APRIL 2020 | TOTAL FILMGAMESRADARCOM/TOTALFILMTHISMONTHACHIEVINGAWORK-LIFEBALANCE
ALA
MY
Tortureforsome
much-needed
peripheralsforJamie‘LET’SJUSTSAYTHATMY
PRINCIPALPASSIONWAS
CAUSINGMEMAJORSTRESS’
I
n January, I watched 49
films. In February, it
was 40. Now I’m aware
that those figures
might seem high to
any reasonable individual, but
for me it represents a significant
reduction. Or, put another way,
a major breakthrough, as I’ve
made a conscious effort to apply
the brakes.
In 1996, the year I took up my
first position as a film journalist,
I started keeping a notebook of all
the movies I watched. That year
I racked up 834 titles. Jump to
2019 and not much had changed:
the total was 736. Well, 736 plus
a shitload of TV, whereas back in
the mid-’90s, before the likes of
The West Wing and The Sopranos
launched a new Golden Age of
Television, and when I had access
to just five channels, I viewed very
few shows.
Last year, as well as averaging
61 movies a month, I always had
between 20-30 TV shows on the
go at any one time. This year I’ve
reduced that too, allowing myself
a maximum of 10. As I write this
column, the 10 being juggled are
Locke & Key, Hunters, Better Call Saul
S5, The Outsider, The Stranger,
Vikings S6, Sex Education S2, Curb
Your Enthusiasm S10, Modern Family
S11 and I Am Not Okay With This.
A new series is taken on board
when an existing one is finished.SCREENTIME
You might say I’m trying to
achieve some work-life balance,
or at least take baby steps in that
direction. And it’s true, to an
extent, because this is not a 9-to-5
job – evenings and weekends are
often dedicated to film screenings
or conducting interviews ora sun-soaked beach or skiing
in the Alps or exploring some
fabulous city, but sitting on the
sofa in my pants, binge-watching.
So the real reason I’ve this year
cut down on my viewing is not to
achieve a work-life balance but to
seek some sort of balance, period.
Frank Capra once said, “Film is an
addiction, and the only cure is
more film.” Well, I don’t want to
go cold turkey, but I do want to
feel in some sort of control.PANICROOM
For years, I wasn’t. The more I
viewed, the more I wanted to view,
and I was in a constant state of
agitation as I stared at the multiple
stacks of DVDs that were my ‘To
Watch’ piles. As well as trying to
stay on top of all the new releases,
I was playing constant catch-up
on over a century’s worth of
cinema, and then rewatching
films, and lots of them, as I’d not
seen them for a few years. Most
days an Amazon package arrived
from America containing some
obscure movie I had to see. Chuck
in the frantic toggling between 20-
30 TV shows, trying to stay on top
of all of those plots and characters,
and... Well, let’s just say that my
principal passion was causing me
major stress.
So yes, I still watch one hell
of a lot of movies and TV. And
sure, I still think a film journalist
should do just that – we’ve got
a job that many people would die
for, and we should know just what
the hell we’re talking about. But
I can now go a couple of days
without watching a film and not
get too twitchy, and recently
I went on a five-day city break
that I thoroughly enjoyed. OK, so
I watched five movies on the
plane out and I went to the
cinema twice while I was there,
but... Baby steps, right?Jamie will return next issue...
For more misadventures, follow:
@jamie_graham9 on Twitter.It Shouldn’t
Happen
To A Film
Journalist
Editor-at-Large JAMIEGRAHAM
lifts the lid on film journalism.
attending festivals, so putting it
upon myself to watch so many
extra movies means there’s not
much time left for anything else.
But it’s not as clear-cut as
that, for movies are not just my
job, but also my principal passion.
Back in the early-’90s, when
I was a student, I was regularly
hiring out seven or eight films
at a time for a night’s viewing
from my local video shop, and
I used to go and see every film
on release at my two local
cinemas (to be fair, they only
had three screens between them).
Even now, my idea of a perfect
week off is not lounging on