Cinema Wellman’s 10k Gala!

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host David, and today we’re going to be celebrating a recent milestone that took me 63 years to reach.

On Friday, November 28th, I screened Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 thriller Secret Agent surrounded by a group of costumed family members, and a concession stand of movie snacks.

We had a trivia game (Quin won with 20 points, earning him unfettered access to the concession stand), there were JAWS scenes reenactments, and I was even presented with my very own “Cinematic Lifetime Achievement Award,” which I will be hanging here in the studio. 

I had such a good time, I even kept my Quint facial hair for a week. 

I also think I look like that creepy general guy from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, so it goes tomorrow!

Secret Agent was my 42nd film directed by Hitchcock, and it also happened to be the 10,000th film I have ever seen.

Is that total 100% accurate?

Oh, absolutely not!

But it’s as accurate as it can possibly be based on a system I started putting together when I was in high school.

I’m not sure what Christmas it was, but the best Christmas ever was the year my mom gave me my first bible.

No, not that bible, this one.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mick & Marsha.

I have owned many copies over the years. IMDb has effectively replaced it these days, but the “DVD & Video Guide” helped cement a lot of my cinematic lunacy and record keeping.

I gave my last copy to Hudson while we were working together on The Arborist, so (nostalgia purposes) I felt I needed to get a copy just to have its presence here in the studio, so I found one online.

If you’ve been here even once, you know how I worship at the altar of IMDb, but there is something about having the reference material in your hands as opposed to at your fingertips.

Martin & Porter put relatable, readable reviews of more than 20,000 movies in my hands and inspired me to start building my own database of the movies I had seen.

They used a turkey symbol to designate awful movies and, since I didn’t want to copy them, I decided to use a bomb in my own database. 

Decades later, that bomb became the symbol for all things Cinema Wellman.

I used my very first DVD & Video Guide that Christmas and went page by page making my initial list of movies screened.

Once that was established, things were easy.

If I saw a movie and wrote it down, it counted.

If I saw a movie and neglected to write it down, I didn’t see it. 

That rule was #1 of my many rules which Hannah reminds me are ALL mine and I am the ONLY person who knows them, understands them, follows them, or pays attention to them in any way.

And yet, my rules are totally binding.

To me, at least.

I don’t know how many days old I was when I started making my list, but I was 23,223 days old when I screened film #10,000.

Not every day of those 23, 223 was a good one, not every movie of those 10,000 was a thumbs up, but I’ve always said that movies were a lot like real life.

10,000 movies screened in 23,223 days averages out to screening a brand new movie every 2.3 days for 63 years.

One new movie every 2.3 days for 63 years is not a bad clip, but what makes it more impressive to me is how many of those years I went without having access to movies at the rate that I enjoy today.

My great niece and Cinema Wellman episode co-host, Brynn, is 10 years old. 

If Brynn chooses to watch a film today, she has more than a few streaming options; Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV, kanopy, and hoopla, along with a variety of ways to rent online.

And, of course, she always has the theater. For now. 

When I was Brynn’s age, I had the theater, the ABC 4:30 movie during the week, and one of the networks showing a “theater” movie on Sunday night.

There was no such thing as cable, a VHS tape or a DVD.

Once we got HBO and then our first VCR, things started to pick up rapidly in many ways. 

A few more truly trivial tidbits from my time alone in the dark:

*1st movie seen in the theater (against my will): Mary Poppins

*Longest movie ever screened, Abel Gance’s silent 1927 film Napoleon is 330 minutes long. That’s 5 ½ hours, and it was well worth it! Screened during a three month battle with insomnia.

*My top genre statistically is comedy with 2,009 films, but my favorite genre is mystery/suspense/thriller.

*As of today, I have seen films from 172 different countries including Uganda’s Who Killed Captain Alex?

*The most films screened in a single day was 12 as part of the “24 Hours of Wellman” marathon screening. I’m still proud of the fact that those 12 films totaled 1,440 minutes exactly or 24 hours on the button!

*I mentioned that Secret Agent was my 42nd film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and that puts Hitchcock #2 on my list of directors. Number One on that list is Michael Curtiz with 51 movies. Once I saw, and fell in love with Casablanca, Curtiz earned a lifetime pass and I will try to see everything he ever directed. 

*The average release year of the 10,000 films is 1981.6, so 1981 ½?

*The average run-time is 96.1 minutes, which is in my wheelhouse.

*Of the 10,000 films, 915 were given the lowly distinction of the BOMB!

*Just how much time have I spent in the dark watching movies over the years? Well, if you believe in math, it’s a total of 960,765 minutes or 667+ days, or…a lot.

As I’ve said before, I credit my mom for my love of movies (and lists!), and I’ve loved movies for as long as I can remember.

I loved movies so much growing up I tried to major in film in college. Well I did major in film at BU, but we all know how that turned out.

A career in the film industry was not in the works, but my love of movies, all kinds of movies, has never faded.

If this was an acceptance speech, I’d have to thank my ex-wife, my ex-girlfriend, and COVID for providing me with all of the free time I needed to watch the final several thousand films in this journey.

Couldn’t have done it without you.

Or with you, for that matter.

In all seriousness, I would like to thank my family for being a part of my 10,000th screening. It was a very special day that I will never forget.

It truly warms my heart that this was Brynn’s first black and white film and she watched the whole thing. She even caught a plot point that I missed, which made me even happier.

Her great grandmother would be very proud of her.

Brynn and I have now screened Trolls, KPop Demon Hunters, and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 thriller Secret Agent together.

Can’t wait to see what we choose next.

Well that is a wrap from here at Cinema Wellman as we celebrated a journey that wasn’t always enjoyable, but sure fun to talk about after the fact. 

We hope you’re with us next time when we recap our recently completed “63 in 63” project.

Until then, take care.