I'm a fan of "Watch. Read. Watch again." A great method not only for classics, but also for tricky/clever movies ... or some faves. Did this with THE SIXTH SENSE, MEMENTO, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, INCEPTION, THE SPANISH PRISONER, VANILLA SKY and tons more, and it's such a fab learning tool.

[…] First off, you are both fortunate and unfortunate not to have seen a “number of great films.” Unfortunate because you do not have the collective experience of having seen all those great cinematic stories to have fed your mind, body and soul. Besides on a practical level, you absolutely need to watch as many movies as you can, especially great ones, because every conversation about story development in Hollywood references movies over and over and over again. …read more […]

Scott, What do you need in order to do well in these meetings? In my limited experience, the executives really didn't reference movies that much....one asked me if I were going to say in a poster what the movie was, how would I sell it. I think I have seen most of the classic movies, top 250 movies and classic directors, but have not seen some of the more arcane stuff that Tarantino references. For instance, he'll talk about blaxploitation movies and while I've seen the major ones, he's whipping out extremely low budget stuff even more obscure than Super Fly (terrible movie). There might be some classic movie or film that I might have missed and wonder if I don't know it in a meeting, if that would come out as a negative. As for the script vs. movie thing, it's a much bigger dilemma, especially for movies that involve a big twist. That genie can only be let out of the bottle once, so if you've seen the movie first, you might see the genius of the script that pulls you along the way and fools you. If it's a spectacle movie or something I've been looking forward to like Indiana Jones, I'd wait for the movie.