This week will mark my last as an entertainment writer for Augusta Business Daily, and it is a bittersweet feeling. When I started last September, I was fresh out of the Savannah College of Art & Design with a degree in Dramatic Writing and, seemingly, nothing to do with it. The movie industry was frozen: paralyzed for a moment with pangs of greed, anger, demonstrations, and perseverance by the folks who make the biz operate daily. Yet, my passion for movies – a love story dating back to being a toddler watching Singin’ in the Rain with my late grandfather, the most important man in my life – and their impact on Georgia caught the attention of Neil Gordon. Instead of writing for movies, I built on my experience writing about them. Along the way, sharing insights on the industry both nationally and locally.
Anyone takes a big chance by hiring a 23-year-old to write, and he certainly took one with me.
Along the way, I got to befriend and work with Neil and read news pieces and columns from this publication’s stellar set of writers, all of whom have a wide range of knowledge, experience, and skill that soars way higher than my own.
Best of all, I’ve gotten to know and befriend my editor, Mitzi Oxford, maybe the only person who loves movies more than I do. It was a match made in heaven, as she is a lady who would sooner cut out her own tongue than go a day without quoting Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman, or an old Bogie and Bacall picture.
Over the past nine months, there were the largest and longest labor strikes in the history of the motion picture business that, through negotiation, ended with fairer deals. I began with a review of Dennis Quaid’s The Hill, and ended with Beyond Casual’s upcoming thriller, The Observance, both shot in town. In between then, there were reviews, news, and schmooze that ran the gamut of Georgia’s and America’s moviemaking hits and misses. Heck, we even saw an Augusta native, Danielle Brooks, get an Oscar nomination!
The movies, to me, are the lifeblood of our conscience as a culture. My perspective on the experience of watching or making films is not relegated solely to “it’s good for business,” “here’s some respite after your long week,” or “you’ll be a better person if you know this story,” rather it is an amalgamation of all these things.
I profusely thank Neil and Mitzi for giving me the space to write and for the bountiful encouragement they’ve given me over the past year. Speaking of encouragement, I hope that I encouraged people to watch something, perhaps just one movie, that they otherwise wouldn’t have seen.
I’m humbled by the experience of being able to share my true love with you, the readers. I ask, in my humility, that you please continue to go to the movies whenever you can and take three or four friends or family members with you when you do. I don’t care what you see, but my plea is that you never let the enchantment of the movies dwindle.
I will bid adieu with Lou Gehrig’s famous words at his legendary Home Plate Ceremony: “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Naturally, I hope that you’ll read them as Gary Cooper playing Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees.
Dylan James graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design with a BFA in Dramatic Writing. He has studied both the ‘show’ and ‘business’ aspects of show business since childhood, and writes through sociological analysis, seeking relevance in the art and commerce for the moment.
