My Passion for Movies

Following close behind my passion for TV would be my adoration of movies. As far as I can remember, it all started when I was a preschool kid and my Dad used to bring me to these midnight screenings of movies after he and my Mum finished work back then. He would pick me up from my Grandma’s place where she was babysitting me and then whisk me off to Lido or Orchard or Cathay cinema where we’d, as a family of three, be transfixed to the silver screen as classics like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”, the latest James Bond movie back then or Christopher Lee’s “Dracula” films played out on it.

Initially, I enjoyed going to the movies, because it was a time that I could share being in the company of my family and friends, with good cinema snacks (e.g. kachang puteh served in newspaper/magazine rolled up cones, or Orange Julius burgers, hot dogs and blended Pina Colada from the Cathay and Orchard cinemas) and we’d all have to sit down together and watch the film from beginning to the end without interruptions and then afterwards be able to talk about it with each other! In fact, I enjoyed the experience so much, that even at home, I’d sit everyone down in front of the telly and do a mock up movie experience, with fake tickets (I doubled up as a cinema “usher”), lights all switched off and everything! But as I grew older, got into secondary school and discovered English Literature, I realized that there was more to a movie than just sitting down, watching it for one and a half hour and that’s it. Through English Lit, I uncovered a whole array of analysis tools that could be applied not just to novels, plays and poetry, but also to movies as well! Suddenly, I was digging into the themes, character psyches, storyline developments and discovering meanings to films that I previously never even noticed during prior viewings of them (e.g. “The Sound of Music” sure showed me how one show could be viewed differently to me when I watched it when I was five, and when I watched it again with better appreciation when I was sixteen, and again when I was in my twenties)!

Even though I make it a point not to shun or exclude any form of film (because I feel that as a film aficionado, I should watch ALL movies in ALL genres, whether they may appear to be good or bad from trailers or based on opinions of other film critics), I do admit I have my personal favorite genres of film. At the top of my list would be musical movies or dance-themed films. Close behind in 2nd place would be horror – whether be it supernatural, slasher or thriller based ones. Being forever a child at heart, my third favorite genre would be the animated features and kid-oriented films. And of course, the hopeless romantic in me pushes me to fall in love with chick flicks and tearjerkers. Now that is not to say I do not enjoy films that do not fall into my top four fav film categories. I still have a smashing good time watching plenty of other films of all kinds, e.g. action, comedies, arthouse, indie, epics, blockbusters, etc, and even collect quite a number of them on DVD too!