The Heart is a Lonely Screener

Picking movies for people is a risky business. In a way it’s as revealing as writing someone a letter. It shows how you think, it shows what moves you, sometimes it can even show how you think the world sees you. So when you breathlessly recommend a film to a friend, when you say, “Oh, this is a scream–you’re going to really love it,” it’s a nauseating experience when the friend sees you the following day and says with a wrinkled brow, “You thought that was funny?”

I remember once recommending Ishtar to a woman I quite fancied only to have her shoot me that look the next time I saw her. Oh, it said, that’s what you’re like.

— David Gilmour, The Film Club (pg. 174)