Midweek Mumble – Olympics Overdose, A Movies Lovers View

The LONDON Olympics are in full swing, Rodney is here with a Movie Lovers view on it all

If, like me, you’re already sick of the Olympics – and let’s face it, there’s better ways to spend your time than watching sports nobody cares about (Badminton is still played? For real?)  – an escape from the cyclical broadcast on our ubiquitous television channels might be to flick on a movie instead. After enduring the Opening Ceremony in glorious High Definition, and seeing poor Mohammed Ali trotted out like a prize turkey at a farm fair once again, the whole time with his wife whispering sweet nothings into his ear so he knew what the hell was going on, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only have I moved on from my youthful exuberance at seeing obscure sports given the recognition they deserve, but I’m just downright old and grumpy. London seems to be doing a good job with it all – I”m in Australia, so according to our local mantra I’m not supposed to expect anyone to better Sydney’s 2000 shot – but I think I’m Olympic-ed out. It’s barely been a week since the torches were lit and the athletes all strode into the stadium, but I’m already exhausted.

As an avid fan of film, I have a number of Blu-Rays sitting on the shelf unwatched, ready to go in case I get a spare moment of leisure time in my hectic family/blogging/work week, so when I heard the Olympics had started, I had this strange expectation that I’d get to catch-up on some of my unseen-on-screen discs. What I didn’t count on was the fact that London and Adelaide are separated by half a world of time zone, so when the Games are on over there, it’s the middle of the night here. Which means when I get home from work, the pesky swimming or horse-riding events are being shown near-live, and my wife wants to sit and watch them all. Drat. Guess it’s two weeks of Olympic coverage watching that stupid pink color scheme making my eyes bleed. Seriously, who thought pink would make a good color at the Olympics?

I guess I could always trot off to the cinema to catch a flicker show, but that involves spending money and I’m too tight for that in this economic climate. Plus, there’s the fact that the wife wants to snuggle when I get home, so dropping the baby and bottle on her lap and going out to get away seems….. fraught with danger, if you get my meaning.

Watching a bunch of guys sweat it out in wrestling makes me uncomfortable about my sexuality. Horse riding bores the hell out of me. The sword fighting barely registers as a blip in the television coverage here, and the Beach Volleyball isn’t so much a sport as it is a chance to watch women suffer through an English summer in apparel best suited to the Bahamas. My personal favorite sport, the gymnastics, has the uncomfortable sensation of tacit pedophilia about it – I’m watching these girls (and they are girls, really) strut and swing about, and as a guy, all I’m thinking about (aside from just who is going to fall off those parallel bars in a spectacular display of acrobatic ineptitude) is just how tight their uniforms are, which is totally inappropriate, but then what do you expect from a dude with too much Olympics on his hands? Is it any wonder I’ve chosen not to watch the Olympics much at all this time?

Instead, like a good blogger, I’ve gone into head-down-bum-up mode catching up on my online world. I’ve written a few reviews for films I’ve seen a while ago, I’ve updated my settings and plugins, I’ve made some mods to my commenting systems and I’ve read some other blog sites as well. I feel that pang of emptiness at not being able to watch a couple of good movies for a fortnight, but I’ve made do. The shaking of film withdrawal will pass, so they say. God, I hope not. So if you’re a sport nut and love your Olympic games coverage, and you’re put your blog into park for a few weeks so you can spend time saluting the Gold Medal winners or guffawing at the inappropriate uniforms on the athletes or just shoveling chocolate into your face as you grow roots into your couch, good for you. It’s not for me, though. As unavoidable as the Olympics are, I’m going to be online, plugging away at that last little comment from somebody who may or may not come back to visit my site, adding a hyperlink to the last few Dark Knight Rises reviews which spring up from the latecomers, or just gliding past the various film sites to see what tidbits on information I can drip-feed to my wife while she’s ogling the male athletes. Talk about emasculated…

About The Author – Rodney Twelftree

Aussie film fan Rodney has been writing about film, DVD and Blu-Ray since 1998, when he became Chief Reviewer at a now-defunct Adelaide-based online retailer. A fan of blockbuster and mainstream cinema, as well as dabbling in arthouse and independent forms of the industry, Rodney prefers to spend his nights and weekends in front of the television watching the latest release on Blu-Ray instead of out getting sloppy drunk like many of his friends. When he’s not out in the Front Room, Rodney can be found writing reviews for his own website www.fernbyfilms.com, helping good mate Al K Hall over at The Bar None, and dabbling in lists over at Top 10 Films.

What about you? Are you in full Olympic meltdown, unable to tear yourself from the telly and sick of spending all day with your twitter feed pinging result updates at you? Or are you avoiding the whole thing? What’s your Olympic story….?