Opening scenes: How does the director draw you into the movie from the very beginning?
Introduction of characters: How and when does the audience meet the movie's protagonist? What did the director decide to initially reveal about this character that would influence the audience's first impression?
Hey now! Waaaaait a second here. Look, film is a collaborative medium, and a good director and good actors are critical to the success of any movie. In fact, without actors and directors (and many, many others) you have NO movie. But let's take a wee step back and remember that there's a WRITER involved here who spent a lot of time thinking about what gets revealed when and how the audience gets drawn in at the start and, well, pretty much everything. The assumption that it's the director... particularly in an article geared for writers... is kinda flummoxing to me. Certainly one would expect a good picture book author to write while thinking about making a good picture book. That's what screenwriters do, too -- craft a 'blueprint' for a work that's going to be more than just about the words.
But then as my wise friend Lee noted to me, lots of folks are in the dark about the whole movie making process. So let me go to the beginning -- somebody WROTE THAT. If you ever read Robert Towne's script of Chinatown, for example, you'll see how much care was given to every element of the story, the characterizations, the choices of what to reveal and when. Is the movie brilliantly directed and acted, making it even more compelling than the script alone because of what the other talents bring to it? Absolutely! But without the writer, no one's got anything to make better.
So, I agree that you can learn a lot from watching good movies. But when you're watching something in order to become a better writer, it sure seems to me that you might wanna think about the writing, too!