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A Film A Day and other mental magic | |
January 16th, 2020 | |
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In the early days of the web I had a site called A Film A Day. | |
Why, oh, why, did the Internet Archive fail to archive it, I shall | |
never know. For about 5 years I kept up a practice of watching (on | |
average) one film per day and reviewing it. Of course I didn't | |
watch something every single day, so I'd bank by watching a few on | |
the weekends and so on. The important part wasn't getting my | |
yearly quota, though. I was on a mission to prove a point in an | |
argument I'd had at a diner. | |
Every movie is a | |
five star movie | |
if you watch it | |
the right way. | |
That was my angle, you see. My reviews weren't about giving | |
ratings to the films. It was all about figuring out how to watch | |
them to get the most enjoyment. I managed it, too! with a few | |
notable exceptions (no one can get 5 stars from Battlefield | |
Earth). | |
You need an example? Let's take the unfortunate film, Alien Vs. | |
Predator. What should have been a bloody affair was hamstrung by | |
a PG-13 rating and a setting so isolated in the arctic that | |
nothing really felt at stake. But... twist it in your mind and let | |
it become the greatest video game trailer of all time and entire | |
story now has purpose and drive. | |
Sometimes that's all it takes. Just tweak your mind a little bit | |
and see things from another angle and it's awesome! Other times it | |
takes much more work. | |
I've been thinking on the Star Wars films and how I might approach | |
them so they're enjoyable. I think the best angle might be through | |
compassion. I imagine the filmmakers as a kid in high school who | |
adores this fandom. He eats up everything he can about the | |
theories and fan-fiction. He lives his life so deep in it that he | |
forgets there are casual fans. There are people who watched the | |
movies once and then moved on. There is no place left in his world | |
that hasn't been taken over with esoteric knowledge of this | |
imagined universe. | |
We feel a little sorry for that kid and wish he could enjoy | |
something else, something more. But we know, also, that he gets | |
such joy from this that we feel for him and want him to experience | |
it where he can. | |
And so, these other Star Wars movies are his. They are not part of | |
the series. They are not "real". The universe bestowed a gift upon | |
that nerd and let him use real actors and studios to produce his | |
opus of fandom. It is filled with false nostalgia and fan theories | |
jumbled up into a hodgepodge. It is not there to make sense. It is | |
not there to complete a great epic. It is a fulfillment of | |
a nerd's dream, and we can compassionately enjoy it with him. |