Ever since a long-time cinephile friend introduced me to the joys of movies, I have been a fairly regular theater attendee.
There is an added benefit in seeing a movie on the silver screen that flat screen TVs don’t offer.
You really don’t see that vast, dusty and desolate field that Cary Grant’s character stepped into off that bus in North by Northwest on a small screen.
Mind you, there are some movies I have seen that my friend coined “mind candy”. Screenplays that don’t require a lot of thought in staying with every moment. Saw a current movie, The Fall Guy, a few weeks ago that fits that description. It was entertaining, and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. But I don’t think it will ever be on the AFI 100.
Then there are movies like American Graffiti, whose groundbreaking innovation I missed years ago when I first saw it. It was only when I saw a YouTube video on the making of the movie and George Lucas explaining how groundbreaking it was that I again saw it with new eyes.
There is no central character but 4 of them all on their own arcs.
And to think Universal kept it on the shelf for awhile not knowing what to do with it.
Then too I have to say that seeing a movie or TV miniseries a second time many times reveals details that I missed the first time around. That implies that it was written well enough with depth by the screenwriter. I am re-watching Apple+’s Sugar with that new-found appreciation. This mini-series revolves around a private-eye (who happens to drive a cool 1965 Corvette roadster in Nassau Blue (and white interior!). His specialty is finding people.
Particularly appealing to me is that it is filmed in the film noir style, something almost unheard of these days, with beautiful cinematography.
This afternoon I saw Field of Dreams on the big screen with a new found appreciation. It’s a story of self-sacrifice and redemption for numerous characters.
I keep my eyes on the schedules of our theaters for Mondays, Wednesdays and Sundays. That’s when the classics usually come.
Tomorrow at our Tower Theater (in the same building where Tower Records started!) they are showing a 1927 classic, Metropolis.
The great thing about the movies…is you’re giving people little tiny pieces of time…that they never forget.
—Jimmy Stewart
And they are best seen on the big screen.
The Lexicans 
Movies also have the attribute that the audience is (or should be) almost entirely focused on the film for its duration…whereas DVDs, streaming videos, etc, are generally consumed in a multitasking way, while also doing other things…also in an asynchronous way, starting and stopping at the viewer’s convenience. I think McLuhan would have found these media types very different, psychologically speaking.
Good point! I’ve seen two silent movies recently Show People with Marion Davies in 1929 and nowMetropolis from 1927. And both spoke to me through the decades.