If we're ever going to have law and order in England the first thing we gotta do is round up all the film documentary directors and shoot em down like dogs. For years I've been getting pissed off with people who have more interest in how films are made than watching them. And these people seem to be the audience, and the ones making every single film review show and award ceremony. You can't get away from people who insist on including pointless 'behind-the-scenes' footage in their damned programs that are ostensibly about the films themselves. Get a clue- it's got fuck all to do with film. The difference between watching a film a watching one of these stupid review programs is huge. I know that these days they're going to include a few seconds of 'making of' material which serves absolutely no fucking purpose whatsoever. Fortunately it's useless in informing people about how films are made not just what they're made about. If I wanted to know the technical details of film making I wouldn't be watching a review show. I watch a review show (or used to) so I could find out what good new films had been released recently. Now I simply don't bother. How exactly does turning away the audience serve the program's purpose? It doesn't. It's just a load of technical bullshit.
When I tune out of one of these programs and watch a film I feel like I'm now watching the real thing. These programs are so divorced from their subject matter they're losing their relevance to it. Speaking as a genuine throwback who insists on watching programs on an analogue cathode ray tube with a single speaker (and I like it that way) people are far too concerned with technology as a part of film. People get fucking huge flat screens, surround sound and watch films in 3D and they don't care about film any more now than they used to; maybe even less so. They use their fucking expensive televisions that they put as far away from themselves as humanly possible in their boring, characterless, don't say a thing about me houses to watch bland shit while eating their dinner (I speak from direct observation.) I watch a 14 inch cathode ray TV that I kicked the shit out of when I got annoyed playing Halo and yet I've been moved in front of it. My whole life has changed because of things I've seen on screen and technology had nothing to do with it. Technology and FX and all that stuff is just background, you shouldn't even think about it. People put technology above the work because they're shallow, they have no reverence for what they watch. I love film and I think in some ways older technology is better. I want everything I see to be as realistic as possible. It isn't about knowing how special effects are done. There are some films that leave me in a daze, I don't want to watch or listen to anything else all day because it wouldn't be good enough. If you don't care even remotely that much about films as an art form, stay away from them.
