It worries me that I don't see as many movies as I used to and that I'm too lazy to watch the good stuff. I have no attention-span and no ability to deal with depressing topics.
It seems I'm not alone. Each week, no matter what the quality, whatever is new rents in the video store I call home.
Reviewing and recommending films has worn me down. I have seen so many bad movies, I need new adjectives for the drivelly-dross I'm forced to describe. I wish I didn't know Leslie Nielsen was still making movies ('Stan Helsing'!!) or that as Val Kilmer puts on weight, so the number of direct-to-DVD movies he stars in increases.
Scene: my first video store shift many moons ago
Customer: “What can you recommend that's really good?”
Very Naïve Me: “Well, 'Unforgiven' has been popular and I enjoyed 'A Heart in Winter'. Is that the kind of thing you're after?
Customer: “It's down to 'Boomerang' or 'Sister Act'?
VNM: “Oh.”
(My approach is now quite different!)
Even more moons ago when I was at school, I tried to average a film a day. I had a chart to document it all. Highlight the title if I'd seen it before, stars for Oscars, other shapes for 4 star reviews. I cried with joy at seeing movies I'd long wished to watch. (I was very young.)
I saw so many magnificent and significant things that deepened my knowledge of the world. Foreign documentaries, retrospectives, Bill Collins festivals. So many classics helped me at school and university too.
In the last month I've seen quality fare like 'Did You Hear About the Morgans?” and I've cried in episodes of 'How I Met Your Mother'.
When does film fervour come back?
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