I am not going to waste everybody’s time buy writing yet another deconstruction of the COVID pandemic. It is bad enough that we are living through these frustrating times, without having to read about it on a daily basis. Instead, I will just take the time to analyse the daily minutiae that makes up my life. That is all you are going to get, so you may as well stop moaning….
I have just ordered a new DVD player, to hopefully allow me to watch the 100 must-see cult movies that I wrote a blog about last week. I have already watched The Godfather, on BBC iPlayer, Life of Brian, Easy Rider, Duel and Hard Candy but if you were hoping for me to write detailed reviews, then you will be sadly disappointed.
While I was a student at the University of Nottingham, I took my Bachelor’s degree in American Studies – a course that looks at the history, literature and thought and culture of the United States of America. I chose to study this course, not for any vocational reasons, but for the six-month “holiday” in America that was offered as an incentive. I didn’t need asking twice and spent a semester at the University of Illinois during 1997.
Back at Nottingham, we were able to take popular modules on Hollywood cinema, which fellow students did not seem to appreciate. They would be stressing out, having to bury their heads in dry books that offered little of interest, while I spent the afternoon watching The Terminator. Surprisingly enough, I did rather well with this module and achieved some of my highest grades for essays on Lone Star and Carry On England.
I was not a film buff by any stretch of the imagination. I was, and still am, very proud of the fact that I have never watched a James Bond movie. Unlike many of my fellow students, I was unfamiliar with the bright lights of Hollywood and my movie expertise was non existent. This actually gave me a distinct advantage over others, who would pepper essays with meaningless trivia and stray away from the essay question.
Less is quite often more. My lack of film knowledge worked in my favour as I just concentrated on the technical aspects of the question that I was being asked. This helped me to get my best grades throughout my entire degree. It was over 20 years ago now, but I managed to achieve grades of 94%, which helped to guarantee the 2:1 that I eventually achieved.
Writing about film history is not as straight forward as many people think as there are many complex theories that pictures can be understood through. Wikipedia states the following:
Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures;[1] and that now provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film’s relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large.[2] Film theory is not to be confused with general film criticism, or film history, though these three disciplines interrelate.
Subsequently, I will not be writing a review of every film that I watch throughout this challenge, and I am not a second-rate Mark Kermode and I do not know half as much about film, as my mate who runs the successful ‘Tufnell Park Film Club’. It is just not something that I feel comfortable with, as I am fully aware that you will be able to find more informed analysis elsewhere. It is like someone from New Zealand writing something on Wrexham Football Club. I would almost see it as a personal insult.
I may share pictures and the reviews of others to catalogue my journey through 100 cult movies, but at least I will always have the memory of being top-dog on that film module back at the University of Nottingham…
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I spend too many hours watching music videos on YouTube each and every evening to send me to sleep. It is an enjoyable way to spend the twilight hours and has created many earworms that I can’t get out of my head the following day.
I also sit through some awful videos such as the one below. It is so bad that I thought it was worth sharing below.
I am nice like that…
