I love movies. I love anticipating a movie before it comes out, watching a preview, as I briefly glimpse a world that I will someday know the story of. I love the anticipation that I feel as I enter the movie theater, as I always feel a sense of excitement in the air as the audience chats, and I wonder how many have the same thrill that I do.

I love finding my seat, sinking down into it, knowing that its like an old friend or a well-worn glove that fits me perfectly every time. I get comfortable and arrange my body as I get ready for that next glimpse into a new story, a new idea or a new life. I sometimes feel much like a voyeur watching someone else's life, judging, empathizing, and sometimes feeling disgust.

I love the time after the movie has ended. I like to sit through the credits and listen to the music that is holding me, still, in the story that I have just seen. I am sometimes saddened that the feeling will soon be over, and othertimes, anxious to discuss and ponder what I have seen. I love talking about the movie after I have seen it, going over the things that made it different from all other movies, or so similar to another movie. I love reliving the jokes from the movie, if a comedy, or discussing the disturbing feelings that arose, if its a tragedy, and I love hearing the reactions of those other people that experienced it with me.

The entire process gives me such a high...sometimes for just a few hours, when I need a release and escape from my mundane life, and sometimes it can last a few days or more, when I am caught up in the subject matter of the movie and am intent on researching it on my own to discover how the filmmaker was inspired.

Now, to my addiction with watching movies...
I consider myself quite a connoisseur of film, as I see as many that I can, watching at least one a week in the theater and then two to four more during the week in my home...with the help of Netflix and Cable T.V. If I ever miss a week going to the movie theater, I feel a kind of panic at what I might be missing, especially when the independent and foreign films that I love are only out for a week sometimes. I often go to two films in one day, if I can figure out how to do it, and can get someone to go with me. I feel genuine distress sometimes, at how many movies are out there that I may be missing, and I do research to try and get as many independent and foreign films on my Netflix list, that I may have missed in years past.

Why am I so obsessed with movies, you ask? I am an actor myself, and was only allowed to watch one movie a year, growing up. We made it a huge thing, though, as we all piled into the station wagon and went to the drive-in, taking our packed food and popcorn to share, lying in the back. I started at a very early age, acting out my own "movies" and stories, creating worlds for myself and my sister and brother. My life was filled with so many worlds that were constantly in motion. I read a lot and used many of the characters in books as the inspiration for the ever changing movies in my head, as well as taking the parts as the imaginary actors that fleshed out the running commentaries that I created.

I love movies. I hope you will enjoy my take on them as I experience them....or rather, LOVE them.