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Confessions of a Movieholic




When I went to see the Confessions of a Shopaholic movie two or three weeks ago, the day Roland Garros started and Cannes' Festival ended in fact, I didn't know I would identify so much with Rebecca Bloomwood.


Me.

Now that I got your attention, I can go back in time. Flashback when I was three or four years old. I loved eating ice cream and Batman wasn't talking as if he had throat cancer. My passion for ice cream led me to geet my first movie on videotape ever. On every vanilla ice cream cones' box, there was a point. And when you had I don't remember how much points you were allowed to choose a movie. My mother let me pick. I picked this one with this exact cover.



My father already brought me to see my first movie in theather. I would have preferred something more glamour than Bernard and Bianca but this is what I got. He told me that I wanted to leave and that he slept. I guess I wasn't a Disney-kid. My nanny/babysitter, don't know which word to use as I was at her home old day, let me watch, in fact his son Redouane, let me watch a looooot of movies, he made me cinematographically I think. I was young as fuck and he made me watch the Star Wars movies back when they were good and when you're obliged to like it, the Terminator movies, I remember when he taped the 2nd one when it got broadcasted on Canal +, Aliens movies etc etc...

Then we received the Night of the Living Dead tape at home, it was in black and white and shit, but it fascinated me and my mother says I used to watch it over and over, the more gruesome it was the more I liked it. My father was afraid I'd get deranged. Bleh, he wouldn't know where fun is even if it hit him in the face. I must have been the sole 4 years old on the block whose favorite movie was The Night of the Living Dead. I grew up being an horror kid. I don't know if you remember the Jeudis de l'Angoisse on M6 but my mom taped them everytime and we would watch it the week-end after. I wasn't understanding most of it but I still have some striking images of these coming up from times to times. I remember Hitcher, The Exorcist, a Phantasm movie, a Blob movie, a Freddy movie and some shitty TVfilms.
The best was yet to come with Tales from the Crypt...


Me watching a horror movie. Age 5.

I wasn't going much to the movies as what I was interested in was restricted for people over 12 years of age. So I saw a lot of Disney movies with school. Aladdin, Jungle Book, Toy Story, Dumbo and his big ass ears, Lion King, had them all I guess. That's also the time I became a hustler, a con artist. My parents took me to see Demolition Man. I loved it. And a few days later, my grandmother had to take care of me for a day and took me to the movies.
_ What do you want to see ?
_ This. pointing at the Demolition Man poster
_ You sure ? You haven't already seen it ? What about Mrs Doubtfire ?
I see a poster with so much pink and smiling people on it, I decide to do what's best for my subsistence.
_ No, I haven't seen it.
This is how I saw Demolition Man for the 2nd time. When we got home and my mom told my grandmother we had already seen it, grandma' called me a little bastard. Le petit salaud !. She finally managed to make me see Mrs. Doubtfire, I guess it was some kind of whim for her to make me see it. I didn't hate it.
I saw lots of good movies with her. Jurassic Park. Last Action Hero for which I had to ask for the tickets 'cause she didn't know the title, me neither, and she couldn't pronounce Schwarzenegger's name. What is the point of being occupied by the Germans for 5 years if you can't say a name ? Seriously. Years later, she took me to Jackie Brown and put her hand on my eyes when Robert deNiro was banging Bridget Fonda. She then told my mom that the movie was os and pas de mon age. All that for a few seconds and lots of insults.

Before that, I got another favorite movie. A shameful one. Street Fighter with Van Damme. I saw this and Mortal Kombat in theathers with my mom, (who also took me to see 12 Monkeys), and got the tape a year later. I used to watch it every wednesday afternoon and re-act it with my toys. I knew the dialogues by heart. I still know them. The day I'll go to Who wants to be a millionnaire ? , there better be a fucking question about this movie.


Me, proud of myself, after having quoted the whole Street Fighter movie.

Years and years later, I discovered The Matrix. My best friend of back then, Bouyagui, even took the time during the movie to tell me that it was better than Mortal Kombat. And you gotta know that this guy once swore on the Qu'ran that Mortal Kombat Annihilation (a.k.a one of the worst movies ever) got two Oscars. I don't know in which alternative universe. After that movie, I knew one thing for sure : I wanted to do just like them. Make movies.
At first, I wanted to work in special effects but I sucked so much in scientifical stuff that it killed my E.R.-induced doctor-carreer. As I was good at writing stories and shit, I decided I would write and direct my own movies. It's been ten years I know what I want to do.

Anyway I got a new favorite movie with Bad Boys II. A movie so crazy, so anti-everything and fucked up that you don't know how it is possible to make such a crazy movie for 130 millions of dollars. So overly and gratuitously violent, dumb as fuck, xenophobic, homophobic, mysoginistic, trash, bloody, vulgar and I'm at loss for words to describe how crazy and done in a "let's all have fun"-way that I should invent words to describe it. This movie let me know there was no limits, even in destined for major audiences movies, in cinema. You can do whatever you like. I wanted to have fun like them so I started to write scripts etc... And it's finally in late 2008 that I've written one I'm really satisfied with. I'm writing lots of stuff, I like to think my level is good now... Especially when I see the French movies these days.


Me, going to the movies.

But let's go back to the beginning.
As you've seen, I love movies. Rebecca Bloomwood loves clothes but can't afford to have them all so she has numerous credit cards. I can't afford to pay for every movie I see so I got an unlimited card : 18 euros/month = I see whatever the fuck I want to see. And Confessions of a Shopaholic showed us the power of cards over us. With a card, you can do whatever you want but consequences can be fucked up. She ends up broke, I end up having crazy tastes, a totally corrupted judgemental scale by years and years of shitty movies I can't help but run after. I've also discovered some really nice things thanks to this card so I guess I win anyway at the end of the day. I even acquired a taste in dancing movies, I've seen all the Sexy Dance movies and loved them. I became such a girl. But I've hated with passion The Devil Wears Prada, I still have my soul.
I've also done crazy things like seeing Zodiac 4 times. I still keep all my tickets in a box. The other day I found a program with the timetable for the movies of the week of the 23rd of November... of the year 2005 ! It was in my bedroom, between two books...
As strange as it can seem, I felt that this stupid girly movie "talked" to me and it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer who produced Bad Boys II. This guy knows how I roll apparently.
And I am no longer scared of movies whom posters are full of pink.

I am Rebecca Bloomwood and I'm kinda proud of it.


Me going to the movies. Again.