x
Breaking News
More () »

A Father's Day Salute: How I became a film addict

Rachel Buffa

"Why did the good guy have to die?"

"Is there a chance he could still be alive?"

"Why did that happen, dad?"

How do you become a film addict? You watch a lot of movies, too many in fact, and ask a lot of questions.

Richard Buffa, my father, heard them all when I was a kid. After we left Esquire and drove down Bellevue to get back to South City, I'd pound my dad with questions about the movie we just saw. We wouldn't hit Arsenal before I had four questions in and five more waiting to be answered. I wanted to know every angle and riddle, playing director and critic at once.

My dad answered them all. He never skipped an inquiry and didn't fake an answer. We were film addicts and movies were our escape. I became best friends with my dad in a movie theater, two avid seekers of entertainment hanging out in a dimly lit room with actors parading around like goofballs.

I remember Terminator 2: Judgement Day at Kenrick like it was yesterday, slapping my dad's arm as Arnold came crashing down in that alley on that bike. When the movie started, we were kids in a candy store, the titles of parent and son stripped down to the bare bone realities of two friends enjoying each other's company.

We made time for hardcore sad historical dramas like Schindler's List, but action films were our bread and butter. Show us a 95 minute Jean Claude Van Damme flick with no coherent plot and fake hair-and these two guys were smitten. A bucket of popcorn and large cup of soda later, it was discussed on the way home like a pop quiz awaited us at home. Why did Van Damme's hero wear such tight jeans and how could he do the splits and punch a guy in the groin at the same time?

When it comes to family and bonds, time is marked by the things that make you feel young and keep you connected. For some fathers and sons, it's golf or baseball. For my dad and I, it was diving headfirst into the world of cinema. I'll never forget watching Heat with my dad alone in a theater and asking him why Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, sworn enemies in the film, were holding hands after Pacino's cop shot De Niro's bank robber dead outside an airport runway. What was Michael Mann trying to tell us there about the morality of good and bad guys? My dad answered and I slowly molded my own take in the process. When it came to my love with film, Rich was the producer and I was the director.

Everything I know about the movies was bred from hundreds of hours spent in a theater with my old man studying film. We didn't need a fancy school with a loud, melodramatic failed actor-teacher bossing us around. We had Wehrenberg, Wehrenberg, Wehrenberg...to set us straight and a projector to make sure we opened our textbooks to chapter one.

I believe that the movies can open up an entire separate outlook on life-and it can start some wickedly passionate conversations. My dad and I have started talking about a movie and end up discussing how it affects us and what we would do in that situation. While it's an artform, movies are a reflection of life that brings people together. It has kept my dad and I glued at the hip for just over 30 years.

When I see a good flick these days, I want to tell him about it. What it made me feel and why. I never felt better as a kid and teenager than when I left a movie, loved it, and found out my dad loved it too. We'd talk about it for days. That's us. Two peels rolling down a reel of film, endlessly discovering new things.

One time, we literally couldn't stop laughing. During a particular scene of Wedding Crashers, my dad and I laughed so hard that oxygen stopped going to our brain-and we almost left the theater. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. I remember another time where we just sat in the theater, stunned to silence and thought. The movies will knock you six ways from Sunday, but if you have company, the experience is better.

What I'm trying to tell you is this: I have a great dad, and there are many special things about our relationship-but if I had to pick one particular thing, it would be the movies and how they shaped our conversations. A great parent creates another great parent, because my son, Vinny, and I are the same way. We watch movies and have begun to discuss them. I wouldn't be a good dad if I didn't learn from the best.

I'm lucky. There are a lot of people out there who don't have a good dad or didn't even know their dad, so I don't take it for granted. How many people can say their best friend at the age of 36 years is their father? I can, and I hope there are many, many more like me.

The world needs great dads, and every father-son or father-daughter relationship has to revolve around one key activity. For as much baseball as we played, my dad and I truly bonded over the movies.

Thanks, dad, for taking me to the movies as a kid and answering my 5,000 questions. I think it did some good.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you see two loud men walking into a theater, don't worry. It's just the Buffa boys catching a flick.

Before You Leave, Check This Out