I Probably Need To Watch More Movies

 For someone who has engaged with film as a medium for most of their life, I sure don't watch a lot of movies. In fact, there are countless classic films that I still have yet to see. And I'm not talking about just the more obscure "classics" that film aficionados haven't seen either. I mean I haven't seen Jaws. I haven't seen any of the Back to the Future, Lord of the Rings (or Hobbit), Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, Alien, Terminator, or Matrix films. I pulled up this list of "25 movies nearly everyone has seen", and there are 9 movies on this list I haven't watched at all, and it goes up to 17 if you count ones I can't guarantee I've seen from start to finish. I'm almost just as bad with current movies, which I tend to also skip.

Before you go to yell at me, rest assured I've heard it all before!

To give me even less of an excuse, I am a projectionist at a movie theater where I can literally play the currently showing movies at my fingertips if I want to. I could pretty much give myself my own private showings any day of the week if I really wanted to. For free.

I think it has stemmed mostly from being very picky aesthetically and creatively. As a video editor and writer myself, I'm used to scrutinizing visuals, audio, and story pretty heavily. I don't want something that's too "typical" and straightforward, but I also can't go all the way down the art-house film rabbit hole. 

I say that but what's also funny to me is that I do actually tend to enjoy most of the movies I watch, even the ones I don't necessarily expect to. And that all being said, I have started to make more of an effort to watch movies lately. We do premiere day screenings of the big tentpole releases at my theater. I started going to those more often because:

1. I started to be the guy who ran the movie for them, so I had to go.

2. They're fun social gatherings and I love my coworkers at this job.

3. I stopped caring how much I personally resonated with most of the movies.

The third one might sound weird, but I can't tell you how much easier it was to enjoy Thor: Love & Thunder when I watched it like I was a complete film casual, rather than going in expecting it to be anything close to the best film I've ever seen in my life.

So now I'm really making an effort to catch up on seeing stuff, although I'm still weirdly picky and that might never change. Still, it's always good to be exposed to as much of your creative field/medium as possible. As an Interactive Media Studies major, I have a lot of fields I dip my toes into, so film is not the only one I have to worry about, but I do think it is one that I will continue to make an effort to experience more of.