Getting the Big Picture

First off let me say: THIS IS NOT A RELIGIOUS FILM BLOG! Sorry if I yelled, but sometimes I get caught up in the moment. What this is though is a movie/film blog about my passion: The cinema, movies, film - whatever you wanna call it. Like most Americans I grew up on the movies. As a boy I watched "The Wizard of Oz," and it was the first movie I fell in love with. Watched it every year on TV. Back then my family didn't have a color TV, so my first experience with it was all B&W - with commercials! I didn't care, I didn't know any better.

As I got older my movie interests grew. The "Planet of the Apes" movies, whiched I saw in theaters during their first runs, were a must-see every year. Staying up late on school nights to watch Marx Brothers movies [sometimes with all 4 brothers, but never Karl] on "Movies 'Til Dawn" off L.A.'s Channel Five while the folks thought I was asleep. And of course the first time I dated a girl I took her to the movies. Then on to the films of Scorsese, Cukor, Coppola, Peckinpah, Blake Edwards, George Stevens, Lean, Hitchcock, Kazan, Fellini, Hawks and on and on and on.

Yet somehow just watching movies weren't enough. I needed to know about the people who made them, in front and behind the camera. I needed to know how they were made. So I bought a couple of movie books at the local B. Dalton bookstore in the only shopping mall our city had to offer. One was on cinema history, and the other two were on actors Gary Cooper and Cary Grant. Why I picked out these two, I'm not sure. I know I had seen Cooper in "Pride of the Yankees," but I don't think I had seen a Grant film at that time. The books were part of a series called "The Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies" - they were a whole series of books covering the careers of various classic movie stars. I devoured these books, just soaked them up - almost wore them out. That was 1973, and I still have them. And I bought more. And more. The Citadel "Films of..." series was another favorite: Books on Crawford, Astaire, Brando, Tracy, Hepburn, - I think you can tell where this is headed.

Francois Truffant said movie-lovers are sick people. I tend to agree with that. We huddle in the dark with a single stream of light projecting about our heads or glowing from our TV. When we get caught up, really caught up and surrenders to what we're watching, there is no going back. It's a disease that grows like a cancer: from watching movies in a theater, to buying books or memorabilia, to driving to Hollywood to see the sights, to the recording of movies on TV, to purchasing them on tape and, later, on DVD or Blu-Ray.

I love all types of films: from John Ford westerns and the Vincente Minnelli musicals, from last year's "Black Swan" to "War of the Worlds." Comedies and musicals, action movies and foreign films, chick-flicks and film noir and the latest popcorn-delights at the multiplex. I only see about 12 movies a year in a theater these days - time and finances play a big part, but so does content, and I think most movies today are pretty feeble. Especially the ones bally-hooed by the big studios every summer - all noise and green screen, with empty scripts and thoughtless dialogue. It's eye-candy with a hollow center. So if you plan to check in to see my thoughts on "Transformers 3," or "Thor," or "Pirates 4" or god knows what else - I am sorry, but you are better off looking elsewhere.

But don't get me wrong - I like some of them. "Borat" had me screaming with laughter, almost literally rolling on the floor [just ask my kids], JJ Abrams' recent reboot of "Star Trek" - a clever update on a franchise I had long given up for dead. And I am looking forward to "Super 8" on June 10 for some Abrams-meets-Spielberg fun. So I am not a complete snob. In the coming months [years ?] I will write up sketches, essays, reviews, and career profiles on actors, directors, and films; a smattering of takes on musicians, books, and television. But my main focus will be movies, as it's been much of my life.

Anyway, welcome aboard and if this sounds like your idea of fun, well, then you are my kind of person. Share your thoughts. Tell me what you like, and what you don't. Who knows - maybe we'll even learn a little something about life beyond the multiplex.