So recently I’ve been wondering about what you all do when you end up discussing film with other people. It’s easy when you’re hanging out on the internet and having small conversations about the symbolism in Star Wars or how amazing Dr. Strangelove is, but when you’re in the “real world” and talking with people who aren’t necessarily what we now call “movie geeks” it’s a weird thing I find. You have to purposely taper your accumulated film knowledge to make sure that the person that you’re talking to about the latest blockbusters, since 90% of the time that’s all they’ve seen, and almost ignore completely the fact that you spend your time watching films that if they made fifty times over wouldn’t pass the budget of Transformers Dark of the Moon.

I guess for the most part, at least, I do it because I prefer to not make the other person, especially if I’m just meeting them, to feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed by the amount of love/knowledge I have of film and unable to respond with anything other than, “I haven’t seen that one.” The weird thing though is that with almost any other topic, current affairs, sports, history, etc, it’s applauded for people to have and even share their wealth of knowledge. Whenever you’re in a conversation about politics and someone says something incorrect or a questionable opinion since they don’t know some minor historical fact that they didn’t analyze to come to their conclusion it’s okay to inform them and educate them, while with film it’s just being pretentious.

Is there a solution to this problem or am I forever resigned to limiting myself until the other person in the conversation purposely engages me in a discussion about Duncan Jones‘ Moon or Rian Johnson‘s Brick? Where does the line end with education and begin with pretension? I feel like this topic is worthy of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm as I think it’s time to enlist Larry David to iron out the social laws of this slightly grey topic.

What do you do when talking to your non-movie freinds about movies?