No that's not the name of a movie. I just thought it would be a good time to tell you a little about myself. As you can see I watch a lot of movies. First full day back in the city and I see three. Not all that uncommon of an occurrence for me. I will put the date I watched the movie with the title as well as if I watched it on DVD . If it does not say DVD then I saw the movie at a theatre.
Picture it, Noboro, P.E.I. 5 kms southeast of Kensington, 1977. After spending all morning and afternoon wandering around the back woods on my parents potato farm (yes we grew potatoes on P.E.I, typical right?) I came home to find all my many siblings gone. ( I have 8 of them) I was told they went to a movie and after a short phone call my mother told me if I could be at the end of the driveway in ten minutes I could go too. I was only nine but I ran the entire way in under five minutes. Our drive way was half a kilometre long, we lived on a farm remember. Other then getting into my aunt's car I don't remember anything except sitting in a very comfortable seat with brothers and sisters all around me talking. Yes I was the quiet one.
Then the lights went out and this giant magic window opened in front of me that took me to a different world then the one I lived in and has been doing so every since for 33 years.
It was amazing. I had never seen anything like it and still to this day get that same feeling of amazement when a movie starts. Just wish I had the same feeling of amazement and wonder every time a movie ends.
The movie was about a guy who has a UFO sighting in his truck and then becomes obsessed with an uniquely shaped mountain. Will let you guess which movie it is.
From that moment on I was hooked but didn't really start watching a lot of movies till I was about 13 or 14. Living in southwestern Ontario then and working in Tobacco during summers, gave me a lot of money to spend and a lot of free time. I started renting a VCR ( remember those?) and about 4 to 6 movies that I would stay up all weekend and watch. To give you an idea of the time period, I actually started renting video disc or laser discs, which you had to take out and turn over to the other side halfway through the movie. The big huge ones that seem to be only used in Hong Kong not the small DVD things we have now. Then I moved on to BETA and yes it was better quality then VHS but like Blue Ray could be mass produced cheaper then HD discs , VHS won that battle and Beta went bye bye, except for television studios who used it because of the quality.
This is when I discovered Samurai films by the late great Kurosawa Akira, which changed my life forever.
Also discovered directors like Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock, and many many others.
Since then I been watching as many films as I can as often as I can. Normally about 400 or 500 a year.
One year I even set a world record by watching 701 films in one year. Of course Guinness Book of World Records wont accept it but who cares about them. I know i did it.
The year and a half after that I watched at least one movie a day for the entire 18 months. Fun but tiring.
And people wonder why I moved to Toronto where there are, so far to my count, 52 film festivals every year. Actually I moved here for other reasons but there is no other city in the world that is better for a movie lover to live in then Toronto.
Which brings me up to date and to TIFF, The Toronto International Film Festival. It is coming up in a week or so. This year I should be seeing about 10 films. Almost all Asian films since the Hollywood films all come out to the regular theatres right after anyways.
Hope this little bit of background helps you understand a bit more about me. In another post I will be giving my views on different types of movies as well and also my explanation of the difference between a movie and a film.
