I have a favorite video store and I just have to get in there and browse through their stuff. My friends do occasionally try to stop me so I just tell them to hang out somewhere and I go in the store anyway. Sometimes they come in and look around. Occasionally the store manages to catch up with my speed and has some promising movies I haven’t seen. When my friends ask why I pick on particular movie I give a simple answer like: “Oh, Christian Slater is in it! Can’t believe I haven’t seen this one before”. Or “it has Hugh Jackman! ” “you wouldn’t know him- but James Spader is a great actor.” One time one of my friends went: “What? You pick the movie according to the actor?” And I said yeah. I know he thought I was just being superficial and picked the movies where the leads are hot but I really didn’t bother correcting a guy whose favorite actress is Megan Fox.

A movie consists of many elements. It has the behind the scenes crew, the actors, the story…I always read the plot summary before I buy a movie but that’s hardly enough. This is the year 2009 and so many movies have been made that complete/partial originality is almost a luxury. I can follow a director but a director usually favors a genre and there are hardly many directors out there whose most work I enjoy. I mean I don’t like Quentin Tarantiono or Oliver Stone. I only liked one movie by Stone so far. I am not a fan of Brian De Palma and I like half of Spielberg’s work but I am not sure he mixes personal with entertainment well. I love Richard Donner- the guy directed a lot of my favorite Mel Gibson movies. Since directors usually shoot less movies than a famous actor appears in on average, it is statistically better to follow an actor if you like his movies. The style varies yet there is a possibility that you will enjoy his choices.
For the 90s and up until his “I- love- directing- so -much -more”- phase, Mel Gibson was a great choice. He did drama,thriller, romance,action,epic, adaptation and he did them all well. The 90s have great actors in that sense: Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Christian Slater… Keanu Reeves still makes good movies, and a recent fav. of mine is Gerard Butler. As for actresses, Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock have made some great movies, as well as Nicole Kidman. See how many movies it made in total? If you know the actors’ work, why not choose according to the cast?