"It's better than sex. It's beyond obsession, there's just no word for it!" So claims one of the five movie 'buffs' at the centre of this fly-on-the-wall documentary. It is a fitting ode for these lovers of celluloid who are so obsessive they need to see movies twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week.
Take Harvey, a man who will watch any film put in front of him and has memorised the running time of everything he's ever seen. Or Bill, foreign film lover who washes his glasses before each screening, and is on medication for anxiety.
Then there's Roberta, the only woman of the group, a 60-something cinephile who once tried to strangle an usherette for tearing her ticket; the girl should have known that Roberta hoards every one of her ticket stubs in mint condition.
Eric has a collection of videotapes that's grown so large he can barely get into his apartment. And finally there's Jack, the Allen Ginsberg of the cinema auditorium, who pontificates with nerdy charm about schizophrenia, capitalism and visionary experiences.
Letting these freaks, geeks and borderline psychotics expound the nitty-gritty of their bizarre lifestyles with little questioning or analysis, directors Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak clearly believe that ridicule is a dish best served cold.
Follow the cinemaniacs as they meticulously plan their screening schedules, using special database programs to record each and every screening in New York. See them badger curators and projectionists about the quality of prints, and scurry from venue to venue in a sweaty panic.
Think of "Cinemania" as a troubling portrait of a cinephilia that borders on psychosis.
Still, given the prodigious amount of celluloid they devour, there's one question that's crying out to be asked: why aren't any of them critics? Perhaps, as anyone who's ever been to a press screening can testify, they're simply too well adjusted.
"Cinemania" is released in the UK on 5th September 2003.
Cinemania (2003)
