What a wonderful time to be a film fan!
Hello fellow film fanatics. I write today to praise the world of film... mainly how watching movies has changed through the years. One of my earliest childhood memories is a movie memory: my father took me to see Stanly Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was around 1970 or 1971 and I was 4 years old, give or take... what a way to be introduced to the most powerful art form in the history of human kind! I distinctly remember the family of proto-humans at the beginning of the film, and the depictions of space flight that followed. I grew up with the expectation that trips to the moon and vacations in orbit high above our home world would be common place experiences. Although it hasn't happened exactly the way Kubrick and his collaborator Arthur C. Clarke predicted, I still love the movie and expect to see more of the incredible things the film depicts to happen in my life time. I also have fond memories of seeing Disney's re-issue of Lady and the Tramp around the same time. It still stands as one of my favorite Disney animated films along with Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland, although it took a couple more decades before I was able to catch up on those. I love watching my favorite movies over again, sometimes more than seeing a new movie. Unless the film I haven't seen turns out to be really surprising and delights me with an unpredictable story, or really excellent cinematography or something like that, I like watching an old favorite because it can take me back to the time I first saw it and I know I'm gonna like it all over again and maybe catch something I didn't see when I screened it before. If I can share a favorite movie with someone who hasn't seen it, that is even better! I can see that film again through new eyes and almost see it again myself for the first time. I envy a person who hasn't seen a really good movie yet. I know they are going to experience a story that can delight, and show you something that you may not be able to see in any other way. My love of movies is deep. My fondest momories with my father are in a dark theater watching a flickering screen. I love being taken away on a trip through my eyes and mind. I like to analyze a good movie for the writing, the photography, the editing and for powerful and/or subtle acting. The best jobs I had as a young person entering the adult world were at theaters and later on at mom and pop video stores (R.I.P VHS!) Working those jobs exposed me to many movies I would never have been able to afford to watch by paying for them all. Back in the glory days of the 1980s, before every movie had to be a blockbuster and make 100 million dollars in the opening weekend, you could see small low-budget films, concert movies, foreign films and the like on the big screen, along side the big budget movies. The advent of home video opened up so many new worlds to me that I couldn't keep up, although I certainly tried! I loved catching old classic TV shows, beautiful and thought-provoking documentaries and films made in the decades before I was born. It was heaven! Today, I very rarely go to see films in a theater. Don't get me wrong, I like big explosive in-your-face movies as much as anyone, but I find the distractions of poor presentation like shows being out of focus, or people talking on phones or to each other like they are in their own living room to be too distracting for me to fully enjoy the show I am there to see. These days I like the home theater experience. I have a reasonably decent HDTV and surround sound system. I love my DVDs and am collecting my very favorite films on blu-ray as they become available. Within the last few months I have also stepped right into the future of movie-watching... I have netflix streaming and have been able to watch even more movies on my computer or even on my hand-held Nintendo 3DS system. I can stream items I may never get to see any other way while getting ready to drift off into slumber-land or enjoy them when I wake up and am about to start a new day. I love watching movies with a little screen sitting on my chest or next to me on my night stand. And if I don't like what I'm watching, thousands of other titles are available with a tap of my stylus. (Is there a joke in that statement?) Any how, the idea that someday every movie in existence will be ready to watch on a data-stream boggles my mind! What I wonderful time it is to be a film fan! -Article by XIM