As an always-been-forever-will-be film fanatic now student (who would have thought), I’ve always had this desire to extend my cinematic gauge. Thanks to my father, who is a movie-lover himself, we’ve always had our fair share of video, DVD rentals; a tradition whenever the holidays popped by. Nowadays, my local video store has been replaced by a fitness gym with a horrifically exorbitant membership (when are they not) and the only thing you can watch is fat crying on treadmills. Not exactly entertaining and definitely far from a Lubitsch classic, if you ask me.

For too long we’ve been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer
blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually
artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching – a market response to inefficient distribution.

So here’s a jarring word: economics. Now, I’ve never been that much interested with the whole production, consumption, ‘produsage’ vibe until very recently and what hurts most is how I didn’t pay as much attention to as I should have in the first place. This is the ‘Jaws’ attack metaphorically and figuratively. (My good friend does an apt job of explaining my sentiments here.)

I echo everything. I’m flabbergasted, amazed, consumed, overpowered, embarrassed by my limited knowledge of film art. It’s almost appalling to look at my reflection on my TV screen. Everything is about the latest blockbuster trend. What makes for a good spin-off, a music video, a collector’s doll for the only dusted shelf in the house. No one attributes good movies with exactly how good it is any longer. I could scream “THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER” to both your ears via magic and either you’ll look across from me to that shop around the corner or you’ll think I’m half mad.

You probably wouldn’t even know that the movie is an 8.1 on IMDB or a perfect-score tomato party. Chris Anderson surmises this whole entertainment economy quite frankly and in all its verity. I’m a culprit of this crime too. I can’t not say that I’ve been and still is continually being allured by the latest Hollywood movie trends and what word of mouth says is worth the movie ticket. You simply can’t help it, nowadays. Or can you?

Are we just going to sit off the usual cinematic prose borrowed from every piece of blockbuster film for monetary concerns with salty buttered popcorn?

I may need water.