Watching movies has always been one of my very favorite hobbies. Ever since my dad took me to my first movie when I was four years old (I think it was “Tom Thumb”), I have been hooked.
I am convinced there is nothing more relaxing in life than going to a movie theater, getting a large box of popcorn, and getting totally lost in a movie. It’s a great opportunity to completely forget about phones, email, texts, and just about everything else for a few hours. I usually get so engrossed in a movie that when I leave the theater, I often have a hard time remembering where I parked my car.🤣
When I was in college and didn’t have much money, I went to my school newspaper and asked them if they’d like somebody to write movie reviews for the paper. When they said yes, I went to all the local theaters and told them that I was a movie critic for the college newspaper. I was able to obtain 2 free tickets to any movie, and as a result, I saw almost every movie released while I was in college. (On the down side, it did not make dating easy because I always had a small flashlight to take notes during the movie🤣)
Fast forward to today…when I fly to a city for a board meeting or to give a speech, if there is a movie theater near my hotel I’ll always check out if there’s a movie worth seeing. My favorite movies are suspense, action, dramas, comedies, and love stories. I’m not a fan of horror movies, science fiction, or Marvel.
This past week was a great movie week for me. A good friend invited me to a talk given by Lee Shoquist, a Chicago movie critic. He did a phenomenal job presenting a history of the Academy Awards and discussing all of this year’s nominees. I highly recommend listening to one of his lectures if you ever have the opportunity in Chicago.
And to top it off, Sunday night was the 97th annual Academy Awards show. Believe it or not, it is the only television show I see all year. I love seeing clips of all of the movies nominated and trying to guess the winners. I competed with several friends to see who could guess the most of the 23 categories. I only got nine right, and one friend said they got 12 right. I think I’m going to ask for an audit of the results. 🤣
Since I always look at everything inn balance, there was one sad movie event this week. As you may have seen in the news, Gene Hackman, one of my very favorite actors, passed away. He was a fantastic actor and appeared in more than 80 movies, including “The French Connection,” “Unforgiven,” “Hoosiers,” and “Superman.”
Many well known actors have paid tribute to Hackman, including Dustin Hoffman, who lived with him when they were young struggling actors. Here’s an interesting article from Rolling Stone about Hackman.
And here’s a great 3-minute summary of “remembering Gene Hackman:”
May he rest in peace.
Header photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash
