CINEMANIA (2002) ** ½
You know, whenever I tell somebody how many movies I watch per year (around 500) they usually tell me to get a life. To the obsessive film buffs in this documentary, movie watching IS their lives.
This documentary follows five diverse New Yorkers who have one thing in common: They obsessively watch movies all day. All of them are opposed to seeing a film on video and have to see them all in a theater. Some see as many as five in a day and have to coordinate their movie schedules with the subway schedules in order to hit every movie they want.
I thought I was pretty obsessive about watching movies until I saw the people in this flick. While I DO keep ticket stubs and souvenir collector cups, I’m not quite as bad as some of these people. For instance, I don’t eat constipative diets so I won’t have to get up and go to the bathroom mid-movie. I have never seen over 1000 movies in one year. I have never strangled a movie usher for ripping my ticket. These folks do.
While this documentary had a potential to be really interesting, unfortunately it’s not particularly well done. It’s shot on grungy video and regards it’s subjects as more or less freakshows. I kinda wished that the film focused a little more on the viewers’ tastes and considerable cinema knowledge rather than just show how OCD they really are. If anything, the film served as a healthy reminder that my own movie watching obsession isn’t nearly as bad as I thought.
Although you know things are pretty bad when you find yourself watching a movie about people who watch movies.
