Let's start with when I was watching the 92nd Oscars for 2019.

It was weeks before the pandemic quarantine forced all businesses including theaters to shut down and I realized just how much I had fallen short on the number of movies I should have watched. Thankfully, being shut-in for months helped me get caught up with seeing enough movies for the 93rd Oscars, and while I kept up better than the last time, I was still not able to see everything.

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The KODAK Luma 350 is at a minimum where you want to start!

During the quarantine, I watched a lot of YouTubers ramping up their effort to watch and either react to movies they too had never seen. This created somewhat of a split of who would settle for reacting and who would end up becoming a critic.

From this, I was able to gauge what patterns developed which was that the "critics" were going for the low-hanging fruit that grows from on-the-surface, reactionary criticism as opposed to diving much deeper into the critique and theory that cinephiles like myself have grown up with but don't really see anymore. In fact, it seemed to me that those YouTubers focusing on reactions were much kinder to filmmakers and their films. 

Armed with decades of experience in knowledge of obscure, cult, underground cinema, and a restless appreciation for the work that goes into what the masses would even consider to being the worst films, I decided to feed my never-ending appetite for cinema and watch everything and really anything that comes out.

For my setup, I measure out this Projector Screen Pull Down 100 Inch 4:3 Manual Portable Movie Screen Matte White, specifically 100 Inch:

Referring back to the pandemic; since theatres were shut down, I felt it was necessary to immerse myself as one naturally would in such surroundings and invested in a projector, a screen, and even an old-fashioned popcorn machine. To add, I also set up wireless headphones for a more cinematic experience. And with that being said, we come to why I refer to this project as...

The Pulp, The Cult, & The Shadowplay Drive-in

The spectrum of movie types is generally influenced by critics who tend to be dismissive of movies they don't like or feel are beneath them. 

First of all, the first half of my broad-spectrum is what I consider to be The Pulp.

Let's recall the days when some writers wrote fiction in a format that was fast and cheap. The stories were usually tight, went out lightning-fast for readers to consume, get hooked, and crave more.

The same goes for movies made by people from Ed Wood up to your Martin Scorcese in that they all service something popular for the masses whatever the quality is of the films they make. In my view, all of that is respected.

Two more things I added are a ceiling mount...

... and the popcorn machine I mentioned earlier:

Honestly, I don't microwave my popcorn much anymore! 

Completing the other end of that spectrum is The Cult which refers to the more unpopular, wilder, the more obscure films also deserve respect simply for being what they are. If you've watched enough cinema then you can always find that film in memory that falls into that space. 

Now, The Shadowplay Drive-in is more self-serving in that it describes my physical cinematic environment where through light and shadow, I can further fall in love with film and be able to analyze them with the love and respect that all movies deserve and that my friends are what makes me a cinephile!

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