Dark Alleys Of Cinema

If I haven't said so already, I love old and obscure movies. There are those, including friends of mine, who out-do me in this regard, but I fall pretty well outside of the mainstream. I have lately been watching the Sylvester Stallone/Kurt Russell buddy cop film "Tango & Cash" over and over again- while doing other things mainly, but it's still an extreme act. One would have to wonder why it is that I'd do such a thing.

I have grown more social over the years, but I remain a solitary, introspective creature. I can hardly stand to do things in the kitchen when other people are around, not because I don't want them to know I'm doing it, but just because I am more at ease alone and with no obligation to share. That last part must not sound too endearing, really. Anyway, solitude is a precious and necessary condition for me at least part of the time.

With movies, it works like so. Most people are drawn to the movies that everyone's talking about. Word of mouth says something's good or divisive, and people are drawn to that. They want to be in the know and they enjoy sharing opinions. I'm not really like that so much. I don't care for people's opinions and theories about movies. Those things color and poison my perception of the movie, and so I shy away from the movies that attract that.

I don't see myself as having that repellent need to be in on things before everyone else and then discard them because they're cool. I can enjoy popular things, or at least I could if people could just watch them and leave it at that. They go and get the idea that they can or that they should try and heighten the experience by doing a lot of chattering about what it all means and how it compares to things. If they could critique well, maybe I wouldn't be bothered, but they can't. That's a part of why I watch movies people don't see and don't talk about.