johnny_mauds (Level 8)

There isn't anything more pleasing than sitting back and being enthralled start to finish by Mean Girls. Then washing it down with a healthy dose of Mortal Kombat. There's something magical when transporting between the real world (mean girls), and the fantasy (mortal kombat). One, you gain an appreciation for the small things in life, like Lindsay Lohan pre DUI, and then you learn the subtle art of a punch to the nuts, Johnny Cage style. Throw in a mosaic of too thin teens, and a four armed monster writhing in pain, and you've got my dream day.  
 
Now leaving the realm of trash we can enter into why I truly love movies. Some movies can move you to tears, hello King Kong, The Last Samurai, and Legally Blonde. Others move you to laugh, like Step Brothers, Semi Pro and Bewitched. Still others evoke feelings of confusion, welcome to eXistenZ, jump into the Matrix, and escape Guantanamo Bay. This diversity is what allows movies to be loved and hated. It can have you on one side of a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings dispute, but at the end of the day, you all hate Twilight. True that is more of a literary throw down, but who reads any more? I shall meekly raise my hand, but I shall be out numbered by those with a hearty roar of approval, books are for losers, and prison.  
 
Whether it is the traumatic, Blood In/ Blood Out as a six year old is not good. Or the life changing, I'll be a shill and say Avatar changed my definition of visual excellence. There remains something untapped in movies that hopefully will be rectified in time, and that is a sense of legacy. We have so many directors, so many studios, that we cease to connect with singular people or entities any more, and in this age of digital viewing, you can literally watch movies 24/7 and you'll never watch them all. This is what is fascinating, and what makes movie watching a hazardous hobby. Because for every film like The Ruins, Cabin Fever, and a plethora of other crappy thrillers, you can find those Nightmare on Elm Street's or Halloween's. Sure they are hokey, but at least they do what they intend to do. Which is to scare the shit out of you, and you enjoy it. But this only scratches the western surface. 
 
Japanese cinema delves into the deepest of psychological horror's, like Ichi the Killer, or Old Boy, or the ever affluent anime industry, producing bountiful digital delights. Then you have all the other nations in the world, with their own identity, their own purpose. Not all movies are churned by the Hollywood mill, and to extend yourself beyond that is something to desire. Whether its a Norwegian story of WWII resistance, as in Max Manus, or the depiction of the slum life in Brazil, like City of God, you can have evidence of the variety of perceptions that exist for different nationalities, different people. When you see people flock out of the theatre when the subtitles come on, or the laugh of derision at the emotions of a character losing a child, you can only conclude that if people took an effort to expand their minds with worth while film, the world could be a better place. But I'm no hypocrite, so I cannot say that I truly "dislike" movies like Tropic Thunder or Gamer, I can never say I fully appreciate them, which is what really matters. For once you get an inkling of inspirational cinema it gets harder and harder to shut your brain off for those movies that require it.  
  
So at the end of the day movies are what we make of them, and my own preferences shall not trump another's, for too many think they have the supreme collection, or the definitive list of the "best of the best". I'll just stick to watching them, making note of the ones that matter, filing away the ones with filler potential, and discarding those that bore me. This is the wonderful world of movies.  
 
*Find sarcasm at your own peril. And mine.