Where am I when the movies are good?

Chat­ting with today I real­ized that I had to be dragged kick­ing and scream­ing to some of the best movies I’ve seen all year.

Own­ing Mahoney, Marooned in Iraq, The Dancer Upstairs–these are all movies I would­n’t have seen if I did­n’t have to for a work-relat­ed thing I don’t do any­more, and they’re prob­a­bly the three most inter­est­ing movies I’ve seen this year. I prob­a­bly would nev­er have seen The Hours or Phone Booth either if I had­n’t been oblig­at­ed to go, and both of those were worthwhile.

It indi­cates to me some­thing about how I choose movies. There was a time when I’d see a pre­view for some­thing that looked good and I’d want to go see it. When I was fif­teen, six­teen, sev­en­teen, you could­n’t keep me away from the York Square the­ater in New Haven. I’ve heard it’s gone down­hill since, but I saw Brazil and Kiss of the Spi­der Woman on the big screen when they came out because I real­ly was more inter­est­ed in those sorts of things than in shoot-em-up explo­sion movies.

Today, when i see a pre­view for some­thing that looks good, I file it away to con­sid­er see­ing on a date. Like a qual­i­ty film’s only val­ue to me is that I can impress some­one else with my good taste in movies. See­ing things for myself, I see spe­cial-effects-laden action stuff and that’s about it.

Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that, mind you. The escapist stuff can be a lot of fun. But what I’m notic­ing is that I only go in for the escapist stuff and avoid the things that I see that I think will actu­al­ly pro­voke some kind of thought. it’s like liv­ing on can­dy bars and avoid­ing the gourmet meals around me.

It’s yet anoth­er exam­ple of self-sab­o­tage. Is this a self-esteem thing? Like I’m not some­one who deserves to see good movies?

OK, got­ta go. Time for me to have a snick­ers bar for lunch.