My movie madness is of a pretty simple kind. I just watch movies as a pastime, and to have something besides my own life to think about, i.e. it's a controlled form of escapism :-)
The best movies get me into a real "high" – into such a state of mind that I can't (or even won't) think much else than the film I've just seen... and when closing my eyes I still see clear images of the film's scenes without even trying. If the film also gives some real food for thought, so that the brain seems to function on overload for a while afterwards, the "high" is perfect. So, merely a visually terrific action movie isn't enough...
I like to read analyses and other articles about the content of films, but I don't bother to write any myself. I take the story as it comes, unless there's some really odd art film that specifically requires some sort of an interpretation.
Despite this superficiality, or perhaps thanks to it, I can almost endlessly bore my friends with movie trivia. No analyses, but names, years, details – lists, lists, lists...
Peter von Bagh, a Finnish movie guru, has written about films that are "Larger than life" – those books are my Bible. The great British movie magazine Empire is my Catechism.
I use the Internet Movie Database IMDb almost daily. Sometimes I look for movie info at Filmsite or the Cinemania CD-ROM as well. The Guinness book of Movie Facts and Feats ("a film fan's wet dream", as Empire so accurately put it) rarely stands in my bookshelf...
Good music is half of the movie experience – a memorable theme can save even the most clichéd scene, and if both the scene and the accompanying piece of music are the tops, I'm sure to get "high". E.g. "Non nobis" in Henry V (1989), the opening number of West Side Story, the main theme (the slow one) of Once Upon a Time in the West... Best drug available!
Fact and reviews of movie music can be found at Filmtracks – it's a fab site!
My favourite film composers are John Barry, Hans Zimmer, John Williams and, last but certainly not least, Ennio Morricone.
More on the next page.