His blog is well-worth a read. He's a very funny man.
Welcome to the blogging challenge Day 2! Today, the topic is...Films!
Now, I imagine I go to the cinema more often than the average person - I have been 14 times this year so far, and if I could afford to I probably would have gone at least twice as many times. But I don't go to the cinema just for the expensive hot dogs, sweets and popcorn; no, unlike most cinema-goers - who go exclusively to pay for over-priced food - I love watching films. I'm so non-conformist.
My favourite films are ones where the plot twists and turns in such a well thought-out and interesting way that it feels like you're going to explode, simply due to your excitement at the intelligence of what you are watching. The Dark Knight, Fight Club, Donnie Darko; these are my top 3 films, and are films where I still think "shit, that's genius!" at multiple points of each, despite having seem them numerous times. I tend to love films with intricate plots; the type that leave many viewers confused. To be honest, part of my enjoyment of these films comes from being able to think "I was smart enough to follow/get that", but most of the enjoyment comes from being challenged to think by the art-form.
But what mostly determines why one chooses to watch a certain film at the cinema? The most obvious reason that springs to my mind is this: hype. Both hype generated by multi-million pound promotional tactics, and hype generated by extensive media coverage that a big Hollywood blockbuster gets if it is deemed by critics to be brilliant.
Other reasons include having actors who I like, and/or being a sequel to a film I enjoyed; needless to say, The Dark Knight Rises - the sequel to my favourite film - was my most anticipated film ever. It remains my most enjoyable cinema experience of the year - not to mention the fact I saw it in an IMAX, which was brilliant. I saw the film on opening weekend, and remember spending much of the day of the showing - and the day beforehand, in fact - just excitably saying "BATMAN! BATMAN! BATMAN!", because it was all I could do to express how much I was looking forward to the film.
However, while hype and promotion has led me to watch some incredible films this year - the aforementioned The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, and The Muppets to mention 3 of my favourites - I do regret not watching a wider range of films. I am a bit of a film geek - I frequent www.boxofficemojo.com on a daily basis, because I am interested in how much a film makes, how that compares to previous films in that genre, if the film makes a profit, if an actor reaches a new high in their career in terms of making money at the box office; the mix of two things I love - films and numbers - excites me, being the geek that I am.
But I can't help but draw what I consider to be disappointing correlations between the films I've watched this year. These are the films I have watched in 2012 at the cinema, in chronological order:
Arthur Christmas; $100m; British
The Muppets; $45; American
Wrath of the Titans; $150m; American
The Avengers; $220m; American
Men In Black 3; $215; American
The Amazing Spider-Man; $230m; American
The Dark Knight Rises; $250m; American
Ice Age 4; $95; American
Ted; $65m; American
Looper; $30m; American
Skyfall; $150m; British
As you can see, the vast majority of the films I have seen are massive-budget, American productions. Granted, this is partly because these are the ones that most people want to see, so they are more likely to be shown in a higher number of cinemas; I would have seen both both Plan B/Ben Drew's ill Manors (£100,000; British) and The Raid: Redemption ($1.8m, Indonesian) if they had been showing in my local Odeon, but sadly they opted to show a bloody re-release of Lion King in 3D instead. But even if I had seen those two, the majority would still be massive budget, American films. Not that I have anything intrinsically against American films, of course - the vast majority of the films above I enjoyed. *glares aggressively at Ted* It just seems a shame that there is a whole world of films being made, including many great ones in our own country, yet I - and most of my readers, I'll bet - always seem to gravitate towards ones made in Hollywood.
I think I will aim to see more
home-grown, low-budget cinema in 2013. If this means I have to travel to a niché 20
seat cinema in London to do so, then so be it.
Thanks for reading. Once again, I point you towards Amy's blog, to see what she writes about for day 2 of the blogging challenge. She works in a cinema, so this should probably be something of a forté for her, so I am sure she'll have some interesting points to make on the topic. I don't know if PDT is planning on doing a blog for today, but I do know that he doesn't like The Dark Knight - so if he does one, it should be at the very least "interesting". Probably wrong, too.
See you tomorrow.
Tom.
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