I originally wrote this essay back in 2008 as an assignment for a college English class. The task was to write a first person narrative from a personal experience similar to what you might hear in one of those fantastic ten-minute long journalistic pieces on NPR. I was inspired to revisit and publish this piece by the splendid series of short essays the experience of seeing a film at a movie theater at Salon.com, "Slide show: The movie experience I can’t forget". In particular, Kartina Richardson’s remembrance of watching Pickup on South Street with a crowd for the first time resonated deeply with me. I had a similar experience when I saw my beloved Out of the Past with a crowd for the first time when it played at The Starz Film Center in downtown Denver.

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