That Old Chestnut

It's been said of me that I'm not fussy when it comes to movies. I'll sit down and watch virtually anything, and though I might be able to talk about the best bits after the show, I find it often impossible to detect poor acting or a repetitive plot. If it's got any hint of a story (and less than a hint of Jennifer Lopez) then I'm quite happy to sit down and lap it up. I look across our video collection (some more taped off the television than others) and my eyes stray across the Matrix trilogy, a smattering of spy thrillers, Kill Bill Volume One, Love Actually, a dash of political suspense, a healthy dose (or as healthy as it can be) of romantic comedy and a sugary-sweet dollop of children's animation. I pick up one, and I play it. The spy thrillers ooze the charm and sophistication, the guns, gadgets and gung-ho heroism that no woman (no matter how innapropriately-named) can resist. The RomCom throws crisis after crisis at me, slapsticking here and there like a drunk Charlie Chaplin, before spiralling into an inevitable cosy finish. They are all a tour de force of their own genre, a rich exploration of their predecessors finest moments. Or, as we like to call them, riddled with boring and tired clichés. Well you know what? I love 'em. I absolutely adore them. Barrel-chested, chisel-jawed hero getting the girl? Thanks, I'll take two. British evildoer with characteristically snobbish laugh? That'll do me nicely. Nonsensical plot twists? Oh go on then. You spoil me, really. And a teeth-grindingly cheesy moral bit at the end? Thanks. That'll round everything off nicely. And people say I'm easily pleased... Now listen - I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea. I know it's very few people's cup of tea. I know that it's all a cliché. I know that the plot is bland, the budget low, the actors weak and most importanly the clichés as well disguised as George Bush's foreign policy. I know all this. But it doesn't stop me lapping it all up. And why? Because I know that this is the closest form of heritage you're going to get in an industry that has only been in place for eight decades or so. The clichés of today are merely the classics of yesterday. It was all novel, new and genre-defining once. But now we sneer at it and look down on them as if to ask why they were ever loved in the first place. The reason we loved them was because they were new, fresh and ingenious. Now we see them as an excuse to walk down a road already beaten. We want new! We want fresh! We want tomorrow today! But no. We shouldn't and we mustn't. Forgetting the past is not the way to do it. Once in a while you must - you all must - take a chance to sit down and watch something you think will be cheap and tacky. Let them lead you down that same old path once more. You'll never know the sights you'll be shown unless you take the road. You might see something you like.