A Genesis for me. |
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What's a birthday movie? I hear you all cry in deafening unison. I'm about to explain, I softly reply. I had a birthday in the last week. I'm a year older and no more the wiser, proud of it too. My birthday over the years has evolved into a bit of a personal mission for me, you see there are always quests I put myself on, things I have to achieve on my, what I have come to refer too as X-Day. You know the sort of thing, drink a different beer, eat something incredibly unhealthy but nice, buy myself a present and pick out a birthday movie. I always have to have a birthday movie, ever since I was Six I think I have had a birthday movie. That year was the first time my parents sat me down in front of the telly for what I believe was my first film. CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG never looked so good. My mother and father felt the need to continue the tradition, hiring out a film for me and my brother to enjoy while rubbing cake into each others heads. Those were the days. When I was Nine it was SUPERMAN III, Fifteen or Sixteen got me into the cinema for BATMAN, my Twenty-First, TRAINSPOTTING. You get the picture.
So what exactly constitutes a birthday movie? Well it is not as if there are rules, more sort of guidelines. There are no do's and don'ts but things you should perhaps avoid and aim for. Bear in mind however, these are the dogma's I have set for myself, you do not have to subscribe to them. Although I have been doing this for years and you will be wrong...
A birthday movie does not 
Seen it. Heard it. Done the quotes. |
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necessarily mean it is one of your favourite movies. It can be, but if your favourite film is SCHINDLERS LIST or SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION you may not experience the happy, fuzzy feelings you deserve on your day of birth. Also, we have favourite movies for different reasons. From my point of view I have some favourite movies that I have seen over and over and over again. DAZED AND CONFUSED and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK rarely get considered on X-Days as I know them off by heart. On the same note, FIGHT CLUB would just make me pensive and almost angry with the world around me. Not the desired effect when I am half drunk eating Ice-Cream.
A birthday movie would, more often than not be a film you have already seen. This 'rule' can be bent, but, and it is a huge but. You need to be careful you are not subjecting yourself to any old gumph. You need to be sure that whatever movie you watch will put you in a good mood. Or a better mood if you find yourself in a rightly buoyant state. I personally would not chose this route. I have yet to see ZODIAC or TRANSFORMERS but there is every chance that they could turn out to be either too sombre or pish. You are playing with dice if you just pick a movie willy nilly, or worse, leave it to someone else's inferior judgement. It is your day after all.
A birthday movie, you may be thinking, would often find itself labelled as a 'feelgood' movie. Sure! Why not! It does not have to be, but it is a good way to go. You need to feel good on your birthday after 
I do not feel good. |
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all. Now I know this is a bit of a tricky area, a lot of misguided people are under the impression that COYOTE UGLY is a good feelgood movie, in spite of this I would much prefer it to be played at my funeral just to make sure that everybody was feeling suitably miserable. On the flip side, although I really enjoy visual fodder such as BRING IT ON or GHOSTBUSTERS I doubt that it will conform to everybodies tastes.
So......not necessarily favourite........seen it.........feelgood.......what to choose, what TO choose. What would you choose? It takes a hell of a lot thought to get this right when you have been doing it for as long as I have. What do you think I chose? Seriously, I bet you can't guess what I came up with this year. OK to be fair, I had two birthday movies this year. One that required all that aforementioned thought and one that just came to me. Answers on a postcard. Or an email, that would work. One email per person, you've got until two days before my next column (28th April-ish). The winner will be the first to name the 'thought induced flick' and will win a DVD of that movie plus something special from Britain. There are also five runner up prizes for the first five chaps or chappesses who name the 'came to me' ditty and all get something special from Britain. Fun Eh?!? Wanna clue? The runner up movie was reviewed by me in the last week.
Have fun, put a little thought into it and remember to let me know what your next birthday movie is going to be. Till next time...
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| Xavier's Book Club |
Every other Saturday
Xavier analyses film, literary. A bizarre melding of books and movies.
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| Xavier Jones-Barlow |
Xavier lives in Scotland where it is very cold. He spends his time writing about live bands and people dreamt up in his bizarre imagination. Quite huggable .
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