The Video Store and Its Children

I cannot be trusted in the video store. I cannot be held responsible for being late to classes, appointments, family gatherings, etc. after being sent to the video store to pick up a film. Time spent at the video store is difficult for me because I take pride in what I watch and watch only what I want to tell about later.

Some would argue that I watch far too many movies. I would argue that the only way you can watch far too many is if you're watching the wrong ones. I mean, come on: by a percentage basis I've really only seen about ten percent of the films at my Family Video Store. Granted only about fifteen percent are worth watching, but that's just my point. If you stray outside that fifteen percent then you're watching too many. I watch more than the average fellow, but I'm still well within the quality range, so I'd say I'm doing fine.

The people that think I watch too many movies are in one or both of the following categories. Category A sees the issue on a purely numerical plain and assumes that anyone who watches more movies than they do is unhealthy. Category A folks are usually convinced that anybody experiencing more than they do is clearly overexperiencing and should slow down so Category A personalities like themselves don't look utterly boring. Category B contains people who have poor movie selection skills and watch whatever looks good based on the cover of a film or the amount of advertisements or recommendations they've heard about it. These people naturally blunder into a ton of shitty movies and therefore assume that anybody watching more films than they are must be watching even more shitty films.

People that actually watch more movies than I do are similar to the people who, when asked "what kind of music do you like?" they say "I listen to everything." These are the people who lack a critical skill, the ability to discriminate between worthwhile, or even more enjoyable art. In movies, these Category C people are like Category B folks in many ways, only they don't realize that they're swallowing shit. They even go on to recommend the shit to Category B folks who receive so many Category C recommendations that they go out to the video store and burn themselves again on another log of canned characters, rotten dialog, miserable acting, and cookie cutter plotline.

You can't take recommendations from Category A, B, or C people. The first two don't watch enough, and the third watches too much. You've got to be the perfect balance. You've got to watch enough to know what's out there, even watch enough to know what's quality, and then stop before you start to watch just anything.

I myself am caught at the point where the remaining 5% of movies in the video store that are worth watching but which I haven't seen yet, are getting tougher and tougher to identify and I don't trust anybody to tell me which ones they are. That's why I walked around Family Video by myself for 52 minutes this afternoon.