My background in Film

My interest in film has dated all the way back from when I was a small child, coloring in Captain America coloring books, or watching early 1990s action cartoons in pajamas on a Saturday morning. I grew up on older media: older cartoons and older movies, basically, the classics. I grew up watching really old cartoons from the1960’s The Flintstones, to 1990’s Xmen, Batman: TAS and Spiderman. I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock make brief appearances in his own movies, and watched twelve jurors discuss their various conflicting perspectives on a court case in 12 Angry Men(1957).

My memories consist of sitting at the edge of my seat to classic 1980s thrillers like Die Hard, The Terminator, and Predator(1986); or laughing with amusement to emotional classics like the Breakfast Club (1985).

I thought the narrative was easy to read. I enjoyed learning about the history and the psychological aspects of looking at film. I always knew I personally had a different way of looking at film and appreciating it, but I didn’t know there was a book all about it. Emotionally, I felt a sense of deja vu because the text referenced some older films, either by name or picture as well as cultural lifestyles. It made me think about how different, original and worth-while the film experience used to be in earlier times when I wasn’t around to experience first-hand, although I did several decades later as a kid watching and admiring them on TV.

Intellectual I felt I learned something new. Beforehand, I wasn’t aware that we take our background in film with us to the movies, and thus impacting our expectations, or lack there of. I guess that would explain my extreme disappointments in the new Transformer, Xmen and such movies, because growing up I appreciated and absolutely loved the classic and originals opposed to the fake versions of today.

 It helped me understand it more that some people aren’t just judgmental and cruel for no reason when criticizing movies, but some may just have a particular background in movies and because of that their expectations weren’t fulfilled. This is why I respect the text; instead of criticizing the critics, they try to understand where they are coming from, and that maybe they’re on to something.

The text helped me understand why fake remakes of today are so popular, and that it is because kids today who weren’t raised on the originals, are raised to think today’s movies are cool and unique because society says so. We can’t blame them, really, because they didn’t grow up in the same time or way that I did, so they wont have the same opinions or knowledge to take with them to the movies to make such observations.