Confessions of a Movie Junkie

Another week has ended and another is yet to start. As usual, I am looking forward to one filled with movies. (No, I don't lead a monotonous life--I listen to a variety of music and I read books. But the movies is one of the few constants in my life.) I am not highly critical of the ones I watch. I appreciate anything that contains great plots, great lines, great performances, and--just between the two of us--great-looking guys. In each of the movies in my current favorites list, you can find three of those "greats" and if luckier, all four. And I'm an easy one to please which, in turn, made making the list an effortless task.

I was just enjoying my all-time fave Armageddon for the nth time (I lost count after 10) when I suddenly realized that yup! you are now officially a movie junkie. I always feel so excited whenever I hear of an interesting, and sometimes just an ordinary, new movie. Knowing how much I don't dig the cinemas anymore (I prefer the quiet and comfort of the couch at home than suffer through PhP120 worth of ringing cellphones and crinkling junk food bags), I'll say the movie has to be epic battle/classic period piece/Orlando Bloom-interesting for it to be worthy of that PhP120 package and if it just isn't your day, it'll even come with softdrink-slurping sounds within your three-foot radius. Ugh!

Movie junkie-hood calls for you to be patient. Can you sit through a boring movie (can sometimes contain scenes that are too violent, stories that drag on forever, abysmal acting and the like) line after pathetic line in the hopes of finding one single saving grace? If the answer is yes, you're deserving of a I-keep-the-movie-industry-going badge. My worst: Spring Break Lawyer. Trust me, I wanted to go amnesiac by the time the credits rolled. Now that I think about it, I wonder why I didn't go catatonic at the shock from the experience.

And you know you've arrived at movie junkie-dom when you take note of every movie you've seen (even jotting them down) and you create lists of your top favorites by weighing them down in a scale from one to ten--where ten is boiling hot and one is dead cold. Armageddon I gave a ten although I think it's deserving of a 23 or maybe a 24. And Spring Break Lawyer got a respectable -812 or thereabouts.

Don't get me wrong though. I am not a sophisticated movie critic (can't stomach those peeps) nor a movie maniac extraordinaire. I've yet to see The Godfather movies and I'm dying to watch Casablanca (don't they rent them out anymore?). And I take celebrity matters too personally e.g. I've boycotted (at least, paying for them--wait until they are on cable) Tom Cruise films since the divorce. Definitely no sophisticate here. But the movies have been and will always be the place I go to when I need an escape from the harsh reality of our times. And I somehow think that in the business we call life, having a moment to escape--where it be the movies or a trip to your favorite nook in your house--is the only saving grace. But then again, the satisfaction you get seeing something wonderful or from hacking a really ugly one to pieces is always priceless.

(Originally posted at The Kookie Jar.)