Its been awhile since Ive posted...damn you life getting in the way....lol...
Ive been to see quite a few movies over the last month or so... (I love the fact that there are so many cool Syfy/Fantasy/Superhero movies actually coming out that Im able to see come to life on the big screen) so I thought Id comment on just how different going to movies today is from when i was a kid... (no this isnt going to be a special effects chat..lol)
First off, going to see a movie when i was young consisted of either going to the drive in (which was a great time) with a carload of people listening to that horrible speaker you hung from your window or it was getting a ride from your parents taking you and a few friends to the local theater. (Yes they were called movie theathers back then..)..
I saw alot of movies. Stuff with my Dad that he liked (All the outdoorsy movies -- anything about Big Game, Deer, Grizzly Adams, Sasquatch, that I was able to see at the age of around 7-8 years old. I remember he took me to see 2012 (the sequel to 2010 a Space Odyssey). I thought it was pretty confusing but i was fascinated by the special effects...He fell asleep as he pretty much always did when watching a syfy movie... The drive in was usually saved for the family and Disney stuff.. All the Disney classics.. all the cartoons, even the comedies...Herbie the Love Bug, Escape from Witch Mountain, etc, etc... I remember going for popcorn in the lobby and seeing all the upcoming movie posters and being scared by the horror movies stuff i saw in there... hell even the classic poster for Close Encounters (the one with just the dark road with the light at the end of it) scared me back then. The bottom line was ... it was thrilling... I loved going ... I loved allowing myself to be launched into another world for a few hours and then getting my friends together and pretending to be the people in the movie and creating our own adventures... I remember playing "Jaws" off of my friends front porch... lol... there we stood with our fishing poles, throwing them into the grass pretending to be 2 of the 3 main characters on the ship... People mustve looked at us like we were totally crazy but we couldnt care less....
Then came Star Wars,,, oboy... I can remember seeing it like it was yesterday... The movie changed alot. Now we imagined being in that galaxy far far away and furthering the adventures of Han and Luke and of course the evil empire. Again, I can remember leaving the show with a huge smile on my face dreaming of what I just saw. My friends and I had seen the movie to end all movies..(while my Dad again fell asleeep lol)
It just kept going, Raiders of the Lost Ark, TRON, The Black Hole, Close Encounters, ET, the Goonies all the Star Wars sequels, even TV got into the act (but thats a story for another blog)... Then i stated to get into horror movies.. This of course happened when i was in my teens later toward the 9th grade or so. Not sure why but that was what was cool at the time... Ah the slasher movie, Halloween started it all... then Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw, Nightmare on Elm St and all those that followed. These were the movies of choice to take the girls to see (hoping they would be jumping throughout the show on us of course lol) or to watch at the house on VHS and Betamax when you had your friends over for a party... a different type of enjoyment for a different reason and age group but unforgettable none the less....
Then came the Action flicks... Rocky, Rambo, Terminator, Die Hard, and all the like. Us guys were watching the macho stuff while the ladies watched the "girl" stuff .. Comedies were always thrown in there as well.. Classics like Caddyshack, Meatballs, Planes, Trains and Autombiles, The Jerk and all the others...
Name a movie that ive seen and i can probably tell you when and where the first time ive seen it and what memories it brought back for me.
That was the point...
Movie Magic they called it... I can fondly remember seeing the first Superman... Seeing Chris Reeve flying on screen was breathtaking.. I felt i was there with him. Watching the first Batman (not the Adam West stuff) .. When he comes on screen and says "Im Batman"... unreal... I was seeing the books i read all through my childhood come to life.
Ive got to say i am thrilled I have been able to see all these things come to fruition. All the superheroes i read about weekly making their way to the big screen... I know the genre will fade someday eventually and make room for something else. I can only hope that there are kids out there somewhere with vivid imaginations running around pretending to be Superman with a bathroom towel on their backs without a care in the world except for who they were saving today and what movie they were seeing this week....
(Thanks to JJ Abrams for making Super 8 which really led me to this blog... the movie just flooded me with memories)
