Resolution 2017: The Silver Screen

My resolution this year probably made a whole lot of people shake their head in despair.  She’s resolved to do what?  See twelve spec fic movies? I admit it sounds ridiculously easy, but for someone who’s averaged maybe three movies a year for the last oh say, twenty….  You can see that I’ve got some new habits to form.

So why don’t I see movies?

A lot of reasons: some good, some bad, some lazy, some bio-chemical.  Theaters are too “too” for me: too loud, too crowded, too cold, too much. I can’t sit still for very long. My attention wanders. Hell, my attention gallops given the slightest provocation or slow-down. Any movie over 90 minutes is going to have me out roaming the theater looking for something else to do.

I don’t like “heart-wrenching” movies; if I want to have my heart savaged, I’ll read a book. A sad movie will wreck me. Even when I know I’m being emotionally manipulated, I can slide into the dumps. The Talented Mr. Ripley gave me a sadness hangover that lasted for a week.  So action movies it is!

I want the spectacle, the action, the summer-blockbusters with the perfunctory plot.  But under 90 minutes please. And too much spectacle and flashy screens give me migraines. Movies set in the dark?  Can’t even see ‘em.

Movies these days seem to be very long spectacles, full of 3D (just WHY?), or “better” movies that are equally long, but 3D free. I generally gave up on movie theaters.

Even at home, the same things apply.  I can always think of other things I should be doing, and then try to do them while watching the movie, but then I have to stop and rewind repeatedly. Or I just wander off, leaving the movie playing. I’ve lost more iTunes rentals that way — starting the movie, then stopping it and not getting back to it before the rental expires.

So why even resolve to watch movies?

The thing is this: people don’t watch the same shows now. Even if they like the same types of things, there is just too much television. I watch Netflix, my coworkers watch hulu, or cable, or network tv, or Amazon prime, or HBO on Demand.  We don’t watch the same things, and we don’t watch them at the same time.  I miss the chatter.  I’m old enough to remember when you watched the same show at the same time as your coworkers or friends and talked about it the next day.

Now, that type of chatter comes primarily from movies.

There you have it: my resolution to watch more movies has no noble goal, no realization that hey there’s really good art being done these days. Pssh. Art. I just want to know what people are talking about.

Hence my rules for this movie resolution.

1. It must be spec-fic. For review here on Spec-Chic and for myself. I just prefer it.
2. For the most part, the movie must be popular spec-fic.  Something people around me have been talking about.
3. I have to see at least a third of them in the theater, for the truest “in the moment” connection.

That’s about it.  For my own satisfaction, I’m going to try to get a mixture of spec-fic in play.  Fantasy, SF, maybe some horror.  I’ll be watching the movies toward the end of the month, so the discussion will take place in the following month.

I’ve got the first six months picked out (January, I should note, was obviously Resident Evil: The Final Chapter).

February: The Martian

March: Live. Die. Repeat.

April: Sleight (assuming it comes to my local theater) April Alternate: Kubo and The Two Strings

May: Mad Max: Fury Road

June: Wonder Woman (Please be good, please be good, please be good.)

July: Valerian & the City of a Thousand Planets

I’ll talk about why I chose each movie, why I didn’t go see it (if it’s an older movie), what made me go see it if it’s a new release, and how each viewing went.  So tomorrow afternoon, come see what I thought of The Martian, and poor Mark Watney stranded on Mars.