My father loved movies. All kinds. He started taking me along when I was old enough to sit in a seat. I don’t know a time where movies were not cherished by the pair of us.
As I got older and saw things that were unknown, he would take the time after the film to explain them. It became our ritual. Movie credits role, we head out into the sun, walk or drive home, and talk about nothing but the film. We both learned so much and appreciated the experience more.
His passion was for espionage films, especially James Bond. I saw every bond from Diamonds Are Forever to Casino Royals with him theatrically. He was too sick for any after tho he did see Quantum of Solace. I miss that.
Dad would drop me off at one of the local cinemas every Wednesday after school to watch a bargain film. We watched a theatrical film every Sunday after church. We also watched a comedy on tv before church. We watched the Sunday night movie, Monday night movie, special event showings on tv. We travelled to see films that did not come to our area. He would drive to my college just to go see something with me.
Movies are baked into me. Entirely. It was normal to watch a movie multiple times in the theatre. VHS did not exist and when it did it was exorbitant. 8mm and 16mm were not easily obtained where I lived. Normally I would see a film I loved 3-5 times. Something really good would hit the 20s. Star Wars was well over 101 in its original release. Movies had legs in the seventies so a popular picture could hang around for 8 to 14 months straight.
More next time…
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Must’ve been nice living in that age of cinema. Nowadays everything has to be a blockbuster, or it gets tossed to a streaming platform…
The good films are out there. It takes effort to find them. Don’t give up.