I transitioned from opinionated film buff to suddenly-not-so-smug “professional” film critic in November 1991, ostensibly because I was 1) semi-reliable at delivering copy on time, and 2) willing to accept my compensation in weed. A regional Midwest music magazine to which I was contributing the odd album, concert, or book review had secured advertising from one of the major theater chains (AMC if memory serves) and needed a regular film column to dress up their new client’s page and hopefully keep an eye on the ads. I readily agreed when they asked, not because of the special remuneration (though it was certainly welcome at the time), but because my band had recently broken up and I had no idea what to do next with my life. 

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Spring was always an evocative time for me during my school days. I could walk to school almost every day and enjoy the new warmth. The maple trees would be shedding their maple squirts which some of us kids used to stick between our teeth to make funny insect-like sounds, and girls were easy to notice again since the season of bundling up in warm layers had passed. I remember getting very restless, though, as I had dreams of going on nature jaunts, family trips and whatever other non-school activities I might anticipate. I couldn’t wait for the summer to come.

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I remember those sweet, sweaty summer days when I’d grab my board and grease the pavement with my crusted wheels listening to Pharcyde and Tribe, Black Flag and Circle Jerks, feeling free and feeling invincible. I followed a strict schedule: hit up Burger King, fuck around over at my local 7-11, then return home, sopped and stoked from the mid-day melt. And at the end of the day, I’d always, without fail, crash in my basement to watch some classic Bones Brigade flix whilst drowning myself in liters of Mountain Dew, nearly falling asleep from pure exhaustion. To any young punk, it was the closest you could get to absolute bliss living in the ‘burbs. It was a fun, if lonely, time in my life.

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I lost my only brother Kyle at Thanksgiving in 2019. It was a shocking event, something I was slow to accept, because Kyle was a larger-than-life figure – a brilliant, boisterous, often hysterically funny human being with immense talent in several different realms. He was a great writer, he’d become a well-known theatrical producer in New York City (two of the big hits that began at his off-Broadway WPA Theatre were Steel Magnolias and the musical Little Shop of Horrors), and he had an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music and, a genre that was commonly overlooked, film scores.

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In this time of pandemic, as we witness the mounting deaths of fellow citizens and experience the painful loss of close family and friends, many of us may be contemplating our own mortality in a way more acute than our heretofore fast and filled-to-the-brim lives have allowed the psychic space. I would guess this is not a frame of mind welcomed by most; we seem to be “happiest” when we are too busy, distracted, or entertained (and often, the more mindlessly, the better) to truly reflect on the inevitable journey that awaits us all.

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Meeting strangers can be eventful. I have so much I could say on that subject, without a doubt. In 1980, I got stranded in a blizzard in southern Missouri. I was trying to reach a friend down in Cape Girardeau that weekend, but I was delayed. The snow got so bad, there was nothing for me to do but get myself to an affordable motel and wait out the bad weather. I was starkly alone and feeling very unsettled.

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This is the story of two screenings. The first takes place in the summer of 1978. Like everyone else at my elementary school, I’ll stop at nothing to see Grease. My sister and I run across six lanes of freeway traffic in barrettes and bell bottoms to get to the theater in the shopping center near our house. We do this partly because it shaves a minute or two off the walk, mostly because we aren’t smart enough to be afraid.

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For as long as I can remember, my favorite piece of jewelry has been the brooch. An early picture of me sporting pigtails and yarn ribbons, also features a tiny brooch on my houndstooth necktie.

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There is a delectable moment in nearly every James Bond film, usually at the beginning of the third act, when the captive and restrained Bond first meets his nemesis in person. Here, the super-villain—often the supreme ruler of a vast, secret cabal—explains in a markedly tempered tone his malicious designs for power and control, how the world will be forced to submit to his authority, and why Bond must be eliminated for the plan to succeed.

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I love time travel movies. It’s a fixation of mine, honestly. And it’s a broad genre that can include time portals (a la certain Star Trek episodes and The Time Travelers), temporal rifts of one sort or another, actual time travel like in the Back to the Future saga, time-warping odysseys such as The Butterfly Effect and A Sound of Thunder (both flawed movies but containing some ingenious ideas) and countless others.

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There are certain film moments that can command my instant attention, especially where the music is concerned. Anyone can have a fond remembrance of a film that meant something special to them, but I’m referring in this context to how simply hearing a particular theme or music cue can put you instantly into a trance, and take you right back to a pivotal moment in your life.

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In 1995, I was co-producing, writing, and hosting a weekly television show about movies called Reel Life for a small Bay Area cable access station with my colleague Dennis Willis. We were still holding down regular jobs and creating the show by the seat of our pants, squeezing in movie screenings, taping interviews, and dealing with the arduous task of producing around the confines of our two demanding schedules.

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My brother and I huddled together, shivering in a freak snowstorm as we stood in a long line that curled around Louisville’s Showcase Cinemas. It was 1977, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and we were waiting to buy tickets to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I didn’t think we’d make it. A teenage usher, relishing the authority of his megaphone, warned us every few minutes that we were in the danger zone. Past the danger zone.

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