By Nicole Riva
If you think you watch too many movies see Cinemania and be proven wrong. Anyone who has ever thought they suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder will feel normal after watching this film. This is a documentary that lacks in the excitement department but is interesting, intriguing and disturbing enough to hold an audience’s attention.
The film follows five “cinephiles” around New York City as each shares his or her own way of obsessing over a film. Each has mini-obsession within a larger film obsession. Harvey is obsessed with the length of films; Jack with the projection; Roberta with memorabilia and ticket stubs; Bill with his own pattern of viewing film; and Eric with videos and Audrey Hepburn. The stories get crazier and crazier as the movie progresses.
It is intriguing to try to figure out how these people watch movies all day and all night, without any steady income or any other kind of life. It’s hard to believe they actually function in society, but it makes for an interesting film. Cinemania takes the audience into a world that many don’t know exists, and as disturbing as that world might be, it is hard to turn away—although it’s tempting when Jack laments that a sex scene isn’t in black and white. It is admissions like this that create the disturbing level of the film.
Cinemania shows the audience that obsession with film runs deeper than Star Trek, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. This is a movie all film buffs should watch to maintain their grip on reality.
Playing in the Reality Reels category, Cinemania can be seen Oct. 5 at 4:00 p.m. at the Plaza Theatre.