've given some thought to what I look for in a film. What sort of ropes me in and keeps me interested enough to sit and watch the whole thing. I do have a pretty good idea. Rather than explaining it, I thought I'd use an illustrative example, involving what is (in my opinion) the greatest film in cinematic history--Alien. If you haven't seen it you may not understand this, so I advise you to watch it right now and come back when the closing credits have finished rolling. I won't be going anywhere.

It opens like a pretty standard scifi flick, a spaceship, the Nostromo, in space, and we are told it's towing a refinery on its way back to earth. Sort of interesting but we'd seen that before--just enough visual stuff going on to keep me interested a little longer.

Cut to the inside of the ship. Something's going on--we don't see any people anywhere and the on-board computer comes to life, like it's receiving some sort of command or something, and we move around in the corridors to the chamber where the crew is being thawed out from their sleep. We learn something from this little foray through the corridors--this place is a dump. It's not the clean, shiny Universe of Star Wars. It's a lived-in place, old, with repairs probably being put off as long as possible for budgetary reasons. This is very interesting, to me--this looks like a real ship, now. Deep down inside, the part of me that watches movies has forgotten that this is a series of sets--it has become an actual ship, due to a detail like that.

Once the crew awakens we get to know them, too, and many of them are quite likeable, if a bit rough around the edges. So, I'm now invested in this thing, at least for now. I find the setting intriguing. I like the characters. I want to see what's going to happen next.

Not much actually happens for most of the first act of this movie, but you don't even notice that because the world of the film is so interesting. Every scene, every line, reveals a little more.

Then, they land on LV426 to investigate a signal from an alien beacon, and all hell breaks loose.

A lot of information is front-loaded in this film, things you need to know in order to appreciate the plot--the company that owns the Nostromo is treated with suspicion by the crew, and one gets the impression that their employer doesn't worry too much about breaking eggs when making omelets. It turns out, actually, that the company had a pretty good idea what was waiting for them on LV426 and deliberately sent them there so they could obtain a specimen of an alien life form for study. The crew was expendable, and believe me, most of them were expended.

Anyways, by the time things actually start happening we're primed and ready for the ride that is the last couple of acts.

It's the pacing of this thing that is so remarkable, that is so dead solid perfect. It starts out slow but it doesn't bore--the interest moves from the setting and the characters to the alien creature that is grabbing them one-by-one and carrying them off to do who-knows-what to them (and for more info on that score, check out the director's cut, which has a famous scene in it that was cut from the cinematic release that shows exactly what happened to Dallas and Brett). So, we have interesting characters, in an interesting setting, and now we've introduced an extremely hostile antagonist to chase them around. You get roped in, almost before realizing it, and you're in for the ride. Yes, it's basically a haunted house story, but with a twist--the kids won't leave the house because they can't.

Contrast this with the traditional cold opening of a James Bond movie, which I've never been able to get into--a car chase that seems to go on for hours. I find something like that overwhelming and usually lose interest pretty quickly and tune it out. Too much, too soon. Though I've tried quite a few times I've never been able to watch a Bond flick all the way through.

I hope all this makes sense. It's one of those things I find hard to explain, but it's a pretty simple concept. Watch Alien with this in mind. See the director's cut. Even if you emerge at the end still wondering what the hell I'm talking about, you will have at least seen a damned good film.

Sleep well.