The older one gets the more one realizes that Dad was right. Time passes us by in the blink of an eye and here I am five years removed from the day that I launched Mike’s Take wondering where the time went.

Honestly, when I started up Mike’s Take on the Movies I had no idea if I would find this a rewarding outlet for sharing my love of classic movies and their history but also my passion for collecting film posters and movie memorabilia. What started out as a TV Guide style listing for the film The Devil’s Eight has morphed into 4 or maybe 5 essays a week on average. Here I am chatting up films made prior to the year 2000 and plenty of fun galleries regularly where I feature a wide variety of subjects built around a specific actor or actress to topics where I can feature a poster or two from my personal collection. Yes I always find a way to get my “mug” into the frame and now with little Brando joining me I’ve added him into the mix as well with a monthly pick centered around dog/animal movies. Efforts like Joe Don Baker versus crazed dogs in The Pack made in 1977. A movie that gave Brando ideas of a Pack in his own image.

If I could only find more hours in the day to accomplish so much more. Life is just to short and my interests run far deeper than just film and the history of the medium. A full time job employed at a car dealership for the past 22 years, a family to raise, specifically number 1 and 2 sons Ethan and Kirk that get cameos here occasionally by roughing up the old man,

a wife who never stops me from spending a small fortune on movies and posters, travel, hitting every rummage sale and memorabilia show within driving range to amass the collection of movies and posters I currently have stowed away, baseball season, hockey season, making new friends and keeping the ones you have. Yes I need more hours in the day. But I live a charmed life and appreciate what I do have more and more with each and every passing year. Yeah I’m getting older.

For those that do come in and visit me here at the blog, I’d like to thankyou all for your continuing interest in what I have to say about film topics and specific movies. I’m the first to admit that I generally keep all the reviews positive as it’s just too easy to pick some of them apart and to me that’s just far too negative and there’s already enough of that in the world we live in. I prefer to celebrate past films and when I do feature one that I know is bad, I’d much rather poke some gentle fun at it as opposed to tearing it apart. Try clicking here for a mystery title that serves as a fine example starring some well known faces.

To think this path basically started when I went to purchase a couple of classic titles on VHS thru an online ad. The seller was Kristina over at Speakeasy who I soon discovered knew as much as if not more than me about movie history. She kindly pointed me in the right direction adding some website advice and the next thing I know I’ve got a blog, having some articles published and I’m off to Hollywood to cover the TCM Festival and schmoozing for a nanosecond with Ben Mankiewicz. As I mentioned, I’ve lived a charmed life and I know it.

That’s all for now and it’s back to movies and everyday life as we all wrap up the year very shortly. In parting I’ll once again get my “mug” in here with a recent acquisition that features one of my favorite actors and it’s a first for me meaning the first original film poster in my collection of a John Garfield film. Sadly it was his last movie and a darned good one to go out on. Note the little photo bomber lower right hand side ….