Harry Knowles: Ain't It Cool?

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness;
it is generally the by-product of other activities."
-- Aldous Huxley


I don't think there is just one world. I see numerous occupations and passions, which are worlds apart, and which almost all seem a bit unnecessary, if not even stupid, from a particular point of view. But everyone has his own perspective. That should be respected and so nothing could be honestly judged before hand.
So it is with books for example. You must've learnt it by now that only few people live in both worlds: where in world 1 there live the readers, the consumers, and in world 2 those who produce them. There are so many good books to read, but also so little time to do that. I guess the same holds for just about everything we do: Some produce while others consume. I am more and more convinced that this is right and that such balance has been present ever since.

Movies are no exception. Exactly how many movies are made every year? I have no idea; around 3,0000? I see about 30 movies a year, which is a big number for me, and, I am certain, a tiny number for some of you. There are over 200,000 titles listed on the Internet Movie Database, the most comprehensive credit listings on the web. That is a remarkable figure. I've seen perhaps 0.4% of them. - Should I grab a knife and stab myself; to death?
There are movie lovers who have much higher percentage than mine. But they can still love film in a way I do. The passion, however, can go boink, love can become madness. Film buffs are film nuts.
I remember having seen Cinemania (2002) when I realized the relativity of movie geekness. There was a guy who ate an extensive amount of peanut butter for breakfast everyday, so his digesting system got used to getting stuck and excreting only once or twice in a week. He eliminated the problem of excreting and could've concentrated on gulping movies at a higher rate and in bigger peace. On the same note, though luckily to much healthier extend, I then read an article in our local newspaper: "Hranijo se s filmi in živijo od ljubezni (do sedme umetnosti)." Nedelo 9. januarja 2005.

Hary Knowles is one of the biggest movie buffs. He confesses he has seen over 10,000 movies, which is still just 5% of the IMDb total, but also one movie a day for every day of his 30 and something years.
Many compare Harry Knowles to Roger Ebert - who is a legend among the film critics and who even took Harry under his wing and pushed him into the center ring -, as the Ebert of his generation. But it seems to me that Knowles is to Ebert what Michael Moore is to Slavoj Žižek: the same passion for what he does, the same rage against laymen, all in all very similar, - BUT with a lot smaller vocabulary. This matters a lot, for it says something about his illiteracy. It's true: Knowles and Moore are college dropouts, Ebert and Žižek are not. ("You think that you are complicated, deep mystery to all. - Well it's taken me a while to see, you're not so special. - All energy no meaning, with a lot of words. - So paper thin that one real feeling, could knock you down." -- Dido, See You When You're 40; it's sad that it looks like we won't see Harry making 40.) Remember that Harry is the one who cried like a puppy with a cock in his ass having watched Armageddon (1998).
Harry's words tend to be all about magic, stardust and wonder of the cinema, but that can also be turned upside down and put it plainly as phony. Screenplays, rewritten 20 times, scenes, reshot 100 times ... just so everything looks like magic. Next, please.
His favorite film of all time is the original King Kong (1933). I just can't make myself to visualize how much saliva he has accumulated over the upcoming Peter Jacskon's version. I am standing on my toes to see that movie too, but I won't die if I don't. Now, spit!
That reminded me I didn't like fat. I eat as little fat as I can. I am not attracted to fat girls, nor at least to fat boys. Harry's physical appearance, with his 160kg and way to much hair (which I really don't mind if it's red), stands next to repulsiveness in my mind. I am aware that a great number of people from the developed world look just like Harry, and alas, the percentage is only increasing. So maybe I should judge his spirit instead. His spirit is high on all accounts, and, true, his passion for films seems as fierce as it can be, and even though he is a bit retarded, he can write in an engaging way. This is nicely put by Quentin Tarantino in the foreword: "There are two kinds of film lovers: (1) the kind who love film, and (2) the kind who love the films that they love. The distance between these two camps is so huge that Robbie Knievel on a two-wheel rocket couldn't jump it. By and large, film critics - even though they're as right as they can be - are paid to be the latter. Harry had dedicated his life so far to being the former. And his love is true."
What I really like about Harry is him watching movies, that no matter what, he won't take popcorns and cola drinks with him in front of the screen. He has 160kg, for crying out loud! That can't mean anything else than him eating way to much and moving his body too little. But cheating food for movies! He is leaving an impression he truly cares for them. Thumbs up for Harry, for this is precisely my own convinction, that the feeding and the real thinking processes should be separated as far as possible. I namely observe I can best read a book or a newspaper - best means the fastest, and so I can memorize the most, plus so I can perceive the most of its messages, the ones between the lines etc. - when besides reading I don't do anything else: no eating, no listening to music, others ... I guess this is no revelation to you, for it is a wisdom out of the past. However, I can see people around me doing exactly that, chewing against reading, and sometimes also I have impulses to do so. But that ain't no true reading! It's consuming at its worse. I don't want to consume like that. I praise my mind much more. Let us separate the feeding and the thinking processes.

Harry Knowles, with his 160kg and way to much hair (which I really don't mind if it's red), can teach me some things, but then, not that many.

6/10