Cinemania (film)
Encyclopedia
Cinemania is a 2002 German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 / American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 documentary about five obsessed cinemaphile
Cinemaphile
Cinephilia is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in cinema, film theory and film criticism. The term is a portmanteau of the words cinema and philia, one of the four ancient Greek words for love...

s, who, throughout the year, each see two to five films a day.

Cast

  • Eric Chadbourne - A cinephile who lives on disability benefits, and who vociferously prefers musicals and romantic-comedies to foreign films. He is the only profiled character in the documentary who has succumbed to watching films on video, of which he seems to own thousands (the others steadfastily refuse to watch TV under any circumstances; Roberta Hill states that she "only has nightmares in video.")
  • Harvey Schwartz - A cinephile who has traits found among those with Asperger syndrome
    Asperger syndrome
    Asperger's syndrome that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development...

    , who lives on disability benefits. According to Jack, Harvey has no discerning taste in film and will watch just about anything, including The Amazing Crab Monster. Can quote the exact running time of every film he's ever seen from memory; owns hundreds of soundtrack LP's, but doesn't have a turntable.
  • Bill Heidbreder - A cinephile who defines his taste in film as "effeminate" as he prefers "relationship" films to action films. An NYU grad student and amateur philosopher who lives on unemployment benefits.
  • Roberta Hill - An obsessive-compulsive woman who, according to Jack, "is so far in the prison [of cinephilia], that to me, it's just a hopeless, Sisyphean lifestyle." Has kept every piece of film-memorabilia she's got her hands on for what appears to be the last five decades, including ticket-stubs, programs, fliers, a promotional bottle of water from an independent film called Water
    Water
    Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

    , and promotional plastic cups from Last Action Hero
    Last Action Hero
    Last Action Hero is a 1993 American action-comedy-fantasy film directed and produced by John McTiernan. It is a satire of the action genre and its clichés, containing several parodies of action films in the form of films within the film....

     and Jurassic Park
    Jurassic Park (film)
    Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...

    . Roberta has been banned from many theaters for her rude and uncouth behavior, which has included attacking ushers who have torn too much paper off her ticket-stubs.
  • Jack Angstreich - The most heavily-profiled member of the quintet, Jack's justification for his abnormal behavior is to not deny what he considers to be a "visionary" lifestyle, that there is no "correct" way to live, and really has no interest in real-life beyond the cinema. Claims that he wouldn't want to make love to Rita Hayworth unless he was doing it in black-and-white. Living off an inheritance, Jack sees upwards of five films per day (and claims to have seen over 1,000 films in eight months at one point), and eats a voluntarily constipating diet so he won't be interrupted while watching a film and have to go to the bathroom. Jack keeps elaborate spreadsheets of every film he's ever seen and every film playing within the tri-city area.
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