Movies of Personal Importance

Since I hit my musical firsts, I think I might as well hit the movies. These aren’t necessarily firsts, but movies of importance as I grew up. Most of them are though firsts of some sort.

Pinocchio-This is my first recollection of going to see a movie. I remember going into the darkened Palace Theater (I believe) in downtown Columbus with my Mom and Dad. I don’t remember if we got popcorn or candy, but I remember watching this movie with my Mom and Dad. This was before my brother was born and before my parents divorced. It was just me and my parents. The odd partial memory married to this is my Mom taking me to see Bugs Bunny on Ice at Veterans Memorial. It was rather disturbing seeing your animated hero on ice skates, prancing around. The fact that Bugs was followed by Batman and Robin on skates just takes the whole scarring moment up a notch.

Star Wars-I guess this is the first PG movie I saw in the theaters. I remember my Uncles on my Mom’s side discussing with my parents that the movie was Ok for me to see. My parents didn’t go because my brother was still in the infant stage. I guess I owe a lot to my Uncle James and John. The unfortunate event of that moment was that the film broke right before Luke went searching for R2D2 on Tatooine. Having never experienced that before in the movie, I became rather distraught, since I didn’t know they could fix it. Devastating stuff.

Raiders of the Lost Ark-It still amazes me I got to see this in the theaters. When this came out my parents had just divorced, I was living with my Dad, and attending Bob Jones elementary. Since they didn’t allow going to movies, the only time I could was when I visited my Mom on holidays or during the summer. This was the first movie she took my brother and I to after the divorce. She regretted it a little after the melting faces, but I’m so thankful she took me. It’s one of my Mom memories I recall when I think about her. It was just me my brother and her, before the meshing of the step-brothers and step-sister. After that, it ended up being E.T. all the time.

Aliens-My first R movie I saw in the theaters. I was sneaky about this. I wasn’t allowed to see R movies, but so wanted to see this. My options were slim since my Dad was certainly not going to take me, and my Mom was rather hesitant. Who came through, but my step-father. He was rather excited to see it himself, so I went with him. It was one of those rare moments we shared amoung the growing pains of meshing the two families.

Field of Dreams-Who else could I see this movie with but my father. This and The Natural are pretty closely tied with my Dad in my memory banks. I went though with Field because of the obvious father son story line. Watching a movie about baseball and that father and son bond with the man who played catch with you, and fought to keep custody of you just can’t be described in words. I still can't recite the "catch" line without some dust falling into my eye.

The Killer-John Woo’s film instigated my change from wanting to be involved in radio to movies. I spent a year and half of undergrad working the overnight desk at the smallest Best Western in the world in Xenia, Ohio. It was dump, but my roommate and I got free board in the windowless apartment in the basement, and we got paid. It still wasn’t worth it. Being in the Podunk town in a Podunk hotel, we only had basic cable. At least that’s what they thought. Back in those days, the device that scrambled the movie channels was placed between two split ends of the cable wire. With a screwdriver you could easily remove the device and get free movie channels. We were allowed to leave the desk after midnight, and used an intercom if someone came in for a room. One night, after midnight, I went down to right some radio spots for the college station, but my roommate had his girlfriend over. It was a slow night so I unscrewed the scrambler and used one of the available rooms to write. Out of boredom or just because I was tired of flipping channels I stopped on this Chinese film being shown on Cinemax. It was the Killer. When Chow Yun-Fat burst through the door in that opening scene and kicked that gun from the table to his hand, I was hooked. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Which suddenly had me asking what else I was missing. The movie opened a whole world of cinema outside the multiplex.

The Usual Suspects-This solidified my desire to be involved in film. I had just graduated and was living in Nashville. I was interning for a Christian record label in the radio promotions department. Everyday, I was losing a little bit of my soul. With The Killer sparking my desire to see films outside the mainstream, I was looking for movies outside the mainstream. I heard about The Usual Suspects being a throwback to the old film-noirs, so I couldn’t wait to see it. Of course nobody I knew wanted to see it, so I went alone. I know I drove my roommate nuts talking about this film. He did though admit that I was right about it, after he finally saw it on video. A month later, I finished my internship and moved back to Ohio with plans to go to film school.

So there’s a little insight to the media that shaped the pop-culture snob I am today. I’m a little more proud of the films than the music, obviously. There is something magical about movies that seems to have faded a little as I've grown up. Maybe it's age, or learning the magician's secrets, or perhaps it's simply the lack of quality of movies today. I do though still get that jolt every now and then. Like watching Swingers with Jeff, Strain, and Sarah, or Bobby and I sharing our dumbfoundedness after watching Memento. It's not just the wonder of the movies that make them so great, but the shared experiences that surround them. I still remember Bobby's first words after watching Memento being "Movies like that make me want to quit." Of course he was kidding, thank goodness.

This brings me now to my final movie of personal importance: Finding Nemo. This was the last movie in which our whole family got together before my Mom died. I still recall my Mom, sick from the chemo, sitting next to me. I remember grabbing her hand when Nemo's Mom died in the first fifteen minutes . It made for an eerie moment, but we were together as a family laughing, crying, and truly enjoying one of our last times together. There's that dust again.

So I thank not only the filmmakers for these movies, but my friends and family for the moments and experiences I was able to share with them at the movies. Thank you.