I, like hundreds of thousands of people, have been watching movies my entire life. In fact, the first movie I ever saw in theaters was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). I don’t remember seeing it in a filled auditorium as I had just turned four, but I have the ticket stub to prove it, thanks to my Mom for holding on to little things like that.
I can’t tell you exactly when I was bitten by the film bug. Perhaps it was when my Mom took me and my brothers to see The Lion King (1994) at the local movie theater, at which I would later work; the first film I remember seeing there. We arrived early to stock up on soda and popcorn, a nine-year-old kid’s dream come true; picked out the perfect seats and prayed that the seat in front wouldn’t be filled by a man who took the idea of the nine-year-old kid’s dream too far; and prepared myself to see an animated movie with lions that are larger than life and, though I wouldn’t know it at the time, become one of my favorite animated films.
It could be when I was the first person lined up outside the theater to see the first Star Wars prequel, the movie everyone had been talking about since it was announced. Though it would later succumb to pan reviews, there is still the fact that I had Ticket Number One for Saturday, May 20, 1999. By the way, I still have the ticket sub for that, too.
But I think I’ve always attributed my love of film to a little movie starring Jim Carrey called The Majestic. For those that haven’t had the opportunity to view it, Carrey stars as a screenwriter who becomes blacklisted during McCarthyism and crashes into the river after a night of drinking. He wakes up in a small town that is hurting from the departure of a young man to the war. When he is found by a local fisherman and taken to the diner, he is mistaken for the hero who left the community. Carrey begins to believe he is this man and starts to live the man’s life. His father, played brilliantly by Martin Landau, owns the local movie theater, The Majestic, and reminisces about how a single movie, no matter what it is, can bring an entire community together.
He quotes: “That's why we call it The Majestic. Any man, woman, child could buy their ticket, walk right in. Here they'd be, here we'd be. 'Yes sir, yes ma'am. Enjoy the show.' And in they'd come entering a palace, like in a dream, like in heaven. Maybe you had worries and problems out there, but once you came through those doors, they didn't matter anymore. And you know why? Chaplin, that's why. And Keaton and Lloyd. Garbo, Gable, and Lombard, and Jimmy Stewart and Jimmy Cagney. Fred and Ginger. They were gods. And they lived up there. That was Olympus. Would you remember if I told you how lucky we felt just to be here? To have the privilege of watching them. I mean, this television thing. Why would you want to stay at home and watch a little box? Because it's convenient? Because you don't have to get dressed up, because you could just sit there? I mean, how can you call that entertainment, alone in your living room? Where's the other people? Where's the audience? Where's the magic? I'll tell you, in a place like this, the magic is all around you. The trick is to see it.”
That’s the reason I love movies. It’s the reason I go back again and again to see the stories that make me laugh, make me cry, make me root for the hero and loathe the villain. It’s the reason I stuff my face with popcorn and glue my teeth together with Milk Duds.
It can all be attributed to a single monologue by a man who, himself, is a god up on that screen. The gods all of us enjoy watching again and again because, whether we say it or not, there is a part of us, big or small, that loves the movies.
