As a cinephile I have studied films since around the age of 15; longer if you include my own thoughts and feelings before I undertook my first media studies lesson. It was pretty early in life that I realised I was never going to be an actor or musician as I suffered from a terminal lack of talent. What I could do however was watch Terminator 2: Judgement Day five times in one week and not get bored. There are many people on a par with me on their knowledge of cinema. But not as many as you may think. I know hundreds of people who say they love Tarantino and have seen the Dark Knight more times than they've had sex (a statement I do not doubt for a second) but if you ask them about camera angles or the background behind films or (most importantly) why certain films were made and how that relates to the cultural situations of the day they look at you with a dumbstruck face before declaring 'yeah films are meant to be fun dickhead' and going off to play with their Avengers toy of Black Widow whose cat suit won't undo below the neck no matter how hard they try.
They're right of course in many respects. Cinema and films are meant to be fun. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of comedies and dumb action films but I'm also interested in the bigger picture. There is a reason why Amour didn't have a gag reel. There is a reason why the first Iron Man had Tony Stark being imprisoned by terrorists. There is a reason why the muscle bound action stars (Stallone and Schwarzenegger) only exist in parody movies like The Expendables these days and why it has become acceptable for every rapper to assume they will make a brilliant Oscar winning actor. These things are not necessarily what people should be thinking about when they watch a movie for the first time. But if you have a favourite 3 or 4 flicks then it's interesting to know how and why it got made and the meanings behind the camera isn't it?
I recently wrote a top 50 list of directors working today and it caught the eye of some guys who wrote a film website. They asked me to produce a weekly column for them on anything I wanted. They had also seen a piece I wrote looking back on the classic British film Trainspotting and suggested I did more of the same; essentially writing about a different film each week, dissecting it and providing an interesting and yet (hopefully) funny analysis every 7 days. I agreed as I could probably do this in my sleep. But then I started having second thoughts. I know from my experience of looking online that no matter what opinion you have on peoples favourite films everyone will inevitably call you a twat and disagree with you. I couldn't be bothered with that sort of abuse. Besides these trollers aren't the sort of people I am looking to write for. I want to write for the ordinary person at home on a Tuesday night with nothing to watch. I want them to pick up a copy of the latest Werner Herzog movie rather than watch Dancing on Ice or whatever other shite is on. A film lasts around 2 hours and many people say they don't have enough time to watch one in an evening. Yet they will happily watch 2 soaps, a gameshow, a reality TV show and then repeats of Friends for around 4 hours a night.
And this is the problem. The level of entertainment available to us today is staggering. There is no way to watch even 1/400 of it without being unemployed and never sleeping, eating, having sex or using the toilet. The cinema essentially shows whatever film Marvel are promoting, some lame American comedy, a kids animation and a biopic starring whoever is going to win an Oscar this year. I want people to revisit the classics of old and remember that there are movies out there that can change your life and we should be seeking them out. With the advent of Netflix, LoveFilm, DVDs that cost £1 in second hand shops and of course (Il)legal downloading we can find any movie we want to watch in a matter of seconds.
So here's the gist. Every week I will be writing an article about a film. Then at the end I will recommend a bunch of other movies you should watch if you liked it. I will also put the title of the movie I will be discussing the following week. This gives everyone a week to download, stream, dig out, buy, borrow or steal a copy so we are all on the same page for the following weeks article. It is not my hope that people tell me I know fuck all about the true meaning of Taxi Driver or that Memento is an overrated pile of shit. I merely hope to interest people in watching films they wouldn't normally watch and to make them see how important in our lives and popular culture these films can be.
So hopefully that is enough to get you on board wherever you are reading this. The first film I will be writing about next Wednesday is (drum roll please)
BLADE RUNNER
One of the most ground breaking and influential films of the last 40 years Blade Runner is a classic and also a nice well known film to start off with. Some of you may have already seen it and are now thinking 'fuck this.' That's fair enough. For the rest of you even half interested then go seek out your copy of the Harrison Ford classic and give it another whirl (seriously, when was the last time you watched it?). I'll see you back here the same time next week.
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Tom Eydmann is a blogger, writer, icon and will be back next week. He doesn't have a website because he doesn't know how
Follow him on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/#!/DrTommyT25
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