>Read the books and compared and contrasted against the
>screen.
>

Hear ya. Jurassic Park had a similar effect on me as far as comparing the written story to the film.

>Then Hulu came along as I was graduating high school, and for
>a while it had the Criterion Collection, and I watched a lot
>of Japanese cinema.
>

Man, that's dope. Access to older films was different during my teenaged years. Getting a hold of foreign films was difficult in high-school. (My home wasn't near an niche video store) But there were always movies from the 30's and 40's on various channels during downtimes - like Sunday morning after sermons were aired. Nostalgia doesn't tell me that my time was better because I had to seek things out. It's just different but I wonder how eclectic my tastes would have been if obscure Asian cinema or the French New Wave was available when I was in late-high school or early on in college.

>I was always critical, though. If I'd get an open assignment
>of any kind in school, I tried to make it about the music I
>was listening to and the life I was experiencing, or hearing
>about, or seeing on screen.

That's cool. Knowledge sinks in more when the concept is filtered through personal experience. I read your reviews on here sometimes and it's cool that you seem to pull from personal experience in them. Makes them more engaging.
>