Posts Tagged ‘flashback’
A Year In Film
Posted on: January 8, 2012
The only resolution for 2011 that I managed to keep (and how) was to catalogue every film I watched throughout the year. I watch a lot of films. Some pretentious and in foreign speak, some pointless and centred around bodily fluids. And a couple of them were pretty good. I think I probably expected some kind of grand epiphany. More likely, it was a symptom of a nervous breakdown. Nonetheless, it was the one area of my life I had any control over.
In 2011, I watched 159 films, which is around 13 a month or 3 a week. This says that I either watch too many or not enough films, depending on your point of view. My most cineaste month was January, implying that my enthusiasm for the project crumbled fairly earlier on. My least filmy month was November, implying that I was incredibly socially popular that month, and also that my laptop broke so I was unable to watch any dvds.
My most watched film was Bridesmaids, which I saw 3 times, which I suppose kind of follows, given that it’s a phenomenon, what with women turning out to be funny and also being able to wear dresses in magazines and all that. It is a very good film, so I’m okay with how it turned out. My least watched film is all the films that didn’t make my list, because I didn’t watch them.
I can’t say I disliked any film this year. I tend to be fairly open minded, and if I suspect I won’t like a film, I won’t watch it, as I’m a big fan of autonomy. There are plenty I wouldn’t watch again, but that’s more to do with how I will at some point die and would rather spend my remaining days watching new films and rewatching films I like a lot. I think that’s reasonable.
Amongst my favourite films of the year (new, not re-watches) were True Grit (2010), Bridesmaids, Drive, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Martha Marcy May Marlene, but my favourite was Submarine. Submarine I saw twice, after starting to read the novel and losing interest very early on, but the combination of Richard Ayoade and some of my favourite actors got me extremely interested. On the first watch, I was disappointed. Something about it left me cold, a bit upset, really. Not that I was expecting banana skins, but it was so melancholy. But it stuck with me. After a few months, and the dampening of my own mood, I felt a weird, intense yearning to see it again. Then, I saw its wry humour, the admirably self-involved protagonist, the delicate sketching of relationship dynamics, self-destruction, wrapped up in a visually beautiful and creative shell.
I can’t resign the exercise without saying one last thing: this was really difficult. It took some of the pleasure out of the film-watching experience. I found myself assessing the quality of each film before I watched it, knowing that at some point I wanted to put the final list online. Could I live with myself knowing that my friends and respected peers knowing I spent an evening watching The Devil Wears Prada? So I switched over halfway through. (Perhaps what was more harrowing was the realisation of my own snobbery.) Of course there’s plenty of crap that did make it onto the list. But this kind of regimented examination sucked the joy from one of the most valuable elements of the process – the freedom. Cinema is meant, at its heart, to take you away. They tell fantastical stories, introduce characters that intrigue us, show us a familiar world in a new way. It’s hard to take a voyage through the medium with the albatross of self-image around your neck. This year, I will be watching whatever I damn well please whenever I want.
Below the cut is the complete list of every film I watched in 2011:
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Some Notes On Being Unemployed
Posted on: August 7, 2011
This is a creative piece from about two years ago, inspired by the work of Inez Baranay. I have since become employed, but I’m not sure all of my lingering questions have been resolved.
It’s been really long since I’ve had a job, three months now, my longest period of unemployment since I had my first job. It’s not too bad. I might never work again.
The thing about having no job is how the days blend in to each other. You don’t realise how useful a job is for marking time as it passes. Now, suddenly, it’s Thursday and I’ve been in bed at 5a.m. and awake at 2p.m. all week.
I think people judge me because I’m unemployed. Like I’m coasting through life. I am looking, maybe not too hard. No point. Too much in my way. Overqualified. Underexperienced. Wrong degree. Wrong accent. I just need a chance.
Working makes you miserable. It’s not healthy to be in such close proximity to the general public. They’re all in a bad mood because there’s a recession and spending money has lost its thrill. They are sure you’re hiding the last pair of size 14 jeans from them and that’s why they don’t say thank you.
When I grow up, I’m going to be happy. It’s not a career, it’s a lifestyle choice. But what can make me happy? I kind of know, but not really: Writer – librarian – community worker – zookeeper – hat designer – gogo dancer – sociologist – nun.
The worst jobs in the world are dentist because your fingers get bitten and teacher who doesn’t want to teach and politician with a complex like Catholic guilt and taxi driver if you can’t drive and wet nurse if you’re a fella.
Little girls still want to be princesses. And when you hear the word “doctor”, you still think of a man. So really the world hasn’t managed to change, because you can’t change things, not by handing out leaflets or becoming president or whispering things into their ears in the natal ward.
I would be a good street preacher. I’d wear a preacher’s hat and raise my voice and say ‘be nice to one another and always try your best, if you can’t be Christ-like, be humane,’ and the pun would make more sense when it’s said out loud.
My mum worries because I worry about money. She says, ‘after Christmas you’ll get a job’ and she sounds confident. I think ‘it’s not after Christmas I’m worried about, it’s the rest of my life’ but I don’t want to say that when she’s already worried. And so I say nothing at all.
Hey, Barbecutie 
