Everyone has had the experience of standing in front of their open refrigerator, unable to choose which plate of leftovers to heat up. That's kind of how I'm feeling at the moment with movies. With my son now back to school and my work hours switched to second shift, I have - for the first time in many months - the weekday mornings and early afternoons to myself. Coming up on these open days, I expected that I'd be logging some serious hours of movie watching. But it hasn't been like that at all. Instead, I'm finding myself simply staring at my tape and DVD collection, unable to make a decision on what the hell to watch - much less what to write about. There's a kind of denial at work when it comes to collecting - whether it be movies, books, or records. As a fan, you build a collection with the expectation that these are things that you'll be able to enjoy in the days and years ahead, over and over, at your leisure. But at a certain point, you have to realize that your life simply won't be long enough to enjoy all these things that you've amassed. Like, not even if you were a vampire or something. I look at my movie collection, a collection that adds up to tens of thousands of hours of films and televisions shows, and I have to admit that, even if I live an exceptionally long life, that I already own more movies than I'll ever have the time to watch again. As much as I'd like to go back and watch all of them at least one more time, I know that I won't.
Sorry, Ghost Ship. Nothing personal.
Some people lament that they never had the experience of climbing Mt. Everest, or never learned to scuba dive, or never visited Paris before they died but I'm more likely to regret that I didn't watch From Beyond nearly enough. Several years ago, I stopped buying movies with the same frequency that I used to. But even with slowing down, I'm still surrounded by stacks of movies that remind me of just how little time there is in a day, a week, a year, or a life.
In the face of that existential quandary, there's only one decision to make - the same one that I always make while standing at the open fridge.
I go with comfort food.
