IMDB’s home page today was touting a new movie called Evening which is apparently opening this weekend. From its description:

“As Ann Lord (Vanessa Redgrave) lies dying, with her daughters Constance (Natasha Richardson) and Nina (Toni Collette) at her bedside, she calls out the name of a man, Harris.”

I did not have to read any farther to be able to tell that I do not want to see this movie. We all have our different ways of judging books by their covers, and movies by their trailers, and quite often these little methods are reliable. There are some notable exceptions: most action movie trailers look a little on the ridiculous side, you have to be sensitive enough to pick up the little indicators of which of these will be even more stupid than they look, and which will turn out to be pretty good.

I believe the classic example may be The Matrix: I think most people were probably led astray by the obvious Keanu Reeves red herring, and most of us had to eat our words when the actual movie came out.

With the description of Evening, however, I have identified a genre of movies which I would not enjoy and have no interest in seeing. These are movies in which someone is dead or dying and their surviving relatives learn of some stupid short-lived romantic encounter which either Changed Everything or Failed to Change Everything in some painfully dull way. Examples of such movies which I have not seen include (in addition to the above example) The English Patient, The Bridges of Madison County, and Titanic. Reportedly, these exponents of the genre vary widely in their quality and themes, but I’m just not interested in seeing any of them. Ever.

So you won’t be seeing any reviews of these movies by me. Or, maybe you just did.