From Theater to the Home
If I couldn’t go to the movies, I would have to bring the movies home
Do you remember the first time you watched a movie at the cinema? For me, it was when I was 7 years old. It was my first trip to the states from Jamaica and my cousin took me and my sister to see George of the Jungle. George of the Jungle is definitely not the movie a snob like me would have chosen to introduce anyone to the full experience of cinema and certainly not how I would have chosen to initiate my movie-going career. Still, as a kid I thoroughly loved that experience and even now…even though I’ve never seen that movie again since, I can still remember Brendan Fraser’s ridiculous Tarzan yell.
I can count on one hand the amount of times I watched a movie at the cinema before I got my drivers license — and freedom. That first time I just mentioned — watching George of the Jungle during my inaugural visit to the states. Another time, my older sister took me with her when she went to see Man on Fire. Another time, through some stroke of luck, she let me tag along to see Bad Santa. And finally, the time when my older brother took me to see The Aviator. Going to the movies in my early teenage years was challenging. Friends would invite me to join them to go see something new that was coming out and always I would have to say no. I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to join because my mom wouldn’t allow it. In her mind and in the mind of my church at the time most movies and especially Hollywood movies would only serve to sully my mind and weaken my faith. Thinking back, they were probably right.
Loving movies but not having the opportunity to watch them as they were created to be seen instilled in me a certain reverence for the theatrical cinematic experience. Watching the trailers for movies I knew I wouldn’t get to see made me frustrated. Hearing my friends at school talk about what they saw over the weekend made me jealous. Not only did I have to go through hellish puberty, I had go through it while not being able to watch all the cool movies my friends got to see. It was maddening, but that frustrating experience I had growing up is also the reason you’re reading these words right now. I knew that if I couldn’t go to the movies, I would have to bring the movies home and that is exactly what I did.
In my introduction to this newsletter, I described the unexpectedly great experience I had watching a movie in a hot, muggy classroom packed with my schoolmates. That experience taught me that watching content together with friends is more fun than watching alone. I also knew from that experience that I didn’t need to go to the cinema to have a great time watching movies. But I quickly found out that if I wanted to have fun watching movies at home, there would have to be some (albeit self-imposed) prerequisites. That’s how my journey with home theater began.
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