Movies. I've come to realize recently that I've seen so many more movies than I thought.
I recently started recording all the movies I've seen on an application / site. There are 2 popular movie apps in Japan and I'm on one of them. On it, you are able to record, rate, and review the movies you've seen and also "clip" movies you want to see. So far, I've recorded 615 movies I've seen and "clipped" 1353 more. That's way more movies than I thought I had seen, but using this app, I keep remembering movies I'd forgotten about. I don't even consider myself a movie buff. I have periods when I see a lot of movies and they don't come that often, but I am going through one now. That has a lot to do with how easily you can watch movies these days. There's so many streaming sites even other ones than just Netflix and Hulu here in Japan and they all have free trial periods. Between the 2 of us, we can do 2 trials each and go for like a year without even paying a cent. I don't advocate not paying for movies though. I do go to movie theaters once in a while and sometimes rent movies on those streaming sites as well. But between the choice of not seeing any movies or seeing them, I will take the latter every time.
My relations with movies have gone through so many variations. I think one of my first movie experience was a neighborhood event for kids where we watched a movie (probably an anime movie) projected on a wall in a parking lot. When we moved to the US, I was introduced to cable TV with movie channels like HBO and Cinemax. I don't remember all the movies that I saw, but ones I do remember are "Stripes", "Private Benjamin", and "Tess". I also experienced my first blockbuster as I stood in a long line to see "Return of the Jedi". When I went to college, there often were movie events held on Campus in which I was introduced to Kurosawa films for the first time. When I moved to the East Coast, I lived in Providence, Rhode Island for 2 years. I remember going to see Mike Leigh's "Naked" in a theater on Thayer Street and renting art videos from a video store I can't recall the name of. I then moved to NYC where I was spoiled for choices of ways I can see movies. There were the theaters; Angelika film center, Anthology Film Archives, Film Forum, and Museum of Moving Image. (They had screenings there once in a while and I lived within walking distance.) I think it was at Anthology Film Archives, where a friend took me to see "Rear Window". I had kind of stayed away from Hitchcock until then, but after that I really was hooked. There were also the video stores like Kim's Video on St. Marks (Is that still there?) and my local Blockbuster which didn't have the best selection, but I rented almost all the foreign movies there. I think it was there that I rented "Yi-Yi" which I still recall as one of the best movies I've ever seen. "Chunking Express" was also definitely one of the best movies I saw then and I wanted to see more of Wong Kar-Wai's movies, but they weren't readily available, so I ended up getting a pirate copy of "Fallen Angels" in Chinatown. That was also when Netflix started, but unlike now you got DVD's through the mail. You had to wait a long time for some of the more obscure titles, but you could technically rent almost any movie that was available on DVD. I think it was then I really dug deep into like Hitchcock and the French New Wave movies. For quite a few years after I've come back to Japan, I didn't watch movies quite as regular as before until a couple of years ago when I started using streaming sites here. It took a long time for them to catch on here, but now especially with people needing more entertainment options at home, it's really becoming popular.
The app that I mentioned before, it's a bit like SNS where you can follow or be followed by fellow users and by doing so, you are constantly informed of what movies they have watched or clipped. This way you will discover movies you never knew before or be reminded of movies you've forgotten you had seen. I also have the habit of watching YouTube videos of people talking about movies. They are mostly Japanese videos, but there are some English ones I like for example the Criterion Collection videos of Directors and actors talking about their favorite movies are always interesting. There was also a video about the Czechoslovak New Wave. Who knew that such a thing existed and that Milos Forman was one of the directors involved in it. Being able to watch those movies might prove quite difficult as you might have to buy imported DVD's. There was a time when I owned a region-free DVD player, but now I don't even have a regular DVD player. It's nice to know though that there are so many movies out there you don't know which could become one of your all time favorites. The other day, I saw a video about Thai movies and I couldn't recall if I had ever seen a Thai movie, so I looked to see if I could watch it on the streaming site I was on at the time and luckily it was available. It's called "The Teacher's Diary" and it was definitely a fun movie to watch and I felt like I've gotten to know just a bit more about Thailand and its poeple.
I think too much information can be a bad thing, but if you know what information you want to focus on, it can really widen your horizon. I am very glad there is so much information about movies out there, but the same can't be said for art. There are so many great artists out there, but we may never know about most of them because there just isn't media representation when it comes to art the way it is for movies. If you look on YouTube for people talking about movies, there is almost too much to choose from, but if you do the same for art, there is hardly any and ones you do find tend not to be interesting. On Instagram, there are tons of artists and we are connected, but there aren't many enthusiasts talking about art the way people talk about movies. I think after the 80's and 90's, the art world totally exploded into million little bits and you can't generalize about anything with trends and movements like art historians used to do, but it would be cool if people got on the media more to talk about art. This is a huge niche waiting to be filled by any would be YouTubers (or app developer or whatever) out there.
My relations with movies have gone through so many variations. I think one of my first movie experience was a neighborhood event for kids where we watched a movie (probably an anime movie) projected on a wall in a parking lot. When we moved to the US, I was introduced to cable TV with movie channels like HBO and Cinemax. I don't remember all the movies that I saw, but ones I do remember are "Stripes", "Private Benjamin", and "Tess". I also experienced my first blockbuster as I stood in a long line to see "Return of the Jedi". When I went to college, there often were movie events held on Campus in which I was introduced to Kurosawa films for the first time. When I moved to the East Coast, I lived in Providence, Rhode Island for 2 years. I remember going to see Mike Leigh's "Naked" in a theater on Thayer Street and renting art videos from a video store I can't recall the name of. I then moved to NYC where I was spoiled for choices of ways I can see movies. There were the theaters; Angelika film center, Anthology Film Archives, Film Forum, and Museum of Moving Image. (They had screenings there once in a while and I lived within walking distance.) I think it was at Anthology Film Archives, where a friend took me to see "Rear Window". I had kind of stayed away from Hitchcock until then, but after that I really was hooked. There were also the video stores like Kim's Video on St. Marks (Is that still there?) and my local Blockbuster which didn't have the best selection, but I rented almost all the foreign movies there. I think it was there that I rented "Yi-Yi" which I still recall as one of the best movies I've ever seen. "Chunking Express" was also definitely one of the best movies I saw then and I wanted to see more of Wong Kar-Wai's movies, but they weren't readily available, so I ended up getting a pirate copy of "Fallen Angels" in Chinatown. That was also when Netflix started, but unlike now you got DVD's through the mail. You had to wait a long time for some of the more obscure titles, but you could technically rent almost any movie that was available on DVD. I think it was then I really dug deep into like Hitchcock and the French New Wave movies. For quite a few years after I've come back to Japan, I didn't watch movies quite as regular as before until a couple of years ago when I started using streaming sites here. It took a long time for them to catch on here, but now especially with people needing more entertainment options at home, it's really becoming popular.
I think too much information can be a bad thing, but if you know what information you want to focus on, it can really widen your horizon. I am very glad there is so much information about movies out there, but the same can't be said for art. There are so many great artists out there, but we may never know about most of them because there just isn't media representation when it comes to art the way it is for movies. If you look on YouTube for people talking about movies, there is almost too much to choose from, but if you do the same for art, there is hardly any and ones you do find tend not to be interesting. On Instagram, there are tons of artists and we are connected, but there aren't many enthusiasts talking about art the way people talk about movies. I think after the 80's and 90's, the art world totally exploded into million little bits and you can't generalize about anything with trends and movements like art historians used to do, but it would be cool if people got on the media more to talk about art. This is a huge niche waiting to be filled by any would be YouTubers (or app developer or whatever) out there.
Comments
Post a Comment