All About the Experience (So don't you dare ruin it)

For me, films have always been a somewhat serious business. When watching a film, I tend to be affected by the company present (inappropriate comments are not welcome) and negative remarks about my favourite films or directors (Scorsese is a genius, period.) more often than not, really irritate me. In general, I am a very chilled and laid-back person but I am known to have lost my sense of humour when it comes to the world of film and especially the ones that are very personal to me.

When I was still living in Finland I was quite the collector when it came to DVDs. I do remember having several conversations with my mum about my (almost weekly) postal packages (containing DVDs) and how she wasn't sure if it was the best way to be spending the little money I had at the time... I respectfully disagreed. (Once I was actually refused delivery because apparently I had put too many orders in, heh, there is a limit to everything it seems). And so, (not that) slowly but surely, my room was starting to fill with stacks of DVDs and the trips to Ikea to buy a new DVD tower became rather frequent. I think that to this day, I could build that tower from scratch without so much as glancing at the instructions.

Obviously most of my family members did not share this obsession since one of the first thoughts that popped into their heads when seeing my DVD collection was "HOW MUCH MONEY HAVE YOU SPENT ON THOSE MY DEAR GIRL?!" D'uh! Beside the point, people! Currently my DVD collection is a lot smaller but I do still enjoy popping over to CEX to have a wee browse if some classics have found their way into the 50p section!

As much as I love my family, I have had some questionable film-watching experiences with them in the past. The idea of getting my mum to watch a film with me, in theory seems wonderful but at times, it turns out to be not what I had hoped. Love you mum, but comments like "Ooh well now this is getting absolutely ridiculous!" or "Oh come on, hey, please let's fast forward" during the very first scenes of a film KIND OF push my buttons. Having said that, one of my proudest moments was when I got mum to sit through Requiem For A Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000). I was certain that she could NOT finish it, due to the film's subject matter, so I was very impressed that she made it to the end! Albeit questioning my sanity all the way through, I mean when the credits started rolling she stared at me with her mouth open and voiced her concerns for my mental health. But it still was a win in my books!

I think there's no need to clarify that I LOVE going to the cinema. Well, I do. A few years back, me, my sister and my brother decided to have special cinema day out seeing how outings between just the three of us are extremely rare. I was buzzing because I love going to the cinema and I really enjoyed the day, but there were a couple of factors that may have brought the spirits down just a wee bit;

1) My sister was pregnant at the time so we had to choose the seats accordingly (the far right of the second row wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice to be completely honest)

2) We had to go during the day because of my sister's already existing children and thus had fewer choices when it came to picking the film.

3) It was best to choose the nearest cinema, because of all these aforementioned factors (Note: nearest is not always the bestest)

4) Ended up seeing The King's Speech and because of time of day WE were classified as the teen rebels... seeing the *cough* a couple of decades older crowd queuing up to the same screen made my sister question the quality of the film we were about to watch...

5) When the film had ended, comments like "Did it have to be THAT LONG?! An hour shorter and it would've made no difference!" or "I fell asleep for like 20 minutes and I did not miss ANYTHING" didn't exactly improve the experience.

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and it was definitely worth every grey hair that I might have gained - but next time I think we'll stick to some brainless, fun-filled comedy where it literally does not matter if you fall asleep!

Until next time!

// E