I just got comfortable...

Know what I hate? I hate when I sit down to watch a movie, throw the blanket over my legs, get the snack and drink right where I want them, go to hit play on the remote... only to then notice I forgot to put my glasses on. So I throw the blanket off and find the glasses and put them on. I head back to the couch and get all ready again... only to have forgotten to turn off the lights I had switched on to find the glasses.

I seem to go through this dance a lot. You think I would be prepared or at least conscious of the fact that it happens more often than not to make sure I covered all the bases before getting comfy. But no. I never think of it until near the point of no return.

This afternoon as I sat to watch a flick the same thing happened but with the rare twist of the DVD that just doesn't want to be my friend. I sat and got all situated on the couch only to have to get up again and get the glasses I mentioned before. After all the up and down was finished I was watching the movie and getting into it. It's a cloudy gloomy day out and that's always good for a movie. I was relaxing and getting into that zen mood when the dumb movie stopped. Not turned off but froze up on a frame and didn't feel like going on.

Now in these situations I can usually stare at the screen for about ten seconds before I push the play button again on the remote in full understanding that it won't do a dang thing. The machine whirs and clicks as it tries to do what I have asked of it. It tries to work through the scratch or smudge that is keeping me from finding out if Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock really do love each other despite all their differences when I finally break down and get up. I head to the machine and get the DVD out to see what could be causing the problem. It's a little scratched but nothing that I can see would cause the issues. There is a little smudge so I clean the disk off a little and then put it back in the machine.

After a little menu surfing I manage to get back to the spot in the movie where the freeze up was and it plays perfectly through it. So I settle back onto the couch and recover the legs and get back into the mode of Film Zen I had been pulled out of. I'm finding out that good ol Sandy isn't the cold hearted witch she seems to be on the outside when I get another freeze.

This time I refused to get up and do the same song and dance as before and just hit the chapter skip button. I do a little rewinding (I know it's a DVD and thus cannot be "rewound" but who cares) and get to the spot right before the freeze occurred. Once again I have been disrupted but it has been fixed. The universe resumes it's slow spin and I once again get back into Film Zen.

But man... I really hate it when that happens. Don't you?

Film Class: The First Week

My first week in my first film class is over and done with. It's not at all what I expected the class to be but it is something I'm looking forward to sitting through week after week.

On the surface it's a film class in as much as we view movies and talk about them. But we really don't talk about the ins and outs of the movie making process. The whole class is designed to help you intelligently take the themes of a film apart and figure out what's going on behind the story. To find out what it's saying about the time period in which it was made and what was the writer or director trying to get across with the things they showed us.

It's a class to get you to look beyond just the visuals on the screen. It's not what I thought the class was when I signed up for it but it's something that I think every film buff needs to think about. I come across a lot of folks who can tell you about the smallest things in regards to the filming, the acting, and even the directing but sometimes they are clueless as to what the movie is really about. What is the story behind the story? Why did the creators feel the need to tell this story?

The first class was the usual intro to what we would be doing as the weeks numbered themselves. Papers will be written, tests taken, and movies watched. The class is going to be mostly focused on the "comedy" side of film. I mean that in the Greek idea of comedy. A story that doesn't end in a sad or low note. The other side of that would be Tragedy. The list of movies we will be handling is pretty interesting. The first one we are going to tackle is DAVE. A good flick I have seen before but it's been a while and I don't think I have ever looked into the deeper meaning of the flick so I look forward to the viewing.

All in all I think I'm going to have fun in the class and I think it will be challenging. I'll keep you guys up to date on how it goes.

A New Year

We are flying through January of 2010 and I really want to know where my flying car and our moon colony are. Isn't this supposed to be the future now?

Anyway... we have a new year of films ahead of us and I'm excited for what's around the corner. And I mean right around the corner. Some of my most anticipated movies for the whole year seem to be popping up within the first three months of 2010 and that's a bit of a change from what we have seen in the past.

It's summer that usually brings all the awesome movies and then those are followed up with all the usual Oscar contenders in the last couple months of the year. But not this time around. Hollywood is stacking the front of the year with a lot of big budget flicks including The Wolf Man, Shutter Island, and The Book of Eli. I know a couple of these flicks were meant to come out at the end of 2009 but I would think pushing them out a couple more months to the beginning of the summer flood wouldn't have hurt business much.

Is the winter / spring season the new summer for the honchos in LA? It might be as we haven't seen this type of action in a long time. Not that I'm complaining but I hope they save a few good ones for the rest of the year as well.

And that brings me to my resolution for the year in regards to movie watching. I'm really going to try and see more recent movies as the year passes. I may not make it to the theater as much as I would like but I hope to see the new releases when they come out on DVD a lot sooner than I have been. I've slacked on that bad this last year. I got into a groove of watching documentary films and haven't seem to surfaced yet. I'm just now getting caught up on the Harry Potter movies. Two of those left to get through...