"I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."

To me, the idea of television implies a sort of spontaneity. That probably comes from the fact that in the past two years, I've rarely watched television in any sort of regular fashion. All of the shows that I follow I watch online; I only watch TV when I have nothing else to do, and when I have nothing specific in mind. I just have to turn it on, flip through the channels, and hope for the best. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't, but that's part of the beauty of it. All the crap on TV that I skip over just makes it that much more satisfying when I find something worthwhile. ("Worthwhile", of course, being a relative term.)

The above is probably part of the reason why I've always been so against watching movies on TV. I don't mean on a physical television screen, obviously; I mean movies aired on TV channels. A movie is something to be watched in its entirety and appreciated (or unappreciated) for it's whole. And unless you've planned ahead - which for me barely counts as watching it "on TV" because of the previously stated spontaneity hypothesis - you always start somewhere in the middle. Even if you do happen to turn on the television on the hour, the movies that are just starting are never ones you have any desire to watch, and all the interesting ones are halfway finished. I remember when I lived at home and I'd be watching something on TV and my father would come in and change the channel. He always found some random movie, and I was always so upset at him because I just don't understand how people can start movies in the middle, no matter how good it was or how many times they've seen it before.

But I've changed my mind.

I don't know when or how it happened. I don't know why. But all of a sudden, when I come home for breaks, there is nothing I look forward to more than watching bits of movies on television. Finding something I haven't seen in years, or of something that I just watched the night before. Watching the last half hour of a movie, and immediately finding the last half hour of another movie, after which I find the last half hour of a movie I saw starting when I watched that first half last hour...aren't I majoring in Cinema Studies at a prestigious liberal arts college? Shouldn't my appreciation for film be growing, rather than dwindling to the point that my favorite movie-watching experiences involve flipping between channels for hours on end? Am I sacrificing my integrity for the sole purpose of animalistic entertainment? Is that really such a problem?

I still know how to watch a movie. I haven't lost that much of my attention span yet, and I'm not too worried about that happening anytime in the near future. But I'm also teaching myself how to appreciate movies in segments. I'm learning how to appreciate it for each little thing that makes up the film, rather than simply what it conveys as a whole. And sometimes all you need are those little details, those little reminders of what's happening, what you're doing, and the fact that you really shouldn't take anything in this world too seriously.

xoxo,
t

P.S. Seriously, I have an eight page paper on Gossip Girl that's supposed to be due today and I haven't even started it. There is something wrong with me.

P.P.S. I still think this blog needs a new name. IDEAS. GO.

P.P.P.S. Five points to anyone who gets where the title's from! Hint: It was on TV Saturday night. And I watched the first forty minutes, and then the last half hour when it showed again later. It was epic.