The following is part one of a multi-part series chronicling the trials of an aspiring (and not yet there) film snob.

A very good film snob I’m not. But I’m learning. Slowly.

Most people are born to love film, adoring the art form from an early age, seeing each new movie as it comes out and enthralled with older films whenever they were on TV. But I was not enthralled with film when I was younger. There were “movies” – “film” was a word for what we watched on clunky old grade school projectors – and those "movies" were filled with exploding cars and dashing heroes and plenty of adventure. Guns were a must (unless there were swords; swords were always a good gun substitute). Explosions mandatory.

What other point did film serve than to provide me with endless hours of things blowing up?

The height of cinema for me in those early days of 80s hair and fat shoelaces? If it wasn’t The Goonies – (That wacky Data! Will his inventions ever work?) – it could only be Red Dawn, the ultimate cock fantasy for 13-year-old boys everywhere. That movie was the finely distilled essence of my daydreams. Hell, I don’t think I stopped daydreaming of single-handedly stopping a Russian invasion until I was about 24.

This is what defined cinema for me.

Oh, and there that other movie in my pantheon of the true greats. Star Wars.

Yeah, there was Star Wars all right. How could there not be? Did you see the trench run? And what about the Millennium Falcon? That thing did the spice run in 14.2 parsecs, or some such run in some such space measurement.

The be all and end all, that was (until The Empire Strikes Back came along).

So ... film? Movies as art? Sheer nonsense in those days, better left to the snobs. I couldn’t be bothered with caring about cinema. This was how it stayed, too, for quite some time. Unlike many waxing poetic on the Internet about movies, there was no film class for me. No love affairs with obscure cinema. No star adoration. No viewing the classics. If it was made before I was born, it probably stunk. Black and white sucked. And fuck subtitles.

Somewhere alone the line, that all changed. I decided, far to late by some measures, that I wanted to know about this thing called film.

The Internet helped. Jump online and suddenly you’re thrust into the wide world of opinions, exposed not just to that one wacky friend who likes obscure cinema, but thousands of them, all dropping film titles like Michael Jackson drops children’s pants.

Something snared me. Drew me in. And suddenly I wanted to know why Citizen Kane was considered so great, and why I should care about Lawrence of Arabia, and why (other than the badass murders) The Godfather was so good.

Like a kid who just wants to know stuff for the sake of knowing stuff, I wanted to know stuff.

Yet the process took some time. Remember, a born film lover I was not. Movies, I loved. Not film (if you understand the vague distinction I am making). At the time, Terminator 2 was one of the best movies I had ever seen, behind only Jurassic Park and The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (All great movies, make no mistake).

So some time in the mid-90s I started tossing around the idea of dipping into some of the classic films in the same way that people toss around the idea of reading the classic books. Diving into A Tale Of Two Cities and Finnegans Wake and Of Mice And Men and For Whom The Bell Tolls sounds like a great experience for many people. A way to broaden their horizons and get all culturfied.

And then they start reading. And they realize that it can be hard.

But I digress.

I was interested in dipping into the world of film, but I did not know point one about the art form. With no firm starting point, no real place to begin, I was lost. I made some half-hearted attempts to start seeing the classics, renting Citizen Kane and pondering Orson Welles’ gigantic performance, watching 2001: A Space Odyssey again, but it never quite clicked. I needed the remedial course in film studies or something.

Of all things, it was a popcorn film – and the technology through which it entered my home – that turned me around once and for all.

I write and edit writing and plan writing and do various things with writing for a living. That’s how I support my family and buy my beer. I got involved in writing because of a little book written by J.R.R. Tolkien called The Lord of the Rings. It was the inspiration that as a child made me say, “I want to be a writer.” It’s an important book to me.

And so The Fellowship Of The Ring came along, directed by a little known director called Peter Jackson. A huge, huge popcorn film. My favorite story ever was brought to the big screen. I studied every frame and, like my drive to discover how stories are told, I had to know how it was all done. This film thing. All of it. Once and for all, I needed to know more about this art form. After all, I had studied the text of this story inside and out. Why not continue the trend?

When the film came to DVD – a wonderful bit of technology I had not yet adopted – I realized that watching movies didn’t have to be about clunky VHS tapes and badly edited made-for-TV versions. That sure as hell was refreshing.

I never looked back.

Watch next week for Volume 2 of Diary of an Aspiring Film Snob.