Movies, Movies, Movies!

I just wanted to offer some random thoughts about film. Every Memorial Day weekend, my blushing bride Janice and I travel south to Columbus for the Cinevent Classic Film Convention. It’s held at the Midwest Hotel and Conference Center on Sinclair Road, and I cover the event every year. Big fun! It’s also home to the 15th annual Vintage Poster Art Auction staged by my old pal Morris Everett, who lives in Kirtland. They offer millions of dollars in original movie posters, and you see an almost hushed reverence as people file past the hundreds of items offered on display.

Then there’s the summer movie season, which promises to be very busy for us. When we first started dating, Jan and I went to movies constantly, sometimes as many as five in a weekend. With all the blockbusters expected this year (Pirates, Fantastic Four, and of course, Spiderman, among many others) it promises to be a very busy year for us sitting in theaters that are too cold with the stench of faux popcorn butter hanging in the air. It will be worth every second of it!

If you’re a classic rock fan, chances are your parents had a home movie camera. These primitive cameras were clunky, only shot three minutes at a time of 8 millimeter film, and shook badly if you didn’t have a stand. They’ve also played an important role in recording history. (Anyone recall the name Abraham Zapruder?) There’s even an amateur film of Babe Ruth’s legendary “called shot”, though the debate raged on after it was found. But the most important role these cameras played was recording your own history. My family had some of those films, and a few years back one of my favorite aunts asked if I knew anyone who dubbed film to tape. I said I did, and she handed me a big box of films that went back forty years! When I got the tape back, I stared at the screen with my mouth wide open. You forget how your grandmother walked, or that your grandfather wore a fedora even when he was in the house. Or your uncles before the had grey hair…or any hair at all. I was able to share this treasure with my whole family, and I keep my copies with our photos in a closet near the front door of my house. If there’s a fire, I’m getting my wife and I out first and then grabbing the films, now on DVD, as we head out the door. Chances are you can replace just about anything else.

Video is every bit as good, and thank goodness for the visionary who thought we could record home movies. They’re better than the stuff we see in theaters….and that’s pretty stiff competition!