Do We NEED to Own Movies?

When I was a kid growing up - age hint spoiler alert - once a year, THE WIZARD OF OZ was on television, once a year at school, there was a gymnasium showing of OLIVER!, and at Halloween we gathered around our three-channel set and watched IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN. Of course, Christmas would absolutely not have been the same without the much-anticipated Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. To this day, Burl Ives is the voice of Christmas. Oh, oh and - you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. I loved the Grinch's dog with the antlers strapped on his head.

This is not to mention of course, the Saturday evening family tradition of gathering round the set to watch Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart. Of course, Sundays was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. My life was grounded in the routine of this kind of entertainment. I have not seen OLIVER! the number of times I have seen some of the dvds I own today but that movie is indelibly etched in my mind. I have memories of watching it in a stuffy gym full of giggling, snuffling grade-schoolers. And in the end? When Nancy gets killed? You could have heard a pin drop.

These movies and television shows were special because they weren't available all the time. You had to wait. You had to be sat down with your kool aid and popcorn right on time. The whole family would watch. Nowadays, people make jokes about Marlon Perkin's assistant Jim and some charging rhino. At the time though - we were transfixed! And Rhoda. And Sanford and Son. Later, the Love Boat and Fantasy Island - and that's right around the time television changed and our family no longer gathered around the tv at the same time. And of course these days, dvds of entire seasons of television shows are easily available.

In the time before TiVo, a few refrains from the opening credits of Star Trek caused a stampede at my house. And of course Mary Tyler Moore - you couldn't miss those opening credits because you had to see her throw that beret up in the air. You're gonna make it after all!

I know many screenwriters and movie-lovers who collect dvds of their favorite movies. But honestly - do they watch them all? Repeatedly? When I mean collect, I mean I know people who own hundreds of movies. They buy them on dvd, they buy them on VHS in the discount bin - they devote entire rooms to these movies. In the same way that people used to collect records - made from vinyl - stay with me kids, those were those round, black things that music used to come on? Before iTunes and iPods? Anyone? Anyone get a visual on that?

But movies? Why collect movies? Is it a compulsion? An addiction? Do we need a 12-step program? So I got to thinking about it...

I own about 25 dvds - and I can honestly say, of that collection, there are about six that I watch from time to time, as a comfort food kind of thing. The others I own because I illogically feel one ought to own them. Here's an example: MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. I own that. And I love it. And I've seen it a number of times. But - do I watch it more than once a year? No way. Every two years? No. It's sitting in my dvd drawer like that bottle of fish oil derived omega 12 that we all have because we bought it on a health-kick four years ago. I also own DONNIE DARKO. Why? I dunno. Because it's cool?

So - why do so many of us almost compulsively buy dvds? My theory is this - it's grasping. It's Kilroy was here. It's laying claim to a moment in time on our tiny planet hurtling through space. It's trying to recreate and reclaim that magical feeling the first time you saw a movie that you loved. And I'll cop to all of those things. I'm Irish - we're born with sentimental genes. It's been scientifically documented.

When I hear Jimmy Stewart's soft, ever-so-distinct voice in say, HARVEY (which I also own) I feel comforted. I feel as if life is okay with Jimmy Stewart in it. When I watch Gene Kelly dance in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (yup, own it) to "I've Got Rhythm" I smile because you know what - old man trouble? He doesn't mind him. You won't find him. Round his door.

And that is the legacy of the movies and that is what Americans are grasping at when they buy them, hand-over-fist. It's comfort. It means we're alive. Because movies give shape and meaning to the rough and tumble of reality. Because at my house? Jimmy Stewart is still very much around. And so is Ratso Rizzo. And Gene Kelly and Doris Day. Come around anytime if you'd like to spend time with Jack Lemmon. Or Marilyn Monroe. Billy Wilder has a lot to say at my house. And so does Preston Sturges and Vincent Minelli.

Because when I watch Georges Guetary dance up steps that light up one at a time in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS....I'll build a stairway to paradise, with a new step everyday... I know that everything is going to be okay and that life, so often a challenge, so difficult and painful is fundamentally good because entertainment is salve for the soul.

And to give Wavers a hint of how wonderful that song is...here's Rufus Wainright covering it in THE AVIATOR:

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