The Screening Room

My earliest recollection of seeing a film on the big screen goes back to 1970 or so, when Mom took me to the Congress Theater in Logan Square to see The Wizard of Oz. The Congress still stands at the corner of Milwaukee and Rockwell--its facade covered with terra cotta faces, its interior dark and cavernous--though it hasn't shown a movie in years. It occasionally hosts concerts, like this past New Year's Eve, when there aren't discussions of gutting it and turning the building into (guess what?) a condo development. But back in 1970, the Congress was a second-run movie house just a few blocks away from Grandma's house.

I only remember the two of us being there, but that can't be right. Rarely have I ever had a theater "to myself": The time I saw Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas with a couple of co-workers, one of whom I had a huge crush on (and her insistence that I sit next to her even though we were the only people in the theater didn't help a bit); the time I saw the X-Files movie at a theater in St. Joseph, MI with an ex-girlfriend who fell asleep during the movie (lucky her); and a recent showing of Glitter with Red Sercretary (there were six people in the theater, including security). But memories are odd things. They create their own realities. So even though the Congress may have been packed to the balcony with nostalgic moviegoers, I can only recall Mom and me being there.

I have no idea to this day why Mom chose that particular movie to take me to. Maybe she thought that, despite the presence of the Wicked Witch, the talking trees and the flying monkeys, The Wizard of Oz was still, in the end, a "family" movie. Maybe she just thought it was a nice Mom/son thing to do on a weekend afternoon (as it must have certainly been, considering that she was working third shift in a plastics factory during the week). Or maybe she was, in her own way, preparing me for eventually entering the work force and dealing with management (again, the flying monkeys). Whatever her reasons, though, she took me to the Congress, we watched the movie, and my love of cinema was born.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in Chicago, where not only where there movie theaters within reasonable reach (not as many as in Mom's day, when--according to a laminated page from one of the daily papers from the '40s that my comic shop guy once showed me--there seemed to be a movie house every four blocks or so, but still) and drive-ins still open and operating, but there were numerous local TV stations looking to fill air time and using movies to do it. From "Creature Features" on WGN (where you could find Dracula, the Wolf Man or Godzilla on the prowl at any given time) to "The Three O'clock Movie" on WLS (where theme weeks would take the viewer from Westerns to World War II to the Hammer horror films) to the afternoon movie show on UHF station WSNS (where I saw Yojimbo, Magical Mystery Tour and The Trial for the first time), I had access to just about every style of film making, just about every type of movie, just about every level of competency--from Orson Welles to Ed Wood and all stops in between.

Access to such variety was key to forming the affection for movies I've carried into adulthood. I have special affection for horror films, but appreciate movies from all genres. And I even have an appreciation for bad movies. Really. I don't consider them to be a waste of time at all; every time I see some waste of film stock like, say, They Saved Hitler's Brain or the aforementioned Glitter, my appreciation for classics like The Quiet Man, Pandora's Box or Wings of Desire only grows.

I still love going out to the theater and am blessed to have an old-fashioned neighborhood movie house, the Davis, within easy reach. It was almost razed a couple years ago for (guess what?) a condo development, but the developer quickly withdrew his interest when confronted with a community in full snarl. The Davis was a second-run theater then. Since its change in ownership, it's become a first-run theater again, with an accompanying rise in prices. But it's also cleaner than it used to be and, most importantly, has more butts in seats than it's seen in many years. The community fought to keep it, and then they came out to support it in the most concrete way they could: With their money.

But I also like sitting around my living room with friends, pizza and cider, showing off my DVD player and my way-too-fucking-big movie collection. Most of my partners in crime share my love for cinema (both good and bad) and like just hanging out and talking about movies. And more than one friend--though, in particular, JB--has urged me to write a book of movie reviews, or at least to publish the horror film reviews I write for the annual Halloween Movie Bash ("HMB" for short) held (usually) at my place on the Saturday before H-Day. But I've yet to muster the personal/professional discipline to do that, so...

...As of this week, I'm setting aside a page of this bloggity for movie reviews. I'll try to add reviews as time allows--as I said, I've got a lot of horror film reviews already written, but I want to mix the bag up a bit with reviews of contemporary flicks and non-horror classics. Still, because I'm a) lazy, b) coming off a cold/flu/whatever, and c) fighting the urge to throw my keyboard out the window because it keeps doubling letters up at random while not typing other letters at all (again, at random), I'm starting out with a review of a horror film. But not just any horror film: One of the stankiest ever made, Robot Monster. Check back in "The Screening Room" regularly. I'm more likely to update it than I am to do the home page. But whenever I send out an announcement, I'll try to remember to let y'all know what's new there.

Now, please excuse me--I'm midway through watching Ghost World and am digging it too much, getting that high that one can only hit when your mind has been opened just a crack further by a piece of great art.