Why I fell in love with films

I am now completely useless at pub quizzes and unable to do casual "film talk" with anyone under 50. And, most noticeably, I developed a complete aversion for any film which I consider to have not quite to meet these outrageously high early standards.

True, my tastes have developed to be slightly more eclectic than my Dad may have liked (Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Scrooged, Sex and the City), but, even on my first unescorted cinema visits, as the credits rolled I found myself thinking: IS THIS IT?

I could only put up with this for so long and I was 13 when I first walked out of the cinema. I still do this- a lot- and it never fails to elicit horror in most people. Maybe that's because it is so out of character- in most other areas of life, I willingly subject myself to quite tortuous levels of discomfort for the sake of ease/ safety/ politeness- but in this area alone I have the arrogant belief that, despite the £7 I just spent and the disturbance I am about to cause to those around me, I just do not have enough time to waste on nonsense. It's true that I was a bit scarred by that first time though, and I didn't go to the cinema much for a long time afterward. I read books instead.

Skip forward several years. By then I was in the second year of an English degree at Newcastle University and have: a) lots of time during the day and b) a complete inability to relax. My brain was weighed down by texts and quotations and I needed to find some way of switching it off. I found the Tyneside Cinema. It was (and is) as I imagine heaven to be- beautiful, dark, quiet and showing an endless stream of the type of film I thought only existed on Sunday afternoon BBC2 and late night Channel 4 (this was the old days- before the porn). It became my escape.

At precisely that moment I fell back in love with films and since then I have been to the cinema a lot. This is all that really qualifies me to write a blog about films- no Film Studies MA, no ambition to act/ direct/ produce, no book of cinema facts. I acknowledge that loads of people will have a wider knowledge than I do and that my tastes will not suit everyone. You might find it interesting though, you might want to argue with me and you might even go to see something you've not tried before. And if you find it all too much, you can always blame my Dad.