Years of movie watching give me a new appreciation of the filmmaking process.  Incisive music scores, thoughtful editing, and artful screen fades make me swoon alongside impressionable characterization and indelible plots.  Strong acting is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Now I must share a confession.  In my youth, historic movies regaled me but those contemporary flicks in color added more depth to my youthful scope.  I even had a vague appreciation of colorization, however artificial the hues might be.  Later, we have little choice.  Colors of the natural world seem ideal.  When given the opportunity, though, I prefer black and white.

Yeah, yeah; roll your eyes of if you want.  Call me old.

My b/w appreciation extends to modern productions.  Great examples that stamped this upon my brain include re-aired episodes of “The Walking Dead” and the alternate b/w version of Frank Darabont’s directorial masterpiece “The Mist”.  Mr. Darabont had a hand in both aforementioned projects and Stephen King works never looked so good in color as in the “The Mist’ viewed in b/w.

However naïve, I believe this involves the brain processes, pure and simple.  Processing color requires ridiculous amounts of calculation.  Black, white, and gray-tones, however, let us perceive data more succinctly.  The characters and plot strike our emotions at the core.

I may be wrong.  Give it a chance if you can.  And for fun, here are two examples to compare (isn’t the second one creepier?):