Friday 9 November 2012

I Am Not Watching Movies And I Am Okay With It

I go through spells of not watching any movies, and I kind of like it. If you're not careful - watching films becomes something done out of duty rather than passion - especially when you work in the industry, or write a film blog, or both. And there's just no fun in that. 

Truth be told, I haven't seen 'Argo', or 'Looper', or 'Skyfall', or 'Rust & Bone'. I'm behind. But so what? Right now I'm loving books, and news articles, and music. I've always had this pattern, it's a natural thing, where my interests dive into different areas for short periods of time. It's usually really intense. I won't read a book in a year, then I'll read nine in six days. That's how I am, and I like it that way. 

But I don't always allow myself to be like that. Because I have this identity, as the 'film guy'. I'm not sure if other people pushed it upon me, or if I claimed it for myself. Indeed, there's something cool about being the guy people turn to if they need an opinion or, dare I say, some expertise regarding films. 

But these ways in which we identify ourselves, they're not really real. It's just a tag we wear. And actually, it can be extremely limiting. 

When I was a kid, I used to love books about crime, and aliens, and monsters. But somewhere growing up, I told myself I don't like those stories. But you know what? I kind of really do, it's just buried deep inside of me. My tastes skewed towards classic Hollywood, modern indie films, and world cinema. And I really do love those things; but I also over-identify with them a little too much sometimes, as if it means something. As if it's who I am. 

I kind of blame the blog. It adds more pressure. It shouldn't do. A blog is just a blog. But again; you start to over-identify with what you're doing. See yourself as the indie film blogger guy. The one with the slightly off mainstream opinion on things. But what is that? It's just some made up self-perception that means very little. 

We are who we are and sometimes I just wanna sit in my room for six hours and watch 'Ally Mcbeal' episodes. I never let myself do that; because it seems wasteful, or girly, or something else; I can never put my finger on it. But actually, sometimes that's really what I want to do. A voice in me says "watch eight Billy Wilder movies then write an epic article about them," or "read ten screenplays, they'll help you with your scripts and then they'll help you come up with something really interesting for the blog...." -- but it's not a voice of passion, it's just this crazy nutbag inside of me who pushes me to keep to this identity; the film guy persona. 

But no, tonight I just want to watch a bunch of Ally Mcbeal episodes, and then read a good book. The movies will still be there a day, week or month from now. 

Care to share?

6 comments:

  1. All of those movies you mentioned? The beauty of them is that they'll all be there waiting for you to be good & ready to watch them.

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    1. Indeed Ryan. That's why I'm glad my passion it's for the stage. If I miss a show, I'd miss it for good!

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  2. First off, I want to say I found you and this blog of yours through your guest post 'finding your niche' on Problogger. Which is awesome, because A) I probably needed the input, B) I love film and needed to find a good movie blog to read, and ultimately (probably most importantly) C) this here was probably a message I needed to hear right now. I just recently started blogging, and I've been feverishly writing as much as I could, while at the same time reading and learning as much as possible about how to run a GOOD blog, and finally today I just crapped out. I'm not even sure where my interests lie at the moment, but it isn't with blogging. So, in other words, Thank God this is normal! I guess it's like Sol, the character from Pi, said "You need a break, you have to take a bath or you will get nowhere."

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    1. Hey Kevin, really glad you found your way here. Blogging is a great thing, but when we pressure ourselves too much, it stops being enjoyable. So don't pressure yourself; don't force it; and if the passion returns, you're meant to blog. If not, you'll find a different way of expressing yourself.

      Thanks again, and I hope you stick around.

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  3. I have no idea why but for some reason, lately, I've found it hard to focus on regular movies, so I've been binging on documentaries. For some reason, I can never get tired of documentaries.

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  4. I've also been going through this phase recently and haven't been the theater much at all in the past few months. I've been keeping up with a few movies for the blog, but have missed Argo, Lincoln, and some of the other big ones this fall. Like Ryan says, they're not going anywhere. The big challenge of keeping it fun versus being an obligation is something I've struggled with a lot lately.

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