The fact that I got my second month-in-a-row "double recommend" from Stage 32 for my script "Corpus Delicti" inspired me to plan a road trip to Los Angeles to meet some folks and just generally take in a little bit of LA. So, here's my offer to fellow Stage 32 LA peeps. Let's have a get-together Monday, 8/25/25, starting around 6:30 p.m. at Fantasia Billiards in downtown Burbank. I'll buy a domestic beer for the first five Stage 32 folks who show up! I still look like the guy in my avatar photo, so there's that anyway.
LA's a big place, and I know it's a weekday, but doing this on a weekend isn't an option for me.
I'm making this offer to say thanks to cinema, Hollywood, the idea of Hollywood, and to the people in that place who were (and are) instrumental in giving me so much that I truly enjoy about life.
I'm hoping that like-minded folks - people who love movies and the people who've made them - show up and we tip a drink to both. It's not that Hollywood is dead, but it has changed, or so it appears. Life is change, I know. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm showing up as a fan of life, the movies and the folks who make them, rather than as a writer trying to break into the business. I've learned over the years there's a subtle difference in the mind set.
Another LA person gave me the idea for meeting at Fantasia Billiards. The joint's website had photos of reasonably priced food and a decor and vibe that reminded me of the scenes from The Hustler shot at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Ky. Considering that The Hustler and Color of Money are easily in my top 20 of favorite films, I was hooked.
As a youth, one of the things I loved about movies was their ability to transport us to a different place, to take us out of the little community we were in, and give us a glimpse of other, almost always, more interesting places. The vibe that came out of those scenes shot in Louisville, the subtle southern sin found in a place like Louisville, interested the kid in me. Years later, in business, I spent many, many nights in Louisville, and stayed at the Seelbach. You should have seen the smile on my face!
The other thing about movies that I'll forever be grateful for is how they provided "models" for us. I don't mean "role models." I believe role models should be found closer to home. Rather, in the studio era and new Hollywood of the 70s and 80s, Hollywood gave us models that, as a community, we could rally around. And, that providing of "models", folks we look up to, continues today. Two of the more influential characters from my early years were McQueen's Hilts in The Great Escape and Paul Newman's Cool Hand Luke. Both were strong, independent thinkers, yet each had a caring for the community of which they were a part, and for which they would sacrifice their own self-interest.
So, I chose Fantasia Billiards in Burbank because it rekindled a memory about how I felt about the scenes from the Seelbach Hotel shot in Louisville, KY in 1961, featuring my favorite actor of all time - Paul Newman. Gawd, I love the movies!
So Stage 32 folks, what little thing from your youth caused you to fall in love with the movies? Show up at the Fantasia and tell us about it, and if you can't make it, tell us about it in the comments. :)
Congratulations again on the Double Recommends, Mark Furney! I hope the meet-up goes great!
Our dad told us to see TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze when we were kids. We went to the store before the movie, and I got a toy from the movie. I think my brother got a toy too, but I don't remember. That movie is one of the reasons I fell in love with movies.