My Movie Mania

I like books and movies. Books because I need my own imagination to visualise what is going on. Movies are a little bit more lazy, but they can be more "true" in the sense that nothing is left to imagination of the viewer. My memory reaches back to movies I have seen when still living in Gross Berkel. At that time, the rule was not to call anyone after 8pm. At that time, the news would come on, followed by the main movie, the highlight of the day.

What I have always enjoyed is the suspense, the build-up and the pace of a movie. To me, a good movie is not about CGI, but a great story told very well. The epitome of that might be the classic "Rear Window". A movie not about expensive sets or a mastermind new computer technique to make things look more real. It is about the couple that we see sleeping on the firestairs, night after night, but not having anything to do with the events that unfold (Some of you will now go and get a copy of Rear Window just to check out if that is the case...).

Jaws, as seen last night, is another masterpiece. You don't need to be overly gory. People getting eaten by a shark needs to be shown, but not in disgusting detail. Back in the 70s and 80s, we also didn't need to have overly explicit sex scenes. A hint of what is going down was all there was to it and the audience could fill the blanks.

I believe some movies should never have gotten a sequel or a prequel. Silence of the Lambs is one. Jaws (again) another. In more recent cinema, Taken should have been it with no further takers on that one. Or Fast and Furious. Which I have seen in an empty hall when it came out. The ticket was a present from my classmates!

And then there are remakes. And many just simply don't do the original justice. And whenever someone does a "Reboot", as that is called nowadays, the hype is a bigger promise than the actual delivery. As one exception, I could mention "Sorcerer" though. Another Roy Scheider classic by the way.

Here some movies that I truly enjoy and that I could watch over and over again in no particular order:

HEAT, Coma, Platoon, Blade Runner, Alien, The Getaway, Bullit, Tron, Terminator, Red Dawn, Total Recall, Gremlins, Die Hard, First Blood...