Confessions of a Cinephile

Hello All,

This is my attempt to explain where my love of movies began and how it has evolved and continued to evolve through the course of my life. This will likely be an ongoing series of entries as I do not believe I will be able to say all that I would like to say in one entry.

I was born in the early 80s to a loving Mother and Father. My father is one of the many James Bond Fanatics; I consider myself somewhat of a Bond fanatic, although I am not as into it as my Dad and his close from Doug, but I know more than the average person does about the James Bond Franchise. In my early life, I was exposed to plethora of Walt Disney films and still enjoy them today but am more of a fan of the Pixar computer animated films than the animated Disney films of today. I grew up watching a lot of action adventure films, including the Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Star Trek and Back to the Future films.

I would often go to the movies with my mother who would go see just about anything with me that I wanted to see. My Father was a police officer and worked rotating shifts so he worked odd hours and was not always around and my sister was and still is a social butterfly who started working just as soon as she could so if she was not in school, or out with friends, she was working, leaving my mom and I to do to the movies or hang out at home. We did go to see movies together as a family. I fondly remember seeing Batman Forever, X-Men and a host of other films with my whole family. For my birthday we would usually go to the movies on the weekend to celebrate; Home Alone 2, Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, and Toy Story were among some of the films that were watched for my birthday celebrations. I believe that I associate movie watching with spending time with family and to this day love watching movies with friends or family members.

Another side to my obsession with films is my love of analyzing the situations that the characters find themselves in; I do this more with Television Shows though because the stories are ongoing. I analyze the moral questions that some films raise and the issues that the filmmakers are trying to propose to the movie going public.

Over time I was able to see more mature films. My mother and I would watch a lot of cop films. I remember renting all of the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard films and watching them with my mother; I would later add these films to my burgeoning DVD collection in the late 90s. My mother also liked comedies (anything with John Candy) and I did as well so we would often watch those when we were not watching cop films.

In the late 90s as I grew up I began to confront my childhood fears about horror films by diving into the Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday The 13th and Halloween films. The Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday The 13th films are now among my favourite horror films and I immensely enjoy the pairing of Halloween 1 and 2; the original as well as hyper violent and visceral Rob Zombie remakes. More recently, I have become a huge fan of the "found footage horror films" of the Paranormal Activity franchise and I eagerly await the 4th entry to the franchise. I also am a fan of Zombie films, beginning with my first real self appointed exposure to them with the Dawn of the Dead remake, a bunch of years back. As I tend to do, I went back to the beginning and watched George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead and the original Dawn of the Dead, followed by Day of the Dead and the later released Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. I also am a big fan of the 28 Days Later franchise and count 28 Days Later amongst my top 5 films of all time for a lot of reasons that I have already detailed in previous entries.

My movie viewings would change very much in the fall of 2002 when I began to attend the University of Toronto aiming to attain a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Cinema Stuides. The cinema studies program involved learning of the history of film including early motion toys (precursors to film), the development of the classical Hollywood System, various National Cinemas, how Narration and Style operate in films to tell a story and so on. In my next entry in this series, I will discuss my experiences with film while attending University.

I hope that I have been somewhat coherent in my detailing of my love of films and their place in my life. I appreciate any feedback or questions that you may have.

Thanks for reading.

Fanboy Dave