going gonzo

I think that movies can, and should be, a group activity. Making the movie itself is an extremely collaborative process, and I think that how and when someone watches a movie, be it all alone on a laptop at 4 AM or in a theater surrounded by strangers, directly affects the memory of the film.

Above is a picture frame showcasing the ticket stubs I’ve collected over ten years, approximately May 2003 - May 2013. One decade, one hundred and fifty-eight movies.

I can trace the past ten years of my life through these ticket stubs - the theaters move from New Jersey to Philadelphia to New York to Los Angeles just as I did. I remember who I saw each of these movies with, from high school (Superbad) to college (Iron Man 2). First dates (Grindhouse) and girlfriend fights (Rango). Movies I saw by myself (Amour) and with friends (my buddy Matt ripped a huge, loud fart during a pivotal scene in Milk).

And these aren’t even all of them, these are just the tickets that I’ve managed to save, the ones I didn’t accidentally throw out or lose. I’ve seen many more movies in theaters, and I really wish I had all of the stubs (my collection isn’t truly complete without cinematic treasures like Norbit or Indiana Jones 4).

I don’t want to oversell it. This is just a big piece of paper with smaller scraps of paper taped on top. But I don’t have any physical photo albums, I realized. Maybe one day when I really have time to kill I’ll go through Facebook and print out the pictures that I want to keep and put them in a nice little book to flip through when I’m feeling lonely or nostalgic. But until that happens, all I’ve got is this neatly arranged bundle of trash. And I’m okay with that.