On Movies Again
I am very clearly running out of ideas to be dredging up one I’ve already written about here, but I’m going ahead with it for a few reasons. One, it’s my blog – fuck off, I’ll do what I like. (Yes, I swear now. I know, how risqué!). Second, I think I have something new to say about it now. This has been a realisation I mostly never came to, as a result of my spending such long stretches of time largely on my own. My zest for movies (obsession, if you want to be cruel and accurate about it) rose to prominence in this time, and became a feature of deciding how I wanted to spend time. I became almost religious about it, and realised something about the relationship that developed: I was way too precious about the whole process of watching a movie.
I could never browse through a streaming platform and, on a whim, put a film on and watch it. So let’s set the ground rules for my – ugh, fine¬ – obsession. First, I had to watch them at regular speed. This one may require some explanation. Over the past several years it has become the norm for me to, when watching any show, online video or yes, movie, to watch it at an accelerated speed; the norm levelled out at 2x, or 1.5x if I was showing some respect. That stops in this case. Each movie was to be treated with the veneration it deserved, which meant enduring through it at the speed its creators intended. Next, I have to watch a whole movie. I can’t stop and start, it has to be one sitting and with minimal or no interruptions. Third, the location. I had convinced myself that watching a movie in a cinema was the superior way to do so, which may be correct, but was something I concluded at the detriment of being able to enjoy films otherwise. I joined every student program at every cinema I could find, trying to get the best deals so as not to let this film fascination weigh so heavily on my bank account. It was usually unavoidable, but I saw this as doing my best.
And I was manic with the planning. I would obsess over films I wanted to see and fixate on the times. I got to the stage where I knew the walking distance between all the major cinemas I visited, the individual discrepancies between scheduled start times and actual start times, and would end up frenziedly trying to choreograph a routine to follow. It’s both encouraging to that manic me and discouraging to the me trying to break away from this tendency, but the system worked. I saw a ludicrous number of movies. Not that I should be proud of it, but I kind of am.
But back to the problem. I held such prestige for the cinema journey that I would hold off on watching anything on my own ‘in case’ I found a showing at a cinema. I was broken out of this system, thankfully, as a result of necessity, but also a better alternative. That better alternative was a day spent with friends watching crappy horror movies with friends. I’m no longer in a position, literally, where going to that many movies that often is an option, but I don’t want to give up on them. And when I say I “broke out” of the system, that may have been a lie. So, I will still go and see movies in cinemas when warranted. But it may be time to invest a few hours with my eyes glazed over on a sofa, too.