A Year at the Movies: One Man's Filmgoing Odyssey
by Kevin Murphy

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Book Reviews of A Year at the Movies: One Man's Filmgoing Odyssey

Book Review: 2 Levels
Summary: 4 Stars

The first approach is the serious one. As noted by other reviewers here, this book really isn't so much about "a year at the movies" as it is about a year spent in various movie-watching locales. If you think about it, this makes sense: the "business" end of the movie business really doesn't produce and widely distribute enough material for anyone to realistically go see a different movie 365 days a year. This is a rather telling commentary about the subject of the book (i.e., movies) in and of itself. Furthermore, the author makes clear very early on that he did not see 365 different films during his year at the movies. Still, there's an element of "false advertising" here; for example, there's really no reason whatsoever that a listing is provided at the beginning of each chapter of what movie Murphy saw each day of the week, given that the ensuing chapters focus on the movies themselves only infrequently.
If you can get past such little matters, however, consider: for all the ink generated each year about movies, this is one of the few books out there (and one of the only ones written for a non-academic general audience) about the communal experience of moviegoing. Murphy misses what is the most obvious point about moviegoing these days: home technology such as VCRs and DVDs has gone a long way toward spoiling the filmgoing experience. Today, anytime most people plop themselves into any kind of chair in front of any kind of screen, they associate the experience with being at home, and they accordingly feel free to talk loudly, eat too much, stand up, walk around, take phone calls, etc. Going out to movie theaters is no longer an event, and in fact is as often as not kind of an inconvenient pain. But, as Murphy emphasizes, it doesn't have to be like that. Murphy reminds us that at its best, going to the movies can be a peak experience; it can be fun; it can bring people together and reinforce, if not create, a sense of community.

The second approach is the entertainment one. Murphy wrote for MST3K; he's an entertaining guy. On this level, the first half or so of the book - when Murphy is sticking closer to home to see movies - is the best section. Murphy's run-ins with a fellow fat Minnesotan on the flip side of "Minnesota nice," to use just one example, is a funny read, and it's not that easy for any book to be funny. Even the book's later chapters, wherein Murphy waxes rhapsodic about the moviegoing experiences he had in exotic locales, are great stories, warmly and vividly told.

Overall, I highly recommend this book even to people who may not be fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's a genial, amusing, colorful group of short true stories about moviegoing. It has certainly rekindled my interest in going out to the movies.

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