My hometown was too small to fully support two movie theatres when I was growing up. The indoor theatre was called “The Strand” and it went through several seasons of being open for a while and then closed. The building in which it was located was eventually converted into other uses. The Drive In, “The Van” was a summer only operation and most years it was able to offer a bill of movies, seldom more than one movie per week. After I got my driver’s license, for a couple of years, I went to nearly every movie that they showed. One night each week, sometimes the last showing of the film, was “buck a car” night. The theatre had to sell a lot of popcorn to break even. One thing I remember about our drive in is that the sound was notoriously bad. Sometimes we had to move the car two or three times to find a speaker that wasn’t too crackly.

Maybe that is why I have never gotten into watching movies. I remember that during my college years there were some really good theatres with good sound systems and I attended several movies. From time to time my parents would come to town and sometimes we went to a movie. A movie was also a possibility for a date, within the budget of a student.

There have been some other times when we have watched a few movies. When our children were interested in movies, we went with them. I think I’ve seen all of the Star Wars movies and the Indiana Jones series and there was a phase when I went to some terminator and die hard movies with our son because I wanted to know what he was watching and to have the opportunity to discuss what was happening on the screen with him.

But I never turned into a real fan of the movies. My colleagues often chide me for being out of touch with culture because I watch so few movies. Members of the congregation frequently tell me of a great movie that they have seen and recommend that I watch it. I intend to do so, but when I’m planning the use of my time, watching a movie rarely comes to mind. I never have trouble thinking of things to do.

When our son was in college, he really paid attention to the movies and I read movie reviews and tried to pay attention to the awards ceremonies so that I was capable of having an intelligent discussion with him.

In a way it is strange that I am not more into movies. I love storytelling. I like to read short stories and novels and I listen weekly to a couple of podcasts that are short stories presented by writers and professional actors. If I ever got the opportunity to attend “Selected Shorts” at the Getty Center or at Symphony Space, I am sure that I would jump at the chance. You’d think that I would be attracted to the artistry and creativity of those who tell stories in movies. And I like the fact that a movie is a collaborative art. People rarely make movies by themselves. It is a huge team effort. I am intrigued by people who dedicate so much of themselves to something that is bigger than their own personal effort or glory. Intellectually, I can think of all kinds of reasons to be a fan of movies and to support them by watching them.

But when I have free time, going to a movie doesn’t seem to be attractive. I’d rather go for a walk or paddle a canoe or sit and talk over a cup of coffee.

I think that part of it is that I don’t really prefer life to come at me in a larger-than-life format. I don’t need booming bass and loud surround sound in order to hear. I don’t need people to appear to be 10 feet tall on the screen. I remember an experience several years ago when we were shopping for a television for our family. Our kids were in elementary school and we had decided to get a television and a VCR so that we could watch movies at home. I went to a superstore where they had a display of many different brands of televisions, thinking that the store with the largest selection would give me the best opportunity to make comparisons and choose a brand that was appropriate for our family. The store must have had a hundred televisions that were all turned on at once. The salesman demonstrated the features of televisions while a dozen were clearly in sight. Most of the televisions were displaying the same program. It was just too much sensory experience for me. I retreated to the parking lot, glad to get out of the store. I couldn’t choose a single television from all of those options. I ended up buying one from a discount store that only had three or four brands. Sometimes when I watch a movie in a theatre, I get a similar sensation. There is just too much coming at me. I’ve enjoyed a couple of movies in omnimax theatres, but what I have seen in those settings is a shorter movie, not a feature-length production.

Perhaps I just prefer my movies in smaller doses. I read books that way. I rarely read an entire book in a single day. I take a week and sometimes longer to read and process a book. I live with the story for a while and then I do something else and come back to the story in my own time and experience it at my own pace.

So the bottom line is that I don’t have tickets for any of the films at Cannes. I doubt if I will ever even go to the new film version of The Great Gatsby. I enjoyed the book, but I wouldn’t put it on a list of my top ten most favorite books. I think it is unlikely that I will read it again. I’m not sure that the world needs another movie adaptation of the book. I’m unlikely to pay attention to which films garner the awards at Cannes. I think I have it correct that Spielberg is the head of the jury this year and Solderbergh is the director who made the movie about Liberace.

I’ll let others watch the movies and then I can have them tell me about the experience. After all I still read about movies. I just don’t go to many of them. Maybe my colleagues are right. Maybe I am culturally deprived and out of touch. If so, it is a very nice place to be.

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