Not me as a kid, but close enough.
I don’t want to say I’m getting bored with movie reviews, per se. I just want to change it up a bit. This is supposed to be a blog about *everything* movie related, and I thought, “Why not relate my experiences with movies?”
This is not to be confused with the entire movie-going experience, which I plan to herald another time.
Movies were not always my thing. I loved television, and so I watched a lot of movies on TV. But I didn’t have cable, so I watched a lot of bad movies on UHF channels, like Masters of the Universe and Stay Tuned. Back then, my parents didn’t even rent movies, and we never went to the movie theatre, so if we didn’t own it, we were screwed; we only ever got 2 new movies a year as a family on average. It’s really no wonder movies were not my thing, though in hindsight being forced to watch crap movies as an impressionable youth did lower my threshold for movie hatred.
This movie started my relationship with Eugene Levy.
I was 9 years old before I ever saw my first movie in theatres. I can actually still remember clearly the first 3 movies I ever saw in theatres: Sister Act 2, Titanic, and Inspector Gadget. I never have been to the movies with my entire family, and to this day have still only ever seen one movie with my mother. So, how is it a child who grew up with a lack of movies learned to love them?
Ghostbusters. Sure, I saw it as a kid, but much like Beetlejuice, which is another story for another time, I barely remember the first time I see it. I was only 6 when the 1980s ended. My dad doesn’t like to watch the same movie more than once, and since we didn’t own it, it just wasn’t seen again until it came on network television – and on one of the good channels. Ghostbusters is my favorite franchise, and I’m happy that soon enough I’ll get to stop saying, “Ghostbusters is my favorite trilogy, and the fact that it only has two movies in it makes it even more epic.” Sure, it was the most technologically advanced movie of it’s time, but I don’t care about that. I mean, I care, it’s visually stunning and a testament to what imagination and man-power can come up with. It’s just the perfect movie.
Why are they always leaving out the black Ghostbuster?!
I can “read” movies now, and I’ve always had a feel for if a movie had a good script, director, actors, etc. But I’ve never bothered to read Ghostbusters and every time I watch it, I’m too captivated to try to get a “feel” for it. It is natural. It’s rewatchable. It’s funny and dramatic and makes you think but not too hard. It has all kinds of interpersonal relationships going on, and you can learn lessons from it. It’s just everything a movie should be. When I decide how much I enjoy a movie, I always compare it to Ghostbusters.
But one franchise alone does not a lover make. That’s when I discovered actors and directors. Same names heard over and over and was there a trend of good? My mom thought it was hilarious that when I was still a little kid, I’d read the credits and learn faces of actors, and remember the behind the scenes people.
My obsession was not complete until my late teens, however. Not only does this coincide with the release of the DVD player, and so behind the scenes commentaries and featurettes were now available for me to watch on movies that I enjoyed, it coincides with my first trip to Universal Studios. Actually seeing the sets up close, and thinking about how they looked in the movies, and putting together just how much work was done to them… was amazing.
This just best represents all the concepts I just discussed.
I always wanted to be involved in film and/or television, don’t get me wrong. Not just because of the glamour, but even as a child I loved to write and preferred visual mediums. I just didn’t have a deep love and understanding until I was much older. Probably because I was stuck watching stuff like Masters of the Universe. And I thought it was freaking awesome, even if He-Man never did say his full catchphrase.
I hope Courteney Cox thanks her lucky stars for Friends.
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