I have been a movie buff from as far back as I can remember. My brother and I used to watch movie showcases like Los Angeles' "Million Dollar Movie" which ran the same film each night, and then three times a row on weekends.
At first I would, like all children, savor the immersion in the movie, but after six or seven repeat viewings, I would start to forget plotting and action, and would begin to see the movi e in a different light. Then, and now, I would interpret this experience as "living in the movie". Each subsequent viewing I would pay attention to the details in each scene, the acting, costumes, set design, and direction. I would notice the construction of the scenes. Simply by viewing different aspects on repeated viewings, I began to learn the craft of filmmaking.
Because of this exposure, I began to notice the actual craft of the moviemakers, and this stuck with me throughout my youth. I saw my first "big screen film" in 1960 at the El Monte Drive In Theater.
In college I minored in Film History. One of my profs at USC was Arthur Knight, a respected film critic who at that time wrote for the Los Angeles Times, among other periodicals.
This website is a natural progression from what was the Movie Section on my original and still standing persoanl website AllThingsMike.
I seemed to think I would be able to review a film a week, as I saw them in the theater, but for the three years this website has been up, I haven't really written lots of reviews. The main reason, I think, is that I would rather watch movies than write about them. As I view a film, my mind connects with many elements, and I don't like to be critical of any film. I either like it or don't, and my review attempts to tell you why.
I had always hoped this particular site would be referenced and visited often. It hasn't been, and my lack of promotion, and lack of actual reviews doesn't really warrant a repeat response from people. I wanted to use photos from the actual films, but only recently has the technology advanced so that I can get some fantastic images from photographing the HDTV and routing DVD and Tivo signals into the computer. Images that I haven't captured myself from software available are usually borrowed from the
Internet Movie DataBase or from the official movie sites.

To view a work of cinematic art is to reach out and touch the face of humanity. Hopefully I can be of help in guiding you to that art, wherever it exists in the cinema.
Michael F. Nyiri
poet, philosopher, fool, and film historianrewritten 7/2/03

THIS WEEK AT THE MOVIES

by Michael F. Nyiri

I hope to work on this page more this year, incorporating some actual MikeVideos "composite movies" as the original copy/paste artform was known before I got my first videocamera. The early MikeVideos, which, sadly, are on Beta I, and I can't watch them anymore, combined bits and pieces of different films with a theme or some kind of strange "storyline". Frequently, I changed the music from one clip to the match the pictures of another, to really mix up the artform. Now with the capabilities of computers and digital video I can show this mix and match artform online. Thanks especially to my new Sony DCR-PC105, which I can use to capture analog video as well as record digital video and take digital still photography. In fact, I 'm still learning what it can do, and haven't even finished the 300+ page manual. I do know it will serve as the first piece of equipment which can help speed up the "how do I get this Tivo/VHS/DVD picture into the computer NOW?" The first two small "bits" from different movies can be seen by clicking the Movie clips: Financial Advice, and Romance on the left

Michael F. Nyiri

MFN