THE NAME’S AKIRA and do I have something to tell you. In fact, this is more personal to me because lo and behold, I am a film lover. Notice how I did not associate myself with either film buff or film critic because the former is more on knowledge about different films while the latter is an actual professional, working in a journalist company. You could say that I can just call myself a film reviewer since I have been writing essays on many movies since 2018. However, I will say that my perception of film has changed.
Just a short story. I remembered back in 2016 that many comic book movies were getting into people’s minds like MCU’s Captain America: Civil War, X-Men’s Deadpool and DCEU’s Suicide Squad. I always get addicted to their stories and even fandoms, wanting me to catch up with everything. Until one time, I stumbled across films such as Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge and Patriots Day. I thought I was going to “have fun” because I was stuck in that kind of mindset. And watching these movies made me emotional and invoked something in me, which was to think a lot about the themes the filmmakers were going for. That’s when I realized that films are not just for entertainment but to make you ponder on them.
“I always treasure these movies as special moments like I was a part of something.”
Fast forward to 2023, I was able to see more than 15 films in theaters, with most of the Best Picture nominees released in early 2024 such as Poor Things and The Holdovers. When I walked into a cinema with movies such as The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki, Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese and even the whole Barbie and Oppenheimer phenomenon, I always treasure these movies as special moments like I was a part of something. All of these made me understand how different it is watching movies on the big screen than just looking at your television and even gadgets. In fact, watching movies in theaters is literally voting with your wallet – the movies that you pay for do have an actual say to filmmakers.
And the beauty of films is that you can have multiple views of them and let them sit with you for a while. Unlike television series that takes a season to finish, let alone, wondering if another one comes, movies are just compact and can stand on its own. At times, a film may not work for you which is what I felt after seeing Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume. But looking back and comparing it to his previous masterpieces Your Name and Weathering with You, I’ve realized that it’s different because of how the filmmakers let the romance was sidelined and was focused more on the titular protagonist opening to different people.
Finally, this is more of a hot take, but I have not been a fan of sequels. This is by no means going against the cinematic achievements of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Aliens and Top Gun Maverick but most films nowadays that are being converted into franchises are already losing their essence. I mean, I like Frozen II and Across the Spider-Verse and even Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. However, going with the philosophy of the first one is always better, sequels cannot exist without the original one, and it’s hard to recommend a sequel to the general audience because you must watch the first one to have some context.
After making that long rant of why movies are integral to my life, I just hope that you, the reader, will have a better understanding of how I perceive movies. Whether we agree on certain things or not, at the end of it all, we just love to watch them. I am already 22 years old, saw more than 60 movies in theaters, and will continue to support this art form no matter what.