Nothing Like The Smell Of Fresh Popped Popcorn

Back when Christian and I were both in school at UGA we saw movies all the time. The Tate theater at the student union played movies almost every night of the week and the cost for admission was an unbelievable $1.50 (and no, I went to college in the mid 90's so this was a great deal). The Tate theater is possibly the most comfortable theater I have ever been in and the movies were rarely crowded. Occasionally on a Friday or Saturday night they would play a new release that many people were interested in seeing, but the usual fare was stuff with subtitles and things shot on Super 8, not real crowd-pleasers necessarily. The Tate theater was where I changed from a casual moviegoer to a veritable addict. I imagine that we averaged 3 movies a week while we lived in Athens.

The move to Baton Rouge, then to New Orleans, the start of 'real' jobs and responsibilities and the arrival of La Luz all caused the average to drop. We went from seeing 3 movies a week to seeing 1 and now it is closer to about 3 a month, tops (and this includes Netflix).

I miss the old days of being in the cool, dark movie theater, of being spellbound and on the edge of my seat, of crying or laughing because someone got it so 'right on'. I am not snobbish or particular about what movies I will see. I am open-minded and love all genres. For me there is no better drug than the two hour anesthesia of watching something that is so far from my life.

At the end of each year Christian and I would make a list of our top ten movies of the year. Sadly, I think most of those lists were washed away along with the rest of the journals, notes and other scribbled on scraps of paper that drifted out into the floodwaters. Consequently, as my memory fades I have very little recollection of what my favorite movies were in years past. I decided that I want to revive the tradition because my memory loss is so profound that I barely remember what movies I watched last month. Even though we probably only watched about 20 movies this year, I am motivated to list my favorites. I am only selecting 5 because there are so few to pick from. So, here they are in particular order (1 being the most loved).

1. Once
2. Darjeeling Limited
3. Juno
4. No Country For Old Men
5. Knocked Up

One night when I am not so tired and I don't have to run so many miles at 5:30 a.m. I will explain why.

And as much as I miss the movie-going, 2 hours of this is definitely my first choice:




There is no question that having a kid makes your priorities change, but in every way it is for the better.