My Dalton Magazine column

As a kid I saw Patton whup Rommel (the “ magnificent b-----d”), Atlanta fall to Sherman (a not so magnificent b-----d) and Hugh O’Brian lasso an ostrich from the back of a moving truck.
At the movies.
I’m not sure what the first movie I saw at a theater was, but my best guess is “Africa Texas Style,” a less-than-classic feature with the underrated O’Brian playing a cowboy transplanted to the African veldt. Leonard Maltin and Roger Ebert may not think much of it, but a five-year-old Jimmy Espy was downright thrilled by all the action. Making it even better was the fact that I saw this picture at a drive in. When you’re five, there’s not much cooler than sitting with your dad in a drive in watching ostriches being lassoed.
Patton came to the old Tooga Theater in Summerville when I was nine. Daddy took me to that one, too. A veteran of the Korean War, he and I shared an interest in all things military. I twisted and turned in my seat as those German tanks and infantry advanced into the teeth of old Blood and Guts' masterfully laid trap. The Germans were repulsed. I was fascinated.
Rhett and Scarlett rolled out nationwide again in 1968. We saw it at the Tooga and to this day one of the most powerful film images I’ve seen is when the crane-mounted camera pulls back to reveal a train yard covered in wounded Confederate soldiers and a battle flag rippling in the wind.
Four decades after te fact and these movies are still burned into my brain.
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I’m a movie bum. I’ll watch just about anything.
Horror? Check.
Science fiction? Check.
Westerns? Check.
Crime? Check.
Comedies? Check.
Musicals? Check (if Gene Kelly is in it).
At, 47 my love for movies is unabated.
I watch several a week and would see more if Grown Up Life did not intrude. A man DOES have to sleep sometime.
I watch a lot of movies on TV, either the pay movie channels or on Turner Classic Movies, where they know how to treat a classic film lover.
The only channel with commercials that I’ll regularly watch a movie on is the Sci Fi Channel, where the parade of “big bug movies” seems endless. (If my wife walks in and I’ve got the TV on Sci Fi she’ll disdainfully ask me, “So, what’s in this one? Giant spiders or giant cockroaches?”)
Three years ago I found movie heaven. It’s called Netflix.
For a reasonable price they’ll mail you movies to watch. It’s a ridiculously easy system. But the best things about it is they have thousands and thousands of movies to choose from. They’ve got the blockbusters, same as everybody. But the real treasure is the cult films, the oddities and the almost-impossible-to-find films gathered from all over the world.
Netflix is great. So Is Turner Classic.
But as wonderful as they are, nothing touches seeing a film in a darkened theater, with an appreciative audience and a lap full of overpriced junk food (preferably popcorn and Milk Duds.)
I’m not the only one who feels that way, based on the stir that Dalton’s new Carmike 12 Cinemas has created.
The brand spanking new movie palace has been packing ‘em in since its January opening.
Good for them.
The company’s commitment to this area, despite lean economic times, is refreshing.
If you want to learn more about the new Carmike12, check out Mark Hannah’s story on page 10.
Mark, who has written, produced and directed films, knows the ground well. Growing up in Dalton, he haunted every local theater in sight, soaking up his own celluloid memories.

Jimmy Espy is editor of dalton magazine and executive editor of North Georgia Newspaper Group.