I like movies so I am a cinephile.

Since I was a little boy I always liked movies, on television that for those distant 70s was in black and white, I saw: Johnny Weissmüller's Tarzan movies, John Wayne's movies as a cowboy or in war movies, dance movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, silent comedies by Carrles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, the magnificent King Kong, Dracula in his Bela Lugosi version, and later in Christopher Lee's version, the Incredible Shrinking Man, all the Universal Monsters, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and of course The Thee Stoges.

In Venezuela, Mexican cinema was very popular with singing Charros and excellent comedians like Cantinflas, Tin-Tan and Resortes. It was very easy to watch on any TV channel any of their movies, of which I always preferred Tin-Tan's mischievous humor.

When I was taken to the movies, it was always to see Disney animated films, some of them I didn't like very much, however I must say that Dumbo was my favorite movie, I got at an early age its message of loving ourselves as we are and that in life appearance is not what really matters.

I spent hours in long lines to see Star Wars or Grease in theaters. At the age of 12 I began to escape from school to watch movies in the matinee, even once I was punished for a week because that day there was a strong earthquake in the city of Caracas, my aunt went running to pick me up at school and I was not there, I was watching a movie and paradoxically in that cinema I did not feel the tremor.

Already in the 80's in my country caused a sensation the VHS Videorecorder, and almost at the end of that decade I started working as an accounting assistant and began to buy movies in VHS format that literally managed to flood much of my room and they were threatening me at home to throw away my precious tapes.

I started buying film related literature and through reading I became more and more interested in films and directors beyond American and Mexican cinema.

After many discussions and two jobs later, I started working in the central offices of a bank and I realized that the employees always rented movies to return them the next day or return them after a weekend, but I was not the only one to notice this, two other people worked with me and we decided to get into the business of renting movies, parallel to our activity in the bank.

We bought three VHS recorders (to make copies of the films), I for my part put my old films on order and we bought current films that had not even reached the cinemas yet. For us this was an economic boom because it boosted our income, we even had the ability to reinvest much of the profits in more films. I extended this practice to my girlfriend's house, where we doubled the activity I was doing in the bank and this allowed us to buy most of our belongings and save for the down payment of a future property.

At the end of the 90's and beginning of the 2000's the DVD player appeared, a format that immediately replaced the VHS, and in a distant 2006 the Blu-ray player appeared. The business declined and I was left with a large stock of movies and a VHS player. I can't complain too much, because my love for movies helped me monetarily, getting me out of a lot of trouble.

However, when I realized that there were very good movies in these formats, I decided to continue buying them, of course before I had to buy DVD and Blu-Ray players, and continue collecting.

Now, I have the opportunity to watch movies in several formats: VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray, and nowadays there is the possibility to watch them on Youtube and Streaming. In addition, I have an extensive bibliography that I can consult in my home library.

I have known Hive Blog for almost three years and there are communities specialized in the cinematographic art and logically since the year 2021 I find myself sharing what I have learned about cinema over the years and participating in the initiatives that the cinephile community chosen by me offers, I give my opinion and sometimes I discuss in a friendly way any topic related to film and television. I do it with pleasure, in an easy way and following the simple rules of not plagiarizing content, being kind to others, sharing and commenting on other publications. Here, I present a link to a post made by my Link Here.

What I get by monetizing my publications commenting on movies in specialized communities, (and on other topics in other excellent communities within Hive), has been of great help to me to complement my income and cover some specific expenses such as condominium payment, transportation payment, food purchase, etc.

Being a cinephile I have been able to know part of the history of cinema and also its novelties, this is an art form that transmits emotions and in my case it has brought me benefits. Writing about cinema helps me to exercise my brain.

This is my first publication made on a Monday in the community as I also make collages in the Creative Sundays initiative. I hope that my participation has been to everyone's liking. Best regards.

All pictures are my property and were taken with my Umidigi F2 cell phone.