Cinemania is the most depressing movie. It is nearly impossible to get through for anyone who enjoys film. 77 minutes of supposed “film buffs” who go to every screening they can in New York City. 6 or 7 theatrical screenings a day. But they have nothing to say about the film, nor do they seem to enjoy it. They are simply catalogs of trivia and meaningless information. There’s a guy who simply memorizes running times, brings a stopwatch, calls in to the theaters to make corrections. They have a compulsive need to go, I guess, but they admit that they don’t go to discuss the films, that when they talk to other film buffs, they get together to discuss scheduling and theaters.

These type of people give nerds a bad name. One guy doesn’t eat vegetables or bran, because he knows he’ll have to spend some time in the bathroom the next day. He deliberately constipates himself. However, Cinemania takes no stance. The movie is shallow, the people depressing. It pretends to be comically poking at them, but they are miserable to look at and it doesn’t delve into anything but the minimal surface, no insight at all. It doesn’t even bother with a stance. You can mock them and it gives you material to do that with. But it’s like they were avoiding digging on purpose or they shot the movie and didn’t have the balls and tried to make it as banal as possible. A random quote that sums up the entire movie in a nutshell:

“Nowhere in the movie do we see them loving the films they see, or even enjoying them.”

There’s a strange betrayal by the people who made the movie as well. The subjects all talk about how their nightmares are on video and their dreams on film… Cinemania is shot on video. And it looks terrible.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Documentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.