I hate movies. I always have, but it’s taken me some time to be comfortable saying it out loud. Twenty years ago when I was getting my masters, I mentioned to the substitute teacher that I did not like movies. She looked at me as if I were an alien and said, “That’s like saying you don’t like sandwiches!”
Which didn’t sound strange to me, either, to be honest. Her point was that there were so many different kinds of sandwiches, anyone could find something they liked. I didn’t have the wherewithal to say it at the time, but now, I would retaort that if you didn’t like one of the crucial ingredients, say, bread, then you’re not going to like sandwiches. In my case, I’m allergic/sensitive to wheat, so sandwiches had been difficult for roughly a decade. Now, with so many good substitutes, I can enjoy them again. But if I had remained allergic to all kinds of breading, then it would make sense if I didn’t eat sandwiches. As it is, I love, love, LOVE dumplings, but it’s hard for me to find dumplings that are GF.
I need reality in my movies. I need people to act the way they would in real life unless it’s a musical–then I don’t care. I know some people watch movies to escape, but I get way too distracted by how people would NOT do that in real life.
I know people might say, “Just turn your brain off and enjoy.” I can’t. Knowing how people act is something deep in my bones. It’s not even a matter of them acting in an inconsistent manner because that’s human nature. It’s more somethnig an ex called the ‘moving my face to hit your fist’ syndrome. It’s when the director has an end result in mind and then manipulate everything to meet the ending they envisioned. They become too wedded to it and force the characters to do things they normally wouldn’t to get to that result.
Then, my brain gets stuck on, “Marge is always late. She would not have ‘just happened’ to show up on time.” ” “Blade has obesssive tendencies. He would not just leave like that.” And such. I think it’s easier in books to explore the psyche of the characters, obviously, because you can write about it for pages. Whereas in a movie, you have to do it in snapshots. Which, it can be done! I’m not saying that there aren’t good movies. Of course there are. But I don’t like the format, and I don’t feel the need to keep trying.
Except. I can’t stop thinking that it would be hilarious for me to review movies because it’s not my preferred medium. It would be an outsider’s take, as it were. I have mentioned several times that I was dumped because I hated Pulp Fiction, and that was a wakeup call that people take their pop culture very seriously.
I don’t. I mean, I like my pop culture and am fanatic about some of it. However, I understand that it’s not for everyone and I can understand why people wouldn’t like what I like. The bigest pop culture that I stan are FromSoft games. But, I hated the original Dark Souls by the time I finished it. I put it in the done file and moved on. I thought that was that, and boy was I wrong.
Now, I play a From game most of the time I have a free moment. I have platted (hundo chievo) all three Dark Souls, BB, and Elden Ring. Sekiro is the only one I haven’t platted, and I won’t because I can’t get people to help me out. There is no online play.
And yet. The games are not for everyone. This is fine, and I do not understand why people get upset when others don’t like what they like. I had a friend who started Elden Ring when it dropped because of how excited I was about it. She gave it a good go and hung in there for several hours. She tweeted me a few times asking for tips, but then she finally tweeted me saying she just couldn’t get into it.
I hastily assured her that was fine and that she didn’t have to like the game! She gave it a good go, and I told her she could put it aside with no guilt.
I can understand why it would not be someone’s game. Even though i think it’s newbie-friendly, my friend’s questions made me realize that you still had to have a basic knowledge of From games in order to feel at all comfortable with this one.
How did I get from movies to From games? Because I always end up here. I spent so many years trying to fit in. I tried to find a beer that I liked, movies that I wouldd enjoy, and TV shows I could watch without too much wincing. It took me way too many years to realize that they just wereen’t my mediums in general. Most TV shows I liked got cancelled or I stopped liking them after a year or so.
I made the recent realization that I liked two diverging kinds of TV shows. I have known for some time that I liked two different broad category of games–hard games like Fromsoft games and cozy games like Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall), Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), and Cozy Grove (Spry Fox). My recent realization was that I liked the same in TV shows as well. I liked ‘hard’ shows like Criminal Minds (early years) and Law & Order (mostly Criminal Intent). I also really dug the first season of Hannibal and would like to watch the other two. I fell off the finale in the first season, but I’m assured that it gets better.
On the other hand, I like shows that I call ‘gentle competition’ shows, a la The Great British Bake Off (back when it was Mel and Sue). I’m currentlly watching Drink Masters on Netflix which, while I don’t drink, scratches that same itch. Yes, they are competing, but they are mostly supportive of each other. I also love that there is usually so much diversity on each of these shows.
How did I end up HERE? Who the hell knows? But that’s all I have time today. I may pick up the main thread again tomorrow. Or not. I think I’m either getting sick or just my body finally relaxing now that my cat is 100% recovered. Either way, I’m just going to take each day as it comes.