Watchability

The group (sans Nathan) hanging out at the radio station.

A long time ago, 6 or 7 years ago now, our interesting little group came together over a series of random coincidences. In the summer of 2006 various paths and life decisions lead us all together and to the first media-based gig we could get our hands on: a local radio show. We had no idea what we were doing, so mostly we just played music and listened to ourselves talk on the air. But we were also all really into movies, so what we always inevitably went back to was some sort of movie discussion. And one of the best things we found to fill the time was top 5 lists. We'd come up with categories for this and that, and casually made our lists over the air. It wasn't ever a big deal except for one thing: in our discussions, we created a basis for our movie rankings. This would be fine-tuned over the years, but one of our proudest moments was coining a certain word and knowing that this one word defined everything we loved about movies. It would become the backbone to which all other movies were judged. It reminded us that entertainment trumped all, and even though some critics out there want to tell you otherwise, this was why we were watching movies.

That's right folks, the word in question here is "Watchability". This word would become our "Citizen Kane" to the movie world. It was a game changer. No more were we going to let pretentious critics bully us around and tell us why something wasn't good enough. We knew the movies you were supposed to like and the ones that were deemed unworthy. But we quickly realized that there was plenty to take away from these "lesser movies". If we enjoyed something, we shouldn't be afraid to say so. And we didn't think anyone else should either. After that, it became a goal of ours to get word out on this; to become a "critic" for the everyman.

Basically, we define "Watchability" as this: The ability for a movie to be re-watched a certain amount of times and not lose its effectiveness; how easy it is to pop something in and enjoy it whenever you want. (i.e. "Gone With the Wind" is technically a very good movie. But it's long and boring. I'm not wanting to pop that in and watch it everyday. But something like, say, "Hook" has a great watchability rate, and thus ranks much higher in this aspect, and should be rewarded as such). Movies that I'm going to continue to watch throughout my life garner more appreciation from me than something I can respect but then for all intents and purposes won't ever watch again. This is something severely lacking in the movie world and we're here to make it right.

So there you have it, world. Slackers Selection Productions' very own "Watchability". You read it here first. Feel free to use it and aid you in your future movie analyses. Hopefully it can help you as much as it's helped us.