ScanCase (Level 33)

I love movies. I love all of them. I love The Dark Knight. I love Citizen Kane. I also 1994’s The Shadow. I also love 1997’s The Relic. I am a film buff. I don’t care what it is, I’ll watch it without a moments hesitation. I may genuinely enjoy it, I might like it ironically, I might hate it but I will never turn my nose up at a film because it’s been deemed a “lesser” film or a “Hollywood” film. And that’s what I’m trying to aim for here. This group of people that turn their noses up at film simply because it’s not in the French New Wave.

I went to a collage with an extensive film department and I naively thought that films buffs loved all film. What I quickly realized is that the term film buff is thrown around a little loosely. I found myself running into people that refused to go to the cineplex for the next big release and only went to special screenings of Hitchcock and Bergman films at a local indie theatre. And when I would bring up these new films in conversation I was instantly looked down upon for even considering seeing these movies. These people considered themselves films buffs but here’s the thing, they weren’t. They were film fans of a very certain type but they refuse to reveal in the true rainbow that makes up the film industry over the last century.

What really rubs me the wrong way here is this snobbish attitude that watching only Bergman films and forever discussing the intricate ways he tells narratives somehow makes you a superior person. Sure Bergman is great but I’ll take Corman as well. Hell I enjoy Michael Bay films as well as Orson Welles films. There is no right answer when it comes to movies. They express every part of culture in it’s entirety and to say that only a certain group of films should be thought of in an serious manner is to say that certain parts of that culture doesn’t exist and that’s sad to me.

That being said I just want to say that the label of film buff is of a much different kind of person. If your reading this that means you probable already agree with me and that’s why I love the Screened community. We love everything. Sure we may joke with each other about certain things the other likes but that’s only because we have something just as bad in our own catalogue. According to the people in my collage there is no reason I should ever like or ever watch 1998’s Lost in Space because it is an artistically corrupt, remake, big Hollywood production, using a popular star to make money. But goddamn if I don’t have a blast watching that movie.

So am I just insane or have I made a point you can cling on to?