MY TURN column
The Courier-Post
February 19, 2009
The 81st Academy Awards are this Sunday, and I am running out of time. I have seen just three of this year's nominees for best picture: "Slumdog Millionaire," "Frost/Nixon," and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
My urgency was magnified the other night during a cell phone call from my son: "Well, have you made your picks yet, Dad?" he questioned. "Time's running short. I think this is my year."
Since he started middle school 14 years ago, Matt and I have challenged each other annually as to who can pick the most winners from the 24 major categories nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Even during his college years in Boston, we kept up the tradition via e-mail and instant messaging.
We both carry a personal history steeped in the appreciation of film. I was weaned on 1950s and 1960s Walt Disney pictures such as "Davy Crocket - - King of the Wild Frontier," "Old Yeller" and "The Absent Minded Professor." In 1959, I saw "Ben Hur," winner of 11 Oscars, in its original CinemaScope release.
Shortly after moving to South Jersey in 1961, my father took my brothers and me to see "Babes in Toyland" in Philadelphia's classic Fox Theatre, where the single screen measured 54-feet wide by 23-feet high, and the great marble-decorated auditorium seated 2,423.
I fondly remember sitting in theater balconies, while uniformed ushers roved about with flashlights, checking to see that no foreign objects sailed over the railing toward the crowd below. My son smiles when I tell him about spending Saturday afternoons at the 50-cent "kiddie matinees" that included a stage act and a serial short film before the feature presentation. He silently wonders if all the movies' dinosaurs were as old as his father.
They scheduled months in advance to attend inaugural showings of the latest "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" films. More than once, I found myself ducking out of work at lunchtime to stand in line at a local theater, so I could purchase a block of tickets to that evening's midnight show for the boys.
It was clearly understood that no school time was to be missed the next morning due to lack of sleep or bleary vision caused by the previous night's brush with movie magic. Days later, the guys were still buzzing about special effects, re-enacting key action scenes and reciting dramatic dialogue.
Posters of favorite movies always adorned Matt's bedroom wall, and he maintained a bucketful of ticket stubs bearing the names and dates of first-run movies he had seen. His secret wish was to work someday for Industrial Light and Magic, the special effects company founded by George Lucas.
My interactions with Hollywood have spanned everything from drive-in movies to theaters featuring stadium seating; from days when the sound was played through a little metal box attached to a rolled-down car window to ceiling-mounted speakers booming THX and Dolby Digital Sound.
Matt's experiences include using our great room television and surround sound system as a laboratory to test the urban myth that the 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz" is synchronized with Pink Floyd's album, "The Dark Side of the Moon." I have to admit I was looking in on that one, as a dozen college kids watched and rocked in awe.
Since Matt is now a theatrical sound designer, he tends to best me each year in the production and technical categories, such as sound editing, sound mixing, original score and song. My English degree usually gives me a leg-up with original screenplay, adapted screenplay and documentary.
We both realize that this contest is not about winning or losing; most years our results are folded-up and tucked into a desk drawer. But, like the ethereal feather that floats through "Forrest Gump," or the filial relationship woven into our favorite movie, "Big Fish," this game is a symbol of greater values.
It's a tradition. A special father-son connection. It's the type of storyline that Hollywood has been writing for generations.
