…and The Evolution of Cinema* In My Lifetime:
This is what was going through my mind as I stumbled (literally weak-in-the-knees!) out of the IMAX theater yesterday after seeing “Gravity” in 3D:
The first movie I ever saw was “The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. The year was 1956, so I would have been all of 5 years old. When Yul Brynner came on the the screen for the first time – he was playing Pharoah – I asked my father, “Is that God?” It’s one of the few actual conversations I can recall having with my father...
I’ve seen “Citizen Kane” – regarded by some authorities as the greatest movie of all time – on the big screen (it doesn’t hold up as well on a television). I saw “2001: A Space Odyssey” when it was released in 1968. I marveled at all the original “Star Wars” movies. I’ve always thought that “Casablanca” was a story-telling tour-de-force. I’ve seen “Lawrence of Arabia” on a big screen twice. “Dances with Wolves” is still possibly my all-time favorite movie.
I’m grateful for having lived long enough to see the entire “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and ALL of the “Harry Potter” series. I enjoyed “Titanic” even though I knew how it was going to end, and “Avatar” in IMAX 3D was sufficiently immersive that it held up over three screenings in about as many weeks.
But “Gravity” is simply the most stunning movie I have ever seen.
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*(I have to use the pretentious word “cinema” because I’m pretty sure there was no actual “film” involved…)