I love seeing movies in theaters. I always have. One of my earliest memories is seeing Willow on the big screen when I was about three years old. In recent years I haven’t been able to go to movies on the big screen as often as I used to. And most recently I’ve been really into classic film, so it’s been doubly hard to see anything on the big screen. Though, when I was in college I went to the Pacific Film Archive to see classic films occasionally. I saw my first Buster Keaton film there (Seven Chances) and I saw The Shop Around The Corner (twice). One of the first things I did when I went to college was to see Nosferatu at the PFA with a live organ accompaniment. I saw a handful of other films over the years there, too. When I lived in San Francisco I only managed to see one classic film at the Castro – George Stevens’s Giant. It was amazing. I did, however, see a few cult 90s films there, too. This past weekend at the TCM Classic Film Festival I saw about 11 classic films or so on the big screen within a four day period. It was mind-blowing. Seeing Citizen Kane on the big screen at Grauman’s Chinese Theater was life-changing. I fell in love with A Place In The Sun, a film I was previously eh about. I discovered the humor in Becket. I lost all ability to function while watching West Side Story. So what is it that makes seeing a film on the big screen so dynamic?

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