Timing
“When” a movie enters your life can be a significant factor for whether or not it’s right for you. Thanks to streaming catalogs and DVD re-issues, few movies will ever really go away. This can be a good reminder to consider a movie you rejected years ago, which may have been the right decision back then.
A Walk on the Moon was that movie for me. In 1999, College Fred was not up for seeing Diane Lane cheat on her husband while America experienced its 1969 awakening. However, over the years I had heard good things about the movie whenever people would talk about the careers of director Tony Goldywn, or stars Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen. It remained on my radar for a while. When I finally watched A Walk on the Moon, there was still that element of a woman discovering herself via adultery, but there’s a thread of family healing in the movie that I certainly wasn’t mature enough for in my early ‘20s. I got that out of an adult viewing of the film. Plus, now I know where Unfaithful, Under the Tuscan Sun and Nights in Rodanthe came from. There was always the hope of recapturing that Walk on the Moon spark.
Netflix expirations can play a role in timing too. With thousands of movies available indefinitely, you might take it for granted you can always get to this or that. An expiration date could like a fire under you. Much of my holiday viewing was precipitated by the Netflix purge, including Walk on the Moon. See, if it weren’t expiring, I’d just take it for granted I’d still get around to it someday. Timing determined when that film should enter my narrative. Also Killer Klowns From Outer Space, which I’ve owed a watch for decades, but it took the Netflix purge to finally make it happen.
Join a Community
There will be times where you don’t pick the movies that are part of your narrative. If you’re with a group of people, you have to go the movie they want. If you’re on a date, you see what your date wants. If you have kids, you take them to kids movies (though please be selective when it comes to kids movies). Those are things you roll with, and that can be part of your ultimate story. “I only saw The Vow because my girlfriend wanted to see it, and now we’re married.”
You can also use movies as a way in to a new community, and then use that community to gauge what type of movies you may watch in the future. That is ultimately the broader purpose of any art, connecting us with each other via emotional or entertaining devices.
I read the website of Vern (OutlawVern.com), author of the book Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal. He covers action movies, a lot of straight to video material, looking for gems, and often horror or edgy classics like the films of Jodorowsky. I enjoy posting comments on OutlawVern.com and that’s actually how I got the name Franchise Fred.
So if I’m looking at a bunch of new release VOD movies, I’m more likely to pick the action/horror one that is likely to be a subject of discussion on OutlawVern. I may even like the alternate choice more, but I want to be part of the discussions. If it’s between Seagal’s latest straight to video Force of Execution and one of those Godard movies I missed, I’m going to go with the one my Vern buddies will be discussing. However, I did watch The Holy Mountain thanks to Vern so it’s been good for me too. I have some great friends in that forum, some of whom I’ve been able to meet, but it’s a great way to use the internet to form real connections, and for us it’s via movies. It’s like joining a book club, but you meet virtually.
I guess I was already onto this when I was younger and discovered Joe Bob Briggs, the Drive-In Movie Critic. I loved his persona and the fun he had reviewing schlock, so I would watch whatever movies he hosted. That was before the internet so it was a personal connection via my television set. Briggs resurfaced online but has been harder to find and less consistent, but he was part of my early narrative, and could very easily become part of it again.
