I rewatched John Carpenter’s “The Thing” the other night and it brought back some good memories that I thought I’d share with you, the gentle reader.
You see, back in 1982 when I was a wee lad, my father dropped off my brother and I at the local cineplex theater in order to see a new release: “Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn” (Are you feeling old yet? Me too! :)) With our admission money in hand (plus a buck or two for popcorn and candy, natch), we dutifully bought our tickets, proudly presented them to the under-paid, surly, teenage ticket-taker dude and made our way down the Hall Of Movies trying to find the correct theater to go into and see our film. But Lo! there was a very interesting poster beside door number 5: “The Thing”. Glancing at my younger brother (who was 7 years old at the time), he gave me the thumbs up and we snuck into “The Thing” instead of Kahn and H.O.L.Y. C.R.A.P. were were scared out of our pants. I have never, ever! been so scared in a movie before or since. My father quickly uncovered our misadventures after querying us about the movie we were supposed to have seen, and instead of gettig in trouble, God bless you pa, he just laughed because he’d already seen it and was probably proud of our sense of adventure. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.)
Anybody else have some fond movie memories?
Ah, I have 2 that stand for me, oddly both revolving around the original “Star Wars” movies. When I was a wee youngin’ me and the folks went to a double header a drive-in. The first movie was “Laserblast”, a run of the mill scifi, which I promptly forgot for decades until ran across it again on Sunday afternoon TV. The 2nd movie was this little flick called “Star Wars”. As for as I can remember, this was the first time to the movies for me.
My second memory was for “Empire Strikes Back”. Back then there were still huge theatres. This one was so big it had 2 (or 3?) balconies! It was so packed my dad had to find his own seat somewhere else, as we could only find 3 seats together me, mom, and sis (on the upper balcony). Must have been a 1,000 people there, and boy were we all into it. That is how you watch a movie!
Good times, good times…
Wow, balconies in a movie theater…now that’s a long time ago. I remember that we had an absolutely gigantic theater in Phoenix (can’t remember the name) where they would get ahold of classic movies and play them on a huge screen. It’s kind of sad to think how many great movie experiences the “youngsters” of this generation are missing.
I agree, as a matter of fact, I was just commenting on the current state of movies and how they don’t seem to have the same impact that movies of ‘yester-year’ did. I have 3 movies in mind that fall into the ‘good memories’ category. 2 of them, Superman: The Movie, and Flash Gordon both figure prominently because they were my first movies in the theater that I remember. The 3rd movie is Poltergeist. This one has a very special place in me, caused mainly by the fact that I was fairly traumatized by it. I was supposed to be going to se E.T. with my aunt ,who was 4 yrs older than me, but she figured that this one would be better. To say that it scared me, would be an understatement. I believe I had nightmares for a good 2 weeks afterwards, and still hate toy clowns to this day. (little human ventriloquist dummies are also manufactured by the devil). Years later I bought poltergeist and proceeded to watch it well over 300 times ( i stopped counting eventually) and I look forward to buying it on blu-ray as soon as I decide to cough up the money for a player. Needless to say, when anyone asks me what my favorite movie of all time is, ‘Poltergeist’ pops out of my mouth before I even start to think about it.
This one is more recent, but also a fond one. About 7 years ago I went to an all-night horror movie marathon. I forget the theatre, but the theatre/group did this one once a month (it was out near Cherry Hill, NJ, I believe). This one night was great as it started with “Evil Dead 2”, including a pre-movie talk with none other than the Bruce, and afterwards he gave out autographs and took pics with people. I got 4 autographs, 3 pics, and my wife got 2 pics! Great, nice guy. I think he spent 5 hours doing that in the lobby. Meanwhile, the other movies began to roll, and I was introduced to “The Convent”. So much better on the big screen, but that didn’t stop me from getting the DVD and watch it since many, many times. Wife, not so impressed. At “Cannibal Holocaust” she went to the car for a long nap after I warned her about the movie. Also saw Zombi 2 for the first time at one of those events. Dang, I miss those all-nighters with a theatre full of horror-movie lovers.
That’s way cool. I never did an all night marathon like that, but I do miss going to Midnight movies. Every now and again, they’ll do a midnight premiere of a ‘blockbuster’, but they’re usually not movies I care to check out on a regular schedule, much less in the middle of the night. 2 that stick out in my memory were midnight showings of A Nightmare On Elm St. 3, and Halloween 4. I’d have to say that H4 was the better of the 2, after the train wreck that was H3, I was more than just moderately thrilled to see ol Mike Meyers carving up the screen and killing teens again.
My fondest movie memories came from going to the I-70 drive-in theater in St Peters, Missouri. Its gone now like so many drive-ins. A car dealership stands where it used to be. I saw John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, “Conan the Barbarian”, “Alien”, “Raiders Of The Lost Ark”, the “Star Wars” films and many others. There were two screens, one on each side of the consession stand, so if one movie got dull, you could walk over and see what was happening on the other side. The consession stand had the usual theater food (popcorn, soda, hotdogs, burgers, candy) and old school (now) video games (Space Invaders, Pac-Man, GORF, some wireframe games whose names escape me). Damn I miss the drive-ins.
I remember that a few friends and I went to the opening show at the local cineplex at about noon and left after watching 4 different movies ( we knew the manager from school ). I can’t remember which ones they were, but I remember we enjoyed it immensely. And that we wanted anything other than popcorn to eat.
@Bryan: How cool it must have been to meet Bruce…damn, you’re lucky. By the way, has anybody seen “Call Me Bruce”? He spoofs himself and his movies. It’s pretty funny but I thought it fell a little flat.
@John: I spent many a fond year as a yoot in St. Louis/Webster Groves! 🙂
@Dennis- Yes, I saw “My Name is Bruce”, and it was basically what I expected. I heard beforehand that is was essential satire, so I was not expecting much. Great fun if you have seen a couple of Bruce’s movies (“EVERYONE likes ‘Bubba HoTep’!”). You are right, though, it was a good concept and funny, but they pushed the satire a bit much, which, as you said, kept it flat when they could/should have pushed some new material into the movie.
As for meeting Campbell, I do feel lucky. I came across a forum somewhere with question “Who would you die to meet?”, and I got to say “been there, done that”. 🙂
I watched Bubba Ho-Tep and was… somewhat charmed. Bruce as an aging Elvis was bizarre, but kept my attention. I just bought ” Bloodsucking Pharoahs from Pittsburgh ” ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101483/ )and am awaiting a few hours that I can spare to watch it…