In 1993, when I was 11 years old, I made my mother drop me off at the Clairidge Theater in Montclair, New Jersey – the only “independent” movie house in north Jersey – so I could see Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. I was the youngest person in the theater by 40 years but I remember laughing at all the same stuff those older folks did, feeling like I was part of a private joke. That day, “the movie theater experience” hooked me. I wanted nothing else (until I discovered women, and booze).
I saw 30 movies in theaters that year.