So I think I should make it clear that I'm a pretty big film nut. However just saying that comes at a price.
GUILT. Mega guilt. Guilt that would make a Catholic howl with joy or pain depending on their masochistic tendencies.
You see, film loving is a total bitch.
If I say I read, I can say I read classical literature or French poetry or science fiction or fantasy, or yadda yadda yadda and you can still be counted as a subject-specific 'fan of reading'. It doesn't work like that with films.
If you say you watch only Westerns or black and white movies, people think you're a bit odd or geriatric.
If you say you only watch action films, people think you're a meathead.
Cinema Nouveau, you're a hipster.
Romantics, you're a sap.
Sci fi, GEEK!
Comedies...meh, who doesn't like to laugh?
You could be a master of one of these and never get respect as a film nut which is rather cruel. Instead to get that mantle you have to know your stuff in some capacity in every field across the history of the medium. For some reason there is this HUGE list of classics you have to get through as well as pop culture milestones. If you don't, BAM, hand in your film nut badge, you are merely a regular pleb audience member. This list is pretty damn varied. Sure its got The Godfather, Jaws, Scarface and Star Wars on it but its got Battleship Potemkin, 70's Giallo cinema and bloody Dogma on the list too.
This is insane of course. You don't walk up to a literature major say, "Oh you've read the entire works of the Greek philosophers, the metaphysical poets, Camus, Voltaire, Byron, Shelley, Shakespeare, Marlowe and Hemmingway as well as all their contemporaries but you haven't given the bestselling 90's Goosebumps series a go? FAKE!
So anyway, you hope and pray every time the subject of a film you haven't got round to watching comes up in conversation you don't get asked anything on it. You need that film nut merit badge so much, you can't bear to lose it. But if you indeed make it through the talk without blowing your ignorance on that subject its not much better because you are now guiltily moving that flick to the top of your current viewing list. Cos that's the thing film nuts do, we have lists. Not like normal people who go, "Hey, Taxi Driver's on tonight, that's supposed to be good". Oh no, we have a mental catalogue of each category and our strengths and weaknesses in each and a plan of eliminating those weaknesses one by one. Gaps in the lists drive us mad with the shame. I think we're frighteningly like serial killers.
The worst part, the truly sad and pathetic part is that the only reason this is true is because film nuts are total dicks! This grand game only exists because we continue to play it with each other which leads us to believe everyone else is playing when they couldn't care less. We don't get that, every chat on film is a challenge! "Oh you haven't seen Andrei Rublev? Oh you must, its an amazing piece of 60's Russian cinema". Sure it sounds like a friendly recommendation! It God damn isn't! Film nuts are children at a party sticking a finger up their bum before jabbing it in another kids piece of cake. We are maniacally cruel, the only detail being that its only the other film nuts who see their desserts being ruined.
There are 3 bits of help I offer to fledgling cinema-loving loonies.
Firstly, try picking a flick that's in a lot of textbooks but no one in their right minds would ever watch willingly. You can then say that other directors reference said film ad infitum. This is great because for every film the other person mentions, you can bring it back to that specific viewing gap with a, "You see! there's another example of the referencing! The framing on that dripping tap definitely resembles the famous waterfall scene."
Secondly, for extra sting try to weasel out from someone something they like or consider themselves an expert on specifically in film. This can be a genre, director or actor, the more specialist and niche the better. 1940's bollywood melodramas for example. If you name something they haven't seen relating to this particular like, no matter how awful the flick is, even if its a snuff film, you can chide them saying 'oh if you're a fan, you really should'. It burns so much better.
Thirdly you can destroy someone pointing out a gap in your knowledge if you ask if they have seen the original. Its a wonderful trump card. Hell you might not have seen the original. The original might be in Swedish! but if they haven't either you can bluff it! Of course this can blow up disastrously if they have, giving them a bonus score, so use cautiously.
I don't know why we do this to each other, its utterly pointless...but damn is it fun. I have friends who when I see, it is all we do. God knows what their home lives are, if they're married what they do for a living, the real question is "have they managed to complete the Three Colours trilogy yet?" or "Do I accept that Ringo Lam's City on Fire is superior to Reservoir Dogs?". Its a hell I relish.
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Especially since I just watched Billy Wilder's "The Apartment". Take that person downing Sambuca shots with me at a party 2 years ago!
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