It was mild at the beginning. I learned of it as early as our very first date when I took her to see Rocky III. Over the years, especially after our daughter was born, it got progressively more pronounced.
I remember she had gone to our pediatrician's office for a check up for Jessica. When she came home she told me what the pediatrician had said to her. She was still a bit in shock when she told me. Her revelation started out with a simple question, "do you know what Dr. Allen told me?" I immediately thought she was going to tell me about the results of Jessica's check-up or that something was wrong.... "no, what did he say... what's wrong?" I anxiously asked.
Then she told me. "Dr. David told me that he and Kathy go to two movies on their date nights!"
"Wait, what?" I said. "Yes, he said that they figured it made sense, since they were already paying for a babysitter, that they should make best use of that time... so they go to two movies on the same night!"
"That's crazy!" I said. She agreed but she also said that it makes perfect sense. Both of them love movies and try to maximize the cinema experience when they go out.
Btw, the word cinephilia comes from "cinema" and "philia"- one of the 4 ancient Greek words for love.
I remember the first Friday night (our regular date night) we decided to try it. There were movies that began around 6:45- 7pm and the next showings were usually 9:00pm or just after.
The immediate dilemma was do we go ahead and buy both sets of tickets or do we watch movie #1, leave the theater, buy tickets for movie #2, and re-enter the theater?
We chose poorly. We bought both sets of tickets. Being rookies at this, we discovered that, after watching movie #1, we were too tired to stay and watch movie #2. No refunds allowed. We gave the tickets to another couple.
We quickly learned that, although we were open to seeing two movies, it wasn't always practical. Sometimes there weren't two movies we wanted to see. Sometimes we were satisfied with our cinema experience after one movie or just wanted to do something else after the movie. And then there is that truism, "a mind can only absorb what the butt can endure." That said, I think we ended up going to two movies over 50% of the time when we went to the movies on date nights. (This gives you some idea of the volume of movies that Hollywood was putting out in the 80s and 90s.)
When we told our friends what we were doing you know what the most frequent question was?
"So, after the first movie do you just sneak into the second movie without paying?"
It was then we realized that either we needed to find less sketchy friends... or maybe our friends thought we were the sketchy ones. Hmmm.
Carol loved going to the movies and just watching movies in general (romcoms are her favorite.) Call her a cinephile, movie junkie, film buff, or whatever. Movie watching has been one of her most favorite forms of entertainment for the 42 years I've known her.
Back in the VHS days we regularly rented videos from all the outlets in Augusta that rented them... grocery stores, Blockbuster, Phar-Mor (remember that discount drug store chain?) Sadly, Phar-Mor turned out to be the sketchy ones. The CEO and CFO were defrauding investors, hiding and falsifying financial information, and both were convicted and sentenced to prison. We also purchased many VHS movies when the pricing became less prohibitive (VHS tapes were expensive in the early days.) After a few years, the higher quality DVD era began. All the VHS tapes we bought eventually were just given away in yard sales. Nobody owned VHS players anymore.
Slowly but surely, Carol began acquiring DVD movies. And I had joined this new upstart named Netflix for movie rentals.
 |
| DVD mailers |
They allowed you to check out DVD movies and they were delivered to you in the mail. The number of movies you could have checked out at one time was based on the membership level you had joined.
Today, we must have between 500-600 movies on DVD. I actually tried to sell off our entire collection at a yard sale about 7 years ago but, I got no takers even at the very discounted box-load price. The DVD (and Blu-Ray) era was over, I guess.
 |
| this ain't even the half of it |
When COVID hit, I was thankful that we had all those movies because, you know, not every movie is available on the streaming services. And, for many years after Carol's dementia diagnosis, movie watching was still her favorite thing to do. She'd watch a couple most every day. Sadly, the interest and her ability to remain focused has waned over the last 18 months or so as it has become harder and harder for her to even follow along with the movie's dialog. I'm not sure how much of it she can even understand anymore.
The other day I put in the DVD of "Pride and Prejudice" (the Keira Knightley version) to watch with her. It was always one of her favorite movies since its release 20 years ago but, the longer it played, the more it seemed to just agitate her. So I hit stop and ejected it. I used to earn pretty significant brownie points if together we watched the chemistry unfold between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. (I never told her that I actually do like that movie.)
The cinephilia was great while it lasted.
Click here for all the "Things about my Carol" blogs
Click here to go to main blog page
Phar-Mor logo by RilennEdits - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138121506
