In trying to narrow down my pop-culture obsession and my sense of home I’ve been thinking a lot about my childhood and that homey feeling you have when you stay home sick from school.  Without fail, I found myself sitting on the couch watching The Wizard of Oz.  To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie as many times as I have the Wizard of Oz.  There was something really magical about the entire movie and the older I get the more I see it’s influence and structure pop up in other genres.  I think I can say that movies give me both a sense of home and is also my pop culture obsession.  To me, there’s nothing better than dropping everything and going to see a movie in the middle of the day with friends or family.  I had the fortunate (or unfortunate) experience of seeing Darren Aronofsky’s latest movie Mother! with my own mother and my girlfriend.  The reactions were split.  Needless to say, the discussion after the movie was more enjoyable than the movie itself.  That’s my favorite type of movie.  One that fuels discussion.

That said, movies get stale.  I guess I should say, that the mainstream Hollywood movie structures get stale.  Sitting through another superhero flick where a cocky white-guy gets superpowers and has to learn to be a less cocky white-guy gets stale.

So I turned to the films of other countries.  Specifically, Asian counties.

One thing I’ve always admired about them is their seemingly complete rejection of the standard movie formula.  They’re distinctly not Hollywood.  That excites me.  Not following that rigid structure allowed movies to be surprising again.  I felt like I did watching The Wizard of OZ for the first time.  Taken on an amazing journey where it seemed like anything could happen.

I’m hoping through out this quarter to look into some of notable Asian directors and find out more about them, the themes in their films, and what makes them unique.

More to come…