Cinema Wellman: Origin Story
Maleficent has one. The Crow has one. Captain America and a ton of fellow superheroes have one. Heck, even Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc. have one! We seem to be bombarded by origin stories explaining “How we got here.” So I figured, and Hannah suggested, I should try to explain myself and my fascination/obsession with film. What follows is the closest I can get to the “Cinema Wellman Origin Story.”
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Like everyone else, I am a product of my parents. That’s just science. My dad, Ray, was a master craftsman/woodworker who was adept at carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, mechanical work and a variety of other things. I got none of that. :)
My mom, Jean, was a phenomenal cook who loved family over all, but also loved reading, making lists, and movies. My mom loved movies, and I got a lot of that. Thank you, mom!
I remember finding a big box of my mother’s movie magazines and scrapbooks at my grandmother’s house. I sat down with my mom and went through pretty much everything in that box. It included pictures of movie stars that once hung on her bedroom wall as a teenager. Some I knew, others I had never heard of, but love now. She told me stories about the stars she admired (Elizabeth Taylor was a favorite) and how she would walk to the movies every Saturday for a newsreel, cartoon, popcorn, and two features for some ridiculously low amount of money. Jean was a movie fan, and she passed that on to me.
One of my fondest childhood memories is when Jean would host the annual “Academy Awards Party.” Along with her cousin Jo (my godmother), my mom began having a little party for the Oscars. Over the years, other friends (Marie and Marion) joined the fun. The food was out of control as it always was when my mother was involved. The food itself made for a spectacular evening. The Academy Awards were just icing on that cake.
Jo was trying to help me piece together a time frame (thank you, Jo!), and it looks like those parties began sometime around 1964. The ladies would dress up, cocktails would be served, it was fantastic! Everyone would fill out ballots no matter how many nominated films they had seen that year.
I was lucky enough to attend quite a few of these parties. I even remember one year that I drove from MA to NY for the party and the next morning I drove straight to school after a 3 ½ hour drive. It was totally worth it.
After my mom passed in 2012 I stumbled upon a sweet discovery when going through her personal items. She had kept all of those Oscar ballots. Like I said…Jean was a movie fan.
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With the blood of such a movie fan coursing through my veins it’s no surprise that I’ve had dreams in black and white. Is that normal? Do people do that? I’ve also had dreams with subtitles. Those were fun!
I once even had a dream with credits at the end. I read them all. I remember waking up and wondering why my name wasn’t in them. I must have had something to do with the dream! Why wasn’t I credited?!?
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When I was growing up, I really didn’t have much access to movies. Younger people will find this difficult to grasp, but aside from going to the theater, there weren’t many options for movie viewing. The major networks would cut a movie to shreds on a Saturday night, but that was about it…
…other than a little slice of magic known as the “4:30 Movie” on ABC. It was frequently the only thing that kept me connected to movies between theater visits.
The “4:30 Movie” was an oasis of entertainment waiting for me at the end of the school day. It ran on ABC Monday thru Friday from 4:30-6:00. My favorite aspect of the 4:30 Movie was that they had theme weeks. They had “Action Week!” “War Week!” “Spectacle Week!” and my all-time favorite….”Monster Week!” I love a good theme!
On the left is an original TV Guide ad for “Monster Week.”
On the right is a modern mock-up of the same featuring new movies!
There are still fans out there!
They ran the movies from the Planet of the Apes series along with other important sci-fi fare like Soylent Green and The Omega Man. “Spectacle Week” was all Bible stories. The more epic the film, the more days it ran on the 4:30 Movie. If they ran The Great Escape or The Bridge on the River Kwai, well…you were in for the week! At the time, it was the best way to watch movies at home.
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Jean always told me that my first movie was Mary Poppins, which is disappointing because I hate Mary Poppins. Another early trip to the theater I recall was with my grandmother. She brought Vanessa and me to see some submarine movie where it was attacked by plant life. Some sort of fungus. THAT movie was more in my wheelhouse. I wish that was my first!
Trips to the theater were very special for me because they didn’t happen too often until I got into my teens. When I turned 13 I tried to go to the movies as often as possible.
As far as theaters went, I had the Windsor Theater in Vails Gate, Squire Cinema in New Windsor, and the Mid-Valley Cinema in Newburgh to choose from.
I could walk to the Windsor Theater, and did so often. The other two needed transportation, so those weren’t visited as often until I got my license.
Donny, Andrew, and I once smuggled beers into the Squire Cinema and were nervous about opening them and drinking them in public. During the movie a couple of guys a row or two in front of us lit up a joint, so we figured we were safe sneaking our suds. This was the same theater where friends of mine moved a classmate's car into the lobby of the theater during a screening of Animal House. Lawlessness!
We always referred to the Mid-Valley Cinema as being in the “Mall of the Damned” because there was never anyone in that mall! It was such an odd place. A memorable screening at Mid-Valley was C.H.U.D. Now that you should see!
When I was doing research for this piece, I actually uncovered photos of all three theaters from my childhood. Yes, the Interwebs have absolutely everything.
They’re all gone now, but the pictures brought back fond memories. I love that the only shot I could find of the Mid-Valley Cinema was blurry! So fitting!
Once I started driving, another option came clear into view, and it was the Drive-In. This was a game changer. The Drive-In became a go-to event on weekends. Sometimes we’d go on Friday AND Saturday nights. Without girlfriends, we always had time for the drive-in. We had three to choose from; Brookside, Maybrook, and Fishkill.
It rarely mattered what was being shown at the drive-in. Eat My Dust, Krull, Red Dawn, Yor: Hunter from the Future…Donny, Andrew, and I would go anyway. It was the experience, the atmosphere, the beer. At one drive-in, we were even given Slim-Jims upon our arrival! We were V.I.P.s!
What Andrew and I laugh most about from our drive-in days is what we called the “Grab Bag Cooler.” A cooler was filled with ice and four (or more) six packs. All of the six packs were different. We would buy the worst/cheapest beer we could find. Think Hamm’s, Schlitz, Pabst, Old Milwaukee, etc. Then we would also put in one sixer of “premium beer” and that was…Budweiser. Imagine that!!! If you picked a Bud, you were a winner!!!!
At one of my many drive-in screenings of The Road Warrior, I got out of my car and walked up the hill and stretched out under the massive screen to watch the opening. Another tale of back in the day where nobody cared what you did…
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Another game changer in my movie life was when we got HBO. I’m not entirely sure when that happened (1980?), but that’s when I pretty much started watching everything. Anything and everything and usually multiple times. I have fond memories of endless viewings of movies like Blue Thunder, The Black Bird, and The Missouri Breaks. Not to mention the stuff that HBO sometimes ran “after hours.”
When it came time to choose a college, I went to a place that had a film program. I loved movies and wanted to make movies a career, so I went to Boston University (1980-84) and majored in film. This is where my film brain was nurtured and exposed to things never seen at the Windsor Theater, the Middlehope Drive-In, or even on HBO. I was in heaven.
Movie-wise, that is. I realize now that BU was a mistake for me. I overreached by majoring in something I just wasn’t cut out for, and socially, it was a mess. So it was heaven and, to an extent, hell. It was, however, where I was transformed from just a film fan to a full fledged film geek.
It was at BU when I decided to start keeping a list of all of the movies that I saw. Little did I know how that handwritten list would evolve into a full blown database of multiple spreadsheets. The current version of the database features columns for; title, release date, rating, run-time, genre, director, country of origin, and Oscar nominations/wins if applicable for almost 8,000 films. It’s called IMDavidb and it’s my archive.
It was also at BU where I was first exposed to foreign films on a large scale. I didn’t love them all (L’Avventura!), but it sure made me curious about filmmaking outside of the United States. My exposure to surrealism, French New Wave cinema, Italian neorealism, along with American classics like Citizen Kane helped turn me into a next level connoisseur of film.
Many of my film theory classes were held in large auditoriums and theaters. We’d watch movies and then talk about them. I had a professor who was friends with Charlie Chaplin! I got to make movies. I got to be in movies my friends were making. It was absolutely amazing, and I wish I had taken it more seriously.
The two student films I’m most proud of are The S.P.C. Cutthroat and Psychic Vegetables. The SPC Cutthroat is about a student who ends up on a waiting list for a class he really wanted, so he murders everyone ahead of him on the list in a series of film-related ways. I made that one on my own.
I then teamed up with a friend named Bob Ecker (The Oven Mitt Murders) to make Psychic Vegetables which is about a vegetable uprising. It featured a ton of stop-motion work including our “Odessa Steps Sequence” where we had the vegetables march out of the refrigerator in a military formation. It was phenomenal, and it was messy! My friend Audrey was killed in the shower by a pepper. My roommate Mike was killed when a large carrot entered his eye.
It may sound silly, and it was, but Psychic Vegetables was chosen for screening at the BU Film Festival that year! I was, and am, very proud of that.
Another movie memory from BU was going to movies at “Cinema 700” which was the “theater” in our dorm. That’s my freshman and sophomore year dorm at BU in the middle photo. Warren Towers: the Three-Pronged Monstrosity. In any event, they showed movies on weekends and were extremely relaxed about what you brought in to drink while you watched. To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen The Wall or The Kids Are Alright sober. College!
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Then, during the summer of my junior year at BU, something happened that would change me in a very profound way. On June 18, 1983, my family purchased a VCR. A Panasonic PV-1220. A top-loader! With a remote! A CORDED remote!
Having a VCR in the house meant that I could pretty much watch a movie ANY TIME I WANTED!!! Going to the video store to pick out movies became a religious experience for me. There were so many movies, and I wanted to see them ALL!
The actual receipt from the purchase of our first VCR! $482.49!!!
I think the last DVD player I bought was $40!!!
Fast forward a decade or so and VHS was replaced by the DVD and I went off the rails. I bought so many DVDs that Lysa needed to put me on an allowance at one point. I even bought copies of movies that I only remotely liked, and I did that for years. At the height of my madness, I had over 400 DVDs. In my old house on Franklin, my entire walk-in cupboard/closet was filled with my DVDs! With the introduction of streaming, those DVDs are all like Confederate money now. I, of course, saved 100 or so of my favorites and have them on hand just in case they’re needed.
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As an adult, my movie watching has changed and intensified. With the ever expanding database comes more movie lists and more movie lists means more movie projects.
Several years ago I decided to challenge myself and see EVERY movie that was EVER nominated for ANY Oscar. Not just the winners, not just the major categories…EVERYTHING! (to paraphrase Gary Oldman). To assist in this project, Dakota designed a series of binders for me to help keep things organized. I update the books once a month to keep them current by highlighting what I’ve seen. I still have over 1,700 Academy Award nominated movies to see, but at least I know what they are!
A few years ago I decided to see a movie from every country in the world. There are 195 countries in the world. I only have 26 countries left on that list. Some of them may be out of reach, but I’ll give it my best shot.
I have four books about “Cult Movies” covering over 600 cult films throughout film history. I only have 23 of those left to see.
From 2013-2017, I watched my movies by theme. Each month had a theme and all of the movies I watched that month fit with that theme. Here’s just a sample of that lunacy:
*A to Z
*Heists
*Time Travel
*Water
*Hellscape/Dystopian/Wasteland
*Booze
*Simians
*Car Chases
*Conspiracy
*One word titles
*Movies about Movies
*Prison
*Remakes
*Numbers
*Trains
*Courtroom
*Kung-Fu
*Colors
*Claustrophobia
*Snow/Ice
*One Word Bio Pics
A majority of films on those lists were films that I had already screened. Starting in 2018, I decided to watch only movies that were new to me. That is also when I decided to make it a goal of seeing 10,000 different movies in my life. As of this writing, I’m at 7,771. That’s only 2,229 movies away. I should reach that in about three years or so.
Even though I’m concentrating on seeing movies I haven’t seen before, I still have time for old favorites. Two of my fondest film memories were seeing The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca in theaters for the first time. I had seen both films numerous times, but never in a theater. Never had the opportunity.
The Wizard of Oz screening was in New Jersey, possibly in 2009 for the 70th anniversary, and I brought the girls. They were in costume. I was not. It was a magical theater experience I had not previously had. Jean spoke of seeing this in the theater as a kid and described it with absolute wonder in her eyes. I was so pleased I got to share one of her favorite movie experiences.
Seeing Casablanca in a theater for the first time (3/21/2012) was like time traveling. I felt like I was in a theater in 1943. The crowd was amazing. I have a feeling most of us were in the same boat at that screening. First timers. People were laughing at all the right times, they weren’t TALKING, and there was applause at the end of the movie! There was a standing ovation. Stunning!
Another memorable movie event occurred on February 21, 2009 when I saw all five Best Picture nominees in ONE SITTING!
This took place at a theater in Middletown, NY. I was happy to see that there was a bar, because that was a long day. Especially since I really disliked three of the five movies! Still happy I did it. Wouldn’t be able to do this any more now that they have so many Best Picture nominees these days. Five is still the perfect number of nominees for Best Picture. Still upset that they changed that. Money grab.
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One of my all-time favorite movie memories is when Dakota took me to see JAWS. The film JAWS and I have a very special relationship. I’ve seen it countless times and have even made a tradition of watching it each and every July 4th no matter where I am. There’s a lot of JAWS stuff in my house including a giant canvas of the poster in my stairwell, and the license plate from the shark autopsy can be seen on the shelves behind me during Cinema Wellman episodes. Dakota made the shark you see next to that license plate. So JAWS is special to me.
Dakota made it even more special on June 2, 2008 when we went to the Mann Center in Philadelphia to screen the movie. The soundtrack was provided by The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. LIVE music being played to accompany one of my all-time favorite movies! I get choked up every time I think about this experience. I had seen the movie so many times that I was focused on the musicians and the conductor who had an ultra modern screen in front of him. Think “Guitar Hero” for an entire orchestra! This was old school movie stuff for me, and it is an experience that I will never forget. Thank you so much for that, Dakota. That’s a keeper.
If you need any more proof of my film geekdom (geekness?) it would be me doing things like the “24 Hours of Wellman” where I watched movies for 24 hours straight (3/30/2019). That got an entire episode of Cinema Wellman! If you missed it, you should check it out!
When I’m asked why I’m so into movies, many thoughts race around my brain. To begin, it’s definitely escapism. Movies can take me anywhere at any time with the press of a button. With documentaries/historical films, it’s about becoming educated in a variety of areas including social issues and civil rights. With foreign films, it’s a way for me to travel beyond my borders and learn about other cultures. With ALL movies, it allows me to enjoy the work of wonderfully creative people who are all working together to tell a story. It takes an unbelievable amount of people to put together what we watch on that screen, and they all play a part.
As Sam Elliott says at the end of The Big Lebowski, “Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up.” This has been my attempt to explain/rationalize my relationship with movies that began 60 years ago. I hope it made sense. It makes almost total sense to me. :)
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If you’d like to hop aboard this crazy train, feel free. Join us on the “Road to 10,000!” The more the merrier! Follow Cinema Wellman on Instagram and Twitter @cinemawellman Listen to our podcast on Spotify or watch on YouTube. Just search for “Cinema Wellman.”
E-mail us with questions/comments/suggestions: cinemawellman@gmail.com
Cinema Wellman: Upcoming Episodes!
*A look at Cult Movies
*September Screenings: Top 10/Bottom 5
*Stephen King Movies: T10/B5
