Elaine Chung The opening minutes of a movie can be a make-it-or-break-it proposition. They’re like the first 50 pages of a novel. If the author hasn’t hooked you and reeled you in by then, well it’s time to move on to the next book on your nightstand. Of course, no one’s going to get up and walk out of a movie after ten minutes—not when they’ve already forked over fifteen bucks. But a less than great start puts a director at a disadvantage. He or she has to win you back. I keep a list of movies with perfect openings filed away in my head, from tried-and-true classics like