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Obligatory statement of purpose

 I love movies. I collect dvds and watch movies almost daily. The object of the game is to see both as many movies and as many types of them as I can before I die. 


Roger Ebert once said the movies are a machine for generating empathy. I agree with that. I watch movies to see other people's perspectives and experience. I go into movies wanting to be entertained, to be told a story, and hopefully a story told from a different point of view than mine. 


Every movie I see gets full benefit of the doubt, suspension of disbelief, and sympathy for its characters until it ends. I do not watch movies with a checklist of my sociopolitical values in hand, keeping a running tally of all the ways it pushed my buttons by failing to conform to my values. Movies exist for my entertainment and enjoyment, but they are not about me. My values and I are not more important than the movie while I'm watching it. 


I like Hollywood movies. Mainstream, middlebrow, middle class entertainments. I see plenty of art films, indie films, foreign films, any kind of film that interests me or that I hear might interest me. Still, I grew up on mainstream Hollywood multiplex fare in the '70s and '80s and '90s and onward and those films are my sweet spot. 


I do not write about film to debate film. I don't write about it to air grievances with other genders, races, or cultures. I do not write about Hollywood product to back up my pet thesis about why someone or other has offended everyone else and needs to be destroyed. If people want to write about these things through the lens of film I think they should. That's not what's happening here. 


I'm eager to engage with folks over why a screenplay contradicted itself all over the place, how characters felt inauthentic or a music cue seemed to stop the picture dead in its tracks. I want to talk to people about the movies and the stories they tell and how effective - or not - they are at doing it. 


I will not engage with comments such as, "You like this movie because you're a middle aged cis-het white male and you want to enslave...." I will not engage with those who refuse to suspend disbelief and extend sympathy until the picture ends. I will not engage with individuals who say, "I don't need to see this movie to know it's offensive." If a person hasn't seen the movie, no comment s/he makes has an ounce of validity here. Contempt prior to investigation will be met with contemptuous silence. 


Again, I'm not saying those approaches to movies are wrong. It's not for me to say, because I don't do that. They won't and don't fit here, however. I ask only for a fair hearing and the bare minimum of courtesy and respect for my right to my opinion, even if my opinion, itself, doesn't merit a reader's respect. 


With that out of the way, let's love us some movies. 

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