criterionforum.org

davidhare wrote:Not exactly - I have often wondered how some others here deal with partners who, for instance will never watch a movie again after a single viewing. Or similar idiosyncrasies which either spring from their indifference, or disinterest, or perhaps resentment of the time one takes with films. Or is this simply not an issue for others?

Even though my wife isn't a film buff by any stretch of the imagination, and I suspect the number of subtitled films she's seen in total barely scrapes double figures (and most of those were with me), this isn't a problem at all.

Most weekday evenings she'll be crashed out on the sofa having online arguments with the TV on in the background while I'll be in another room reviewing DVDs - but this is fine with both of us, as I'd rather watch something alone than with someone who might not appreciate it (as she points out, I do the culture in our family, while she does the science), and in any case she appreciates the extra income. And she also totally accepts that I have a professional need to keep up to speed.

She does have one rather endearing idiosyncrasy, though, which is that she'll often watch a film on TV even though she knows that we have it on DVD - and probably a superior copy in the correct aspect ratio with no commercial breaks. Apparently it's important for her to watch it "with the rest of the nation", even though the last time "the nation" sat down en masse to watch anything less exceptional than a World Cup final or Princess Diana's funeral was some time in the 1970s. (I did once substitute Criterion's Spartacus DVD for an unwatchable pan-and-scan version when she was out of the room, and it took her some time to notice!)

MichaelB wrote: (I did once substitute Criterion's Spartacus DVD for an unwatchable pan-and-scan version when she was out of the room, and it took her some time to notice!)

On the subject of subterfuge, this reminds me of the time that I had my Polish Mother in Law up for Christmas. After the mince pies and sherry had done their work I managed to prise the remote from her hand in between snores and insert the MoC Sunrise pretending it was 'some old movie on the telly'.

The initial grunts of disapproval were quickly silenced and by the end a tearful Mum in Law pronounced it the most beautiful film she'd ever seen.

I like to go to the movies!
And as far as i live in a not too small european city i have the opportunity to attend many retrospectives on special topics and or directors. Plus, we have lots of international cultural institutes (Japan, Italy, Turkey and France have screenings subsidized, as David allready pointed out, by the State and are often for free!). As being a notorious single mid 30 male i do not like to stay at home with "my" girl and watch movies on TV (ok, this might be an opportunity for the "day-after"). However, i like to go to the cinema alone because i know i am hyper critical and a movie like BABEL can ruin the whole evening/night for me and is no pleasure for the girl… There is another thing i hate: some of the girls i date(d) love(d) me for my so called intellectual behavior and there is nothing more annoying than a girl, after watching - lets say PICKPOCKET - , falling in love because i "felt in love" with an arthouse movie…she can take the train right home ... at least most of the time

Here is an article about critics praising smaller films that I stumbled upon from the Salt Lake Tribune. It seemed relevant to the discussion.

MichaelB wrote:Even though my wife isn't a film buff by any stretch of the imagination, and I suspect the number of subtitled films she's seen in total barely scrapes double figures (and most of those were with me), this isn't a problem at all.

Most weekday evenings she'll be crashed out on the sofa having online arguments with the TV on in the background while I'll be in another room reviewing DVDs - but this is fine with both of us, as I'd rather watch something alone than with someone who might not appreciate it (as she points out, I do the culture in our family, while she does the science), and in any case she appreciates the extra income. And she also totally accepts that I have a professional need to keep up to speed.

I am in a very similar situation, my girlfriend certainly doesn't watch many films at all and we will often get on with our own things. I do however try and persuade her to watch something with me every now and again. It isn't always a success as I like to watch things I have never seen before with her (most of the time). My greatest successes have been in convincing her to watch Les Diaboliques and The Trial of Joan of Arc (which she watched on her own, she is waiting to get around to Le Passion de Jeanne d'Arc). She loved both and still talks about them to this day. On other occasions she turns to me and says "this is shit" and walks out to do something else. That's ok with both of us as we respect each other's idiosyncrasies and she understands that my obsession isn't just a hobby and my need to watch films and read books and have quiet time is all helping me (in one form or another) to build a knowledge base for my future career (in whatever capacity that may turn out to be). If she considered it to be just a hobby I think I would have quite a hard time justifying the time that I spend watching films.

davidhare wrote:Don't ever let her find out this all leads to nothing!

(Except your own considerable pleasure.)

ouch!
shooting down a dreamer.

davidhare wrote:Don't ever let her find out this all leads to nothing!

Not necessarily - my wife basically bullied me into turning professional after realising just how much I was writing for nothing. She made me promise that during 2002 I would only write for money - and I never looked back.

Indeed. There's never any reason to trade Yourself vs the Prospect of Ongoing Poot In A Romantic Setting.

I've been fortunate in this regard myself, though.

davidhare wrote:Personally I believe partners who are gainfully (and well paid) in employment should be supporting those of us with the creative bent, and the crap jobs (like me.).

LOL. Hard to disagree with this. Even harder to find a prospective partner who agrees with it too.

yeah, where are all the Peggy Guggenheim's of the world?

davidhare wrote:Don't ever let her find out this all leads to nothing!

I can dream. And time will tell.

davidhare wrote:Personally I believe partners who are gainfully (and well paid) in employment should be supporting those of us with the creative bent, and the crap jobs (like me.)

She is doing just that. We're going to move in with her parents later this year so either I'll make it and you may just see my name somewhere. Or you might see my name in the papers for the massacre committed after they all drive me mad. And time will tell.

I have often wondered how some others here deal with partners who, for instance will never watch a movie again after a single viewing. Or similar idiosyncrasies which either spring from their indifference, or disinterest, or perhaps resentment of the time one takes with films. Or is this simply not an issue for others?

The lovely thing about my husband and me is that we have different tastes in movies. He is a horror maven and deconstructs them as I sit at the computer and ponder Billy Wilder. It is always fun as we try to find a movie we both want to see in a theatre. But just as he has his friends he hangs out in the Bronx with, I have my friends I watch foreign and old movies with.

When we were dating, he did go to/watch a lot of films with me; our first was THE DECAMERON (our second date). I did introduce him to Marlene Dietrich and Gloria Swanson who are now goddesses for him. He in turn teaches me about popular culture and all cultural icons born after 1970.

In my younger days, it was far more important that my boyfriend also be my best friend and that we did (almost) everything together, but the new paradigm I have with Terrance is much better. It is easy to find someone to go to the movies with, but damn hard to find someone to be married to.

On a serious note any suspicion that you are entering a relationship with someone who will not tolerate you having an inner life (to use a very old fashioned Proustian/Schopenhauerian term) should be thunk again.

I think it is far worse when a person does not let their partner have an outer life.

MichaelB wrote:

davidhare wrote:Don't ever let her find out this all leads to nothing!

Not necessarily - my wife basically bullied me into turning professional after realising just how much I was writing for nothing. She made me promise that during 2002 I would only write for money - and I never looked back.

Better not tell her about this forum!

Brian you're right but both are important. (To me anyway.)

I know you are right David. I think I am just having a bad reaction to all the Siamese queer couples I am meeting lately who do everything together. I just find it so much fun when TJ and I actually agree to see the same movie, or I start watching some Classical Hollywood film and he starts enjoying it with me. Though when he is annoyed with me, his favorite term of abuse is "auteurist." LOL

That includes cinephilia to a degree, but there's a crowd of us going back to the 60s who share this stuff - and I'm sure our company would be totally intolerable to "outsiders."

It is. When we get together with some movie friends, TJ will sometimes maintain that we really do not like certain movies, but will not admit that a favorite director could possibly have made a bad film. But I did score a victory early on in our courtship. Terrance watched movies, but being more than 20 years my junior, he had very different tastes and viewing habits/expectations. One day he called me up to tell me that he had gone to see BEWITCHED and walked out. He said that he could not stand where the director had placed the camera in certain shots. It was a little victory, but one that I savor to this day.

The latest issue of Sight and Sound (May 2008 edition) tackles the issues of state of cinema in France today as part of its commemoration of May 1968.

The posh cinemas vs. the art house standbys in the UK.

My two favorite quotes:

"Never let a film-lover run a cinema," says Daniel Broch, founder and chief executive of the Everyman Media Group (EMG).

....Everyman has become a purveyor of what [Broch] bizarrely calls "filmtertainment". "Lifestyle's the key word," he tells me, and I imagine hula girls fanning him as he rests his feet on discarded reels of Fassbinder.

Amusingly enough, I was the number two at the Everyman in the early 1990s, when we bent over backwards to keep prices as low as possible - we'd offer discounts for students, the unemployed, even nurses.

How times change.

(Mind you, it would be absolutely impossible to run the kind of daily-changing double and triple-bill rep that we did in this day and age - there's too much competition, not least from DVD.)

NYC's Two Boots is closing

Vue cinemas in the UK to offer 18+ only screenings. A good idea in theory, though the worst cinema disruptions I've encountered have been by "adults".

Antoine Doinel wrote:Vue cinemas in the UK to offer 18+ only screenings. A good idea in theory, though the worst cinema disruptions I've encountered have been by "adults".

Quite a few of them employed as projectionists, as I recall.

Talking of Vue Cinemas, a new one opened its doors today locally to me in Camberley. Interestingly, a foreign-language film (The Baader Meinhof Complex) is in its first week's programme - a full week's run, not just a one-off "director's chair" screening.

GaryC wrote:Interestingly, a foreign-language film (The Baader Meinhof Complex) is in its first week's programme - a full week's run, not just a one-off "director's chair" screening.

Thanks to the Downfall connection, they seem to be giving this a pretty heavy marketing boost - I looked up my local arthouse (the Duke of York's in Brighton), failed to find it, then checked Brighton Odeon and there it was!

Gomorrah was something of a surprise blockbuster recently, so there definitely seems to be a market for lengthy, violent, quasi-political films about recent historical events.

MichaelB wrote:

GaryC wrote:Interestingly, a foreign-language film (The Baader Meinhof Complex) is in its first week's programme - a full week's run, not just a one-off "director's chair" screening.

Thanks to the Downfall connection, they seem to be giving this a pretty heavy marketing boost - I looked up my local arthouse (the Duke of York's in Brighton), failed to find it, then checked Brighton Odeon and there it was!

Gomorrah was something of a surprise blockbuster recently, so there definitely seems to be a market for lengthy, violent, quasi-political films about recent historical events.

I wish them well, however I was the only person in the 13.45 showing in Camberley yesterday.

Nice new multiplex, though, with big screens, comfortable seats and quite a bit of legroom - they even showed the film in 1.66:1. (That looked correct to me, though the subtitles are protected for 1.85:1.) The tickets are pricier than other local cinemas, though having said that if you factor in the train fare I still paid just over half of what I would have paid to see the film in London!