1. Yesterday I wrote about two ways that Josh Brolin watches movies that made me feel like we were brothers at the soul level.
I now realize there is another way. In addition to being primarily attuned to the impact the movies is having on him and that Brolin and I seek out movies that take us outside our selves and our limited experience, Brolin and I both almost always watch movies alone.
Debbie and I occasionally watch movies together at home, but more often than not she's watching one selection from a streaming service on her computer and I am either not watching anything or watching something on another computer. We did have a time, however, when we watched old television episodes of Columbo and other programs together and that was a lot of fun.
I've watched a ton of movies over the last five years or so at home alone, mainly because I've been home alone for significant stretches of time.
Whether living alone or not, over the past forty years, the vast majority of movies I've gone to have been alone. Debbie and I had a stretch of time around twenty-five years ago when we went to movies at The Bijou together and a few at a cineplex, and I enjoyed those times, but I have also loved seeing movies alone.
It's a freeing experience for me. Alone in a movie house, I enter a bubble and feel what I feel, think what I think, stay put for as long as I want after the credits roll, walk around when I leave the movie theater, and free of conversation and anyone else's wishes regarding what to do next, I let the whole experience sink in. Alone.
I loved going to late morning or afternoon movies in Washington, D.C. and taking long walks around the city afterward. It was the same way in Eugene, whether I was on foot or riding a bicycle. Back in the early 90s, I sometimes drove to Portland on Friday nights or on Saturdays just to see movies in different theaters and relished the drive back to Eugene, usually at night (when night driving didn't bother me) and I could be in solitude with the movie I'd just seen.
I sorely miss living where I'm close to multiple movie theaters. The closest ones are in Coeur d'Alene.
I miss living close to art houses, movie theaters that play the kinds of independent and international movies I enjoy most -- and sometimes vintage movies which are always a thrill to see in a movie theater.
2. I am a different movie viewer now that I'm in my early seventies than I was when I was younger.
I used to have remarkable stamina. I would sometimes watch as many as four movies in a day, but I don't have the attention span or the emotional and mental capacity to do that now.
I also used to be able to watch more than one darkly serious movie in a day. I had an almost insatiable appetite for exploring alienation, sadness, tragedy, and other forms of seriousness.
Not any longer.
For example, around 8:00 this evening, I decided to watch a movie from about a dozen years ago entitled Nebraska. It features Bruce Dern playing a cantankerous old man. He has entered into a delusion that a letter promoting a million dollar Clearing House styled sweepstakes is a letter telling he's won a million dollars.
He believes that if he goes to Lincoln, Nebraska he can pick up his million dollars.
I will finish this movie, but not until tomorrow.
Bruce Dern's performance is brilliant.
The black and white cinematography of landscapes and small towns between Billings, MT and Lincoln, NE captures the vast emptiness of this region and is an outward representation of the emptiness in the inner lives of the characters in this movie -- at least so far.
After forty-five minutes of watching this movie about aging, dead end family life, and the possibility of this vulnerable old man being exploited, I decided I'd had enough for one viewing session and that I'd pick up the movie again tomorrow, preferably long before I go to bed.
I never would have turned off this movie in my younger days. I would have found its truths exciting, would have contemplated the realities of aging from the safety of being a young man, and I would have been excited by the movie's gray and bleak aesthetics.
I'm not that guy any longer.
I needed a break. I needed to pretend like this was a two part, Monday/Tuesday television program and that I had part one under my belt and I'd enter into part two tomorrow.
But not close to bedtime.
3. Starting about sixty years ago, our Grandma Woolum made a snack at Christmas time called Nuts and Bolts. At some point, later on, this snack came to be known as Chex Mix. Grandma's recipe was buttery, rich, perfectly salty, laced with subtle garlic flavor, and included mixed nuts, all the Chex cereals, pretzels, Cheez Its and other treats from the snack aisle.
Mom took up the job of making Nuts and Bolts at some point and now I think Zoe is our Nuts and Bolts cook.
Back in New York, Debbie has been fixing Nuts and Bolts. She sent a picture of her work today and I thought how wonderful that this little tradition in our family has grown beyond the Woolums and Roberts.
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