Book review: A Year At The Movies by Kevin Murphy (2002)
For those of you who don’t know, Kevin “Tom Servo” Murphy took it upon himself to “go to the movies” at least once a day for the entirety of 2001, and to put that experience down on paper. Given the amount of garbage that was passing for entertainment that year, this may seem like a fearsome challenge. But Murphy appears to have relished the opportunity to get paid for what most of us consider a relaxing leisure-time activity. And even acknowledging the aspects of movie-going that he disliked, one gets the impression that he at least enjoyed complaining about them.
A Year At The Movies: One Man’s Filmgoing Odyssey is a collection of essays written during that year-long adventure. Fifty-two chapters, one per week, detail everything that he felt worth mentioning. Murphy engages in several gimmicks during the course of his book. He attempts to find the smallest theatre in the world (apparently it’s squeezed into some guy’s house, and is an actual licensed and legal cinema). He brings six different women to the same date movie on consecutive days (his wife is described on the back cover as “long-suffering”). He smuggles in an entire turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day (the man fits a table under his coat — if there was an Academy Award for table-sneaking, he’d deserve it). He attempts spending a week eating nothing but concession stand food (again, his wife is described as “long-suffering”).
However, as entertaining as these exploits are, I was more interested in the day-to-day things that Murphy picked up on during the year. He contrasts the service and attention to detail present at mom-n-pop, independent theatres to the impersonal, uncaring experience one might expect to see at the nearest massive movie multiplex (which Murphy humorously refers to as “googolplexes”). He looks at the reactions and discussions created by the small independent films, and counterpoints those thoughts with the ennui that seems to sweep over the audiences of the summer blockbusters, who become so uninvolved and distanced that they go merely to observe, to be vaguely distracted, and then to leave, never to think of the film again.
That said, I was definitely amused by some of his goofier antics. Getting into multiplexes without paying, and pretentious folks who haunt his local movie theatre on Hong Kong Cinema Morning are just two of the subjects that meet with his brand of comedy. Murphy was a writer on the ever-witty television show, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and a lot of those clever one-liners and quick humor are on display here. There’s even a cameo by former MST3K host Michael J. Nelson, who gets dragged along to a viewing of Corky Romano (“Y’guys want some cookies?”). Pity them. Or laugh at them. I did both.
The only really negative thing I have to say is that there was no table of contents, and no index. So, when I look back, I have to randomly flip my way around the fifty-two essays to find exactly what it is that I want to reread. Unless I managed to remember the date, I’m simply lost. The book is written in chronological order of his cinema-going year, but the vast majority of the essays aren’t time or season specific. It’s a minor quibble to be sure, yet it would be handy to have a quick way to find his essay on, say, why movies about rich people are usually lousy, or on the best way to sneak into the Cannes film festival, or on what it’s like to see films in the land of the midnight sun.
I found A Year At The Movies to be a fun and occasionally thoughtful travelogue that maintains a good balance between being amusing and reflective. Murphy is definitely a fan of the movies, so his comments come from a love of the craft, and a sense of frustration when it doesn’t live up to its potential. He comes across as a faintly snobbish curmudgeon in parts, but a very likable guy all the same. He’s definitely an aficionado of most aspects involved with movie watching, and I found his enthusiasm contagious.
This review was originally posted in May 2003.
