Mike's Musings: Why do I do this?

A few days ago, someone asked my why I spend my time watching and reviewing movies.  He said it seemed like a waste of time.

He has a point.  After all, I don't get any money from it, and I could be spending the time doing something for financial gain.

But why do any film critics review movies?  Sure, some fortunate movie fans get paid to do it, but others, like James Berardinelli, don't do it as a career.  Berardinelli has a "real" job as well as a wife and a one year old son (who, ironically, shares my name and birthday).  How he manages to balance all of these at once, I'll never know.

To me, it doesn't seem unproductive at all.  It's a way to stretch and open my mind, practice and refine my writing skills (essential for everyone, especially an aspiring screenwriter and filmmaker such as myself).  More importantly, it's a way to publicize movies that people may not know about, or warn people against bad movies they may be planning on seeing.  Admittedly, I don't have as many readers as either Ebert or Berardinelli, but if I can convince someone to see a great movie like "The War Zone" or "Brotherhood of the Wolf," they haven't heard of, much less saw, than it's a worthy pursuit in my book.

But this person overlooked the most important reason why I watch and review so many movies.  I enjoy doing it.  I don't do it for the money, fame or the Pulitzer Prize (although I wouldn't say no to any of those).  I do it because it's fun for me.  True, watching a movie like "Belly" or "Soul Plane" is a real trial, but there is an element of entertainment in ripping them to shreds.  Plus, in those cases, it's performing a public service.

Writing movie reviews is no more productive than playing video games or reading books.  Neither of those things bring in money the consumer or change the world.  But they are entertaining (and by the way, studies have shown that playing video games increases hand-eye coordination and visuo-motor skills...and everyone knows how helpful reading is).  Plus, the video game industry is worth billions, and books have been around for thousands of years (and oral storytelling since the dawn of man).  Something must be worthwhile about those things.

The number of regular readers I have is difficult, if not impossible to establish (my guess is somewhere around 10).  Some of my writing has been relatively widely read (at the time of this writing, "Magic Mike" has 136 hits and my Mike's Musing entry, "How to Watch A Movie in a Theater Without Pissing Everyone Off" has 731 hits).

As nice as it is to have regular readers, I don't do it for fame or rising hit numbers.  As false as this sounds, it's the truth.  Like James Berardinelli once said, I do it for myself.

The bottom line is, if I enjoy it, there's nothing wrong with it.