Gratitude

Thanksgiving approaches, and it’s time to express gratitude in a more specific, articulate way than maybe we normally do. Expressions of gratitude increase our satisfaction with our lives and improve our relationships. Grateful people generally live longer and report being happier with what they have. So in that spirit, I want to express some of the things I’m grateful for.

First of all, I’m grateful I have a family of passionate, observant film fans. Between my wife and three daughters, I live with people who can crack jokes about giant, irradiated ants from 1954’s THEM!, make meaningful comparisons between Charles Addams’ original cartoons and the filmed adaptations of his work, and give me insights into why certain teenagers find the recent Joker film so compelling. One of the prime joys of movie going for me is sharing the experience and ideas with smart, witty people, and there’s no one I like seeing movies with more than my family.

As much as I complain about it, I am grateful for streaming technology. While I do believe it makes movie going almost too easy and removes a lot of the ritual and communal nature of film, there have been times just in the last few months when streaming has just made my life easier. Obscure documentaries and independent films don’t make it to Midland, Michigan that often, but thanks to Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu, I get to see them anyway. I can appreciate ease of access even while I criticize it.

I’m grateful for my Genres in Film History class this semester. Any teacher knows that it’s every few years that through fate, luck, or just the pedagogy gods smiling down you, you end up with a group of smart, funny, enthusiastic students all in the same room and for that semester or that year, your life is pretty great because those students unconsciously work together to make a classroom environment where people want to be. My Genres students have been equally enthusiastic and curious about black and white slapstick comedy as they have about sci fi, horror, and westerns. It is good to be with students who enjoy learning.

I’m grateful for Delta’s digital filmmaking program. It is a rare thing for a community college to have the kinds of resources we have, and to be able to send students out in the world with a degree that enables them to go right to work on a film set or in a production studio is remarkable. My colleagues Jeff Vandezande and Kim Wells are award-winning professionals who give our students invaluable real-world insight into directing, editing, producing, and the thousand other skills needed to be successful. It’s nice to feel like you’re part of something important and unique which I think our filmmaking program is.

I’m grateful for the recent debate about whether or not superhero movies count as “cinema.” Martin Scorcese, certainly one of America’s best and most important living filmmakers, said that they weren’t, and people have been taking sides, offering think pieces, defending, rejecting, or clarifying his definitions. I think it’s good and healthy to think about what movies are, what cinema might be, and to discuss what our expectations really are when we sit down to watch something. Anything that causes us to question how we define, think about, and relate to the movie-going experience is valuable in my opinion. Movies are a huge part of our culture and lives, and examining our beliefs and preconceptions in intelligent, civil ways makes us better people and smarter movie-goers.

And of course, I am grateful for this show and for you out there, whoever you are, listening in. It’s a privilege to be able to work with the good folks from Q90.1 and to be able to have my idiosyncratic, weirdo say about movies once a week. I’m very grateful for those of you who tune in each Friday and give it a listen.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!