CineTV Contest - Memories

This is what many a weekend looked like to me growing up...

Nineteen Seventy Four...

That is the year I was born, and in nineteen seventy-seven, when Star Wars was released, I was there. I think that is the best way to illustrate how important movies and television, to a lesser extent, were to me growing up. Please realize, I was not begging my parents to go to the movies to see Star Wars at three years old. Things were different then, and at three years old, I was playing with mud. My parents wanted to go see it, and that is why I was there. But the role that movies, and "Going to The Movies" played in my life cannot be understated. A lot of the viewpoints I later developed in life were based somewhat on my perceptions of the world that I received from movies. You see, "Going to The Movies" was a huge deal in our family, and so was going to Burger King afterward. To my family, that was a treat and something that we did about twice a month on average, at least for a large part of my young life.

Favorites

To speak about favorites movies, to me, is far too difficult. Again, I reflect back on the actual experiences I had at the movies, and I can tell you about hanging out at the playground in the drive-in because I was bored watching "Purple Rain" at ten years old, or being completely lost watching movies like "Arthur," or "The World According to Garp" when I went with my parents to see them. If I had to pick a favorite genre, I would pick science fiction, but that would not cover the answer completely. Growing up, I really liked Horror flicks, "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Halloween," and the "Friday the Thirteenth" series, along with "Hellraiser" and any number of horrible - but great - B-Level movies were the mainstay between my Dad and me. Mom could be counted on to want to see something empowering to women, like the Shirley Muldowney story, "Heart Like a Wheel," or "Coal Miners Daughter," and of course, anything Christmas. When my little brother was born, when I was ten, "Ghostbusters," and "Jurrasic Park" made it into the rotation. For me, I always liked being able to imagine the possibilities that I could think about in good science fiction or post-apocalyptic movie. "Mad Max - The Road Warrior," and "2001 - A Space Odysee" will always have a special place for me.

Sad...

Looking at the experiences I was able to have in my life regarding movies and television really makes me feel grateful that I was able to have them. The special effects when I was young may have been cheesy at times, but you really had to be amazed at how they did some of it. "The Dark Crystal," made with muppets, and movies like "Star Wars" were truly innovative in how they pioneered things. You wonder if the computer-generated graphics that permeate most movies now have taken something away from filmmaking in general. People will never know what it was like to get horrible sound through a little speaker at the drive-in, or how great it really was, or what it was like to kiss a girl on the swing set in front of the drive-in screen while your parents sat in the car. Sadly, it looks like now, the movie theaters themselves may go the way of the drive-in in the not too distant future, and it makes one wonder how long it will be before the theater itself is nothing but nostalgia brought to your streaming feed.

Thank you for reading!

Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash