94-year-old Willow Valley resident keeps active film blog as 'Old Man @ the Movies' (2024)

Michael Finn can still remember the first serious movie he saw.

At 10 years old, he and older brother Herbert had been to the Saturday morning double features at theaters in Jersey City where they lived, where you’d see a Western movie accompanied by news and a cartoon for 10 cents. But one fateful day, they strolled downtown to the Stanley Theater to see a new picture called “Of Mice and Men.” The young Finn was immediately taken by it, so much sothat one scene caused him to bolt from his seat for the lobby.

“I remember the one scene where they’re in the bunk house and they were talking about the dog to the old timer, and how it smelled, and how they were going to get rid of it.” Finn recalled. “I started to get sick to my stomach, and I had to run to the men’s room, because I could smell that dog, you know?”

That was 85 years ago.

Life takes a turn

In some ways, troubles are what led to Finn bloggingin the first place.

For 56 years, Finn was married to his wife, Antoinette, who he affectionately refers to as “Toni.” After what Finn describes as a “too early” retirement in 1993 – him from decades in the world of public relations, her as a nurse – the couple moved from the New York City area to Williamsburg, Virginia. The couple built a house that they intended to live in for the rest of their days. But 16 years later, Toni developed severe Alzheimer’s, which led to the Finns searching for a place that could help them live on their own but also help with care for the disease. They found Willow Valley Communities in Lancaster County, where the couple moved to and where Finnstill lives today.

“One of the terrible parts was that my wife was a magnificent cook, I mean, just wonderful,” Finn said. “We moved into this place, and I guess with all the trauma, with all the moving, she completely forgot how to cook. So, I had to cook for her for those first few years, and eventually my kids said, ‘You can’t take care of heranymore.’”

Becoming unlimited

Nearly a decade later, Finn notched 500 reviews at the beginning of this year.At 94 years old, the Willow Valley Communities resident drives to the 16-screen, 1,300 seat Regal Manor in Lancaster Township two to four times per week. At that many movies per month, his Regal Unlimited membership pays for itself several times over.

“I try to see as many as I can. It’s fun! I’mbasically seeing them for nothing, and it’s a short drive away,” Finn says. “If theaters were crowded and tough to get a seat, I’d probably have second thoughts.”

The first reviews were entirely for his family, so much so that he would email them and delete them from his computer afterwards. Chris Finn, 61, helps his dad by lightly editing the reviews for grammar (due to some numbness in the fingers of his left hand, Finn’s 's'and 'a' keys often get switched up) and then posting them on “Old Man @ the Movies.” The younger Finn says that he created the site as a Christmas gift, in lieu of any better ideas of what to get a man in his 90s as a gift.

“The people that I showed it to outside of his sphere have all enjoyed it. And I don’t thinkit’s because, ‘Oh, my 94-year-old dad wrotethis,’it’s legitimatelygood writing. It’s interesting,it’s funny, entertaining and from a different generation, a totallydifferent perspective.”

Take the opening of a recent review of the recentconcert film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”

“Even though it was endless, lasting just short of three hours, it was spectacular.The settings were incredibly creative, the band, dancers and singers were excellent, the choreography flawless, and Ms. Swift was remarkable, in energy, voice, enthusiasm and everything else ... She strolled, strutted, stepped, sauntered, stomped, swayed and slid. She wiggled and whirled. She paraded, pirouetted, pranced, pouted and performed. She was ego personified. She was in fine voice, the cinematography was every bit as good as needed, the crowds were adoring and appeared to be singing every song along with her.”

Throughout his life Finn has kept his writing skills sharp, first from his days as a stringer on the police beat at the Baltimore Sun, in the days when controversial journalist H.L. Mencken was still on staff. From there, in his decades in the advertising world, he would write short copy for marketing articles and speeches for CEOs. For his reviews, Finn generally writes them the same day he watches the movies, and they seem to “pop right out,” according to the younger Finn.