“The only thing missing from the vast majority of movies made in the past 100 years is the Idea. A Shakespearean play, even one that was sensationalist, was full of ideas and concepts; it reveled in the thinking man. Hollywood has missed the boat when it comes to presenting ideas. There are no deeper thoughts in today’s world of cinema, only pretty images that glide together like drifting pink cotton candy on an Impressionistic stream.” — Greg Nikolic

There are films that draw us out of ourselves, social experiences that unite us as we sit in silence with others popping popcorn. The reviewer puts his words on paper or on the virtual screen. He has selected the one that means the most to him, and we feel his emotional resonance through his writing.

It is a text not only riven with emotion, but is light on its feet, like a dream in motion. The core meaning — usually seen only in retrospect, when the lights go back on — is superloaded by our own mental world after time is restarted in the alleyways of the movie theater, notably the upper levels where the movie screens reside.

What is this timeless moment that passes between commencement of the film and its tape-flickering ending when the reels unwind fully? Where goes the heart and the mind during the visual celebration on which the audience all depends?

These questions can only be answered by peering into the black waters of the Greek river of forgetfulness. Kneel by the streamside and drink deeply of it. It will purge your conscious mind of doubts, allow the subliminal messages of the film to spring free.

The music that undergirds movies is their emotional heart: soundtracks come to life like lovely birds as audiences shiver and bob forward and back and take shelter in the sonic ambience.

This music is a counterpart to the images and ideas aswirl on the big screen. Nobody can say where a soundscape begins and the movie ends when the two are seamlessly merged.

The bars of music that are played, strung out like a drug on overkill, come back around like a circling car in a hostile night environment, headlights of intensity playing across our helpless souls as the movie unwinds. This is the meaning of life: this is the chaotic entree of the Sandman.

We stumble out of the movie theater uncertain on our feet, convinced that what we had seen is a dream, hopeful about our own existences despite that sureness. The world of the movie has connected. Feeling a kind of euphoria, pleasantly reeling from the experience, we go on with our lives in a flurry of good feelings. That is what a fine movie does for oneself.