It's all too easy now

They had a Budd Boetticher film festival.

When I was in high school, a teacher---the one who appeared in the movie Buffalo Rider---hipped the class to cheap movies we could see at the university. This was before home video took over. University groups showed movies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Some were related to the group's mission, some were just to raise money and some were to promote film as an artform.

So I started going over there every weekend. Depending on what was playing, I would see five to eight movies every weekend. I saw my first samurai movie (Sanjuro), my first king fu movie (Chinese Connection) and my first X-rated movie (Last Tango in Paris) there. Saw movies I would have never seen otherwise. French gangster movies, bad 1950s westerns. I saw an odd pseudo-French Hollywood movie from the '50's. I don't remember if the actors spoke in French accents, but the dialog sounded like subtitles.

Feminists protested The Story of O and a slasher movie with gay sado-masochistic undertones shown as part of a gay film festival. The Story of O didn't interest me and the gay student group decided not to show the slasher movie.

I saw an anti-porn documentary put on by a feminist student group. Later, when some friends dragged me off to see a porno film, I recognized one of the stars from the documentary. "That guy's an anti-porn activist now!"

Saw Teenage Caveman. A middle aged couple started talking to me. Asked if Roger Corman was anything like Ed Wood. I said, no, the French thought he was an auteur and he's well-regarded in Hollywood because he gave a lot of people their first jobs there. They responded by mocking the French.

Back then I never walked out of a movie even if it was terrible and didn't cost anything to get in. But now look at me. I sit here, I click on something on Roku, watch for five minutes and turn it off if it doesn't grab me. I have no idea what my own criteria are.

I don't know if I'm getting smarter or dumber. Is my attention span shot or am I just more discriminating? How much mental effort should I put into watching TV?

Not much I can do about it in any case.