Too Long

I've been neglecting this blog in favor of my Tumblr. But for the sake of greater accessibility, I'm putting something out here:

I'm not a film student anymore.

No, I know: I still occasionally work on adaptations & visual compositions, and I know a lot about movies, and I have seen a lot of movies, but I'm not working on critical interpretation of films primarily. I've had people introduce me to other academics as a film studies person, which doesn't bother me; it just means they haven't been keeping up with me. I'm not a famous scholar (yet...) so that's forgivable.

What I don't like, however, is people being surprised, nearly personally offended, when I haven't seen their New Favorite Best New Favorite Movie Ever.

I even understand this to an extent, I guess: I live in Los Angeles and I am interested in movies. Therefore, I should have seen it.

But here's the other problem: I live in Los Angeles. Ticket prices: high. Drive to the theater: takes time. Sitting through the movie: takes more time. Finding parking: annoying time taker. For the cost of the ticket plus the cost of time I'm spending, it's not worth it to me to go see movies in theaters when I could be doing other things.

Here is a short list of movies I haven't seen recently that EVERYONE is apparently losing their crap over:
~Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
~The Expendables
~The Last Exorcism
~Toy Story 3
~The Kids Are All Right
~Mesrine: Killer Instinct
~Inception
~Avatar

And then they refuse to talk to me about them because either "they don't want to ruin it" (I don't care if you spoil it, I didn't bother to see it in theaters) or else "they don't want to spend the time catching me up" (then don't be rude: change the subject).

To give you an idea, the last movie I saw in theaters was Iron Man 2, on a date (i.e. with someone I wanted to be spending time with, so the experience didn't feel self-indulgent; much the more delight when he got all traditional on me and paid).