"Watch something with color..."

A few months ago, my roommate walked into the room and saw me watching the movie, "Born Yesterday" on Turner Classic Movies. Well, to me it was "Born Yesterday." To him, it was just some black-and-white movie.

This was when the lecture began. He explained to me that it isn't right for somebody my age (22 at the time) to watch anything that lacks color, that black-and-white essentially equals boring. In a way, I see where he is coming from. The way we view movies now is different from how we watched movies years ago. The way actors act now is different from the way they did before.

The truth is that I have a deep appreciation for all movies - old and new - especially those that have the uncanny ability to spark some sort of emotion or feeling from deep within, whether that emotion be happiness, sympathy or confusion. While many new movies are great at this, older movies have that special something.

The brilliant thing, to me at least, about movies from the '30s, '40s and '50s is the obvious reliance on acting and performing and drawing as much storytelling power as possible, sometimes from the simplest of film concepts, scripts and even sets. On top of that, it is almost mesmerizing to see an old movie for the first time that has dramatic themes similar to movies you may see nowadays.

I would like to use this space to, first, do what just about every classic movie blog does: analyze classic movies and explain why they are so important to us. Second, I would like to apply an added perspective as a young fan to the mix to give everybody a taste of why and how a young person can enjoy movies that were made almost a half a century before he was born.

I hope you enjoy.

-Steve