It’s Sunday night, late. Tonight my wife and I went out and saw an excellent movie: The Best of Enemies.
We got to the movie theater about an hour early in order to see something else, but they didn’t have any seats together except in the first two rows. So… we bought tickets to The Best of Enemies, which was also playing forty-five minutes after the first movie… So we had about an hour and half to wait before the show!
And it was worth it!
The Best of Enemies was definitely the movie that we were meant to see. This movie was inspiring, it was engrossing, it was uplifting. It is about the triumph of the human spirit over disconnection and fear (translation: racism). It was so beautiful to watch, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think my wife did as well.
Again and again throughout my life, movies have inspired and uplifted me. There is something especially special (yes I used those words together) about seeing good movies on the big screen:
There you are, removed from the rest of your life, sitting in a dark room with only the movie to focus on. Your entire visual field is filled with what you are watching. Meanwhile, your ears are filled with the sounds from the world that is being created in front of you. Your body is stationary in your seat for the remainder. You have nowhere to go, and nothing else to do. You are committed! It is an entire mind-body sensory experience.
Every time I come out of seeing a movie I especially enjoy, I think to myself, “Seeing movies is one of the things I most enjoy in life.” And it is! And again, that big screen full body and mind experience is truly unique! I am so glad they invented movies…and that we get to watch them on the big screen!
It’s funny, but so many inspirations have come from seeing movies on the big screen. Here are just a few of my stand-out movie-going memories:
- Return of the Jedi (when I was three years old I saw this with my dad),
- Ghostbusters (when I was four years old, saw this with one or both of my parents, I still remember the scene where Slimer flies off the frame, I imagined he flew into the movie theater).
- Karate Kid (I saw this also when I was four years old, at a smaller theater down the street from our house)
- Beetlejuice (My mom took me to this for my eighth birthday) I still remember seeing going to see all of these movies, and who I was with
- Immortal Beloved (I saw this with my dad and family in Berkeley when I was in high school and really starting to get into both Beethoven and classical music)
- 8-Mile (I saw this when I was a senior in college…Actually, I snuck into see it. I was feeling a bit surly that night, and after seeing another movie, I decided to stick around and slip into a crowded screening room that was about to start a new movie I had barely heard of. This movie made me want to rap, which got me into writing songs, which previously had been only a dream)
For awhile, my wife and I would joke about how I always remembered where we were when we saw different movies. In fact, one time I believe I named fifty different movies we had seen, and which theaters we had gone to for each. Movie-going is a vivid, magical experience for me that leaves trails across my psyche. I also happen to be able to see an image in my mind of the theater I was at, or the trip to the car in the parking lot afterward.
I’ve heard that people remember things they care about.
I guess I really care about movies 🙂