I Am Not Watching Movies And I Am Okay With It

I go through spells of not watching any movies, and I kind of like it. If you're not careful - watching films becomes something done out of duty rather than passion - especially when you work in the industry, or write a film blog, or both. And there's just no fun in that. 

Truth be told, I haven't seen 'Argo', or 'Looper', or 'Skyfall', or 'Rust & Bone'. I'm behind. But so what? Right now I'm loving books, and news articles, and music. I've always had this pattern, it's a natural thing, where my interests dive into different areas for short periods of time. It's usually really intense. I won't read a book in a year, then I'll read nine in six days. That's how I am, and I like it that way. 

But I don't always allow myself to be like that. Because I have this identity, as the 'film guy'. I'm not sure if other people pushed it upon me, or if I claimed it for myself. Indeed, there's something cool about being the guy people turn to if they need an opinion or, dare I say, some expertise regarding films. 

But these ways in which we identify ourselves, they're not really real. It's just a tag we wear. And actually, it can be extremely limiting. 

When I was a kid, I used to love books about crime, and aliens, and monsters. But somewhere growing up, I told myself I don't like those stories. But you know what? I kind of really do, it's just buried deep inside of me. My tastes skewed towards classic Hollywood, modern indie films, and world cinema. And I really do love those things; but I also over-identify with them a little too much sometimes, as if it means something. As if it's who I am. 

I kind of blame the blog. It adds more pressure. It shouldn't do. A blog is just a blog. But again; you start to over-identify with what you're doing. See yourself as the indie film blogger guy. The one with the slightly off mainstream opinion on things. But what is that? It's just some made up self-perception that means very little. 

We are who we are and sometimes I just wanna sit in my room for six hours and watch 'Ally Mcbeal' episodes. I never let myself do that; because it seems wasteful, or girly, or something else; I can never put my finger on it. But actually, sometimes that's really what I want to do. A voice in me says "watch eight Billy Wilder movies then write an epic article about them," or "read ten screenplays, they'll help you with your scripts and then they'll help you come up with something really interesting for the blog...." -- but it's not a voice of passion, it's just this crazy nutbag inside of me who pushes me to keep to this identity; the film guy persona. 

But no, tonight I just want to watch a bunch of Ally Mcbeal episodes, and then read a good book. The movies will still be there a day, week or month from now. 

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