Second Preview

Nope, no Restricted Audience Red Screen here! Just good warm film-fuzzies. That is, if you were a boy in the 80s with access to a haunted movie theater. 

Welcome to our adventures in the movies!  I love movies of all kinds & memories of movies have been woven into my life - Some of my earliest memories are one of my first theater movies - I think The Empire Strikes Back, with a cousin and uncle (nobody better I can think of seeing it with), was my earliest theater memory, though I admit my eyes were closed during a lot of the early Luke in the Blizzard scenes.  I remember all of the great dollar theater trips in the haunted Mt Prospect Theater, one screen, right downtown, which is since gone..that theater was the best for movie memories. The theater was in fact haunted and we had a ghoulish experience during Annie, of all movies, but that is another post.  I remember seeing movies that fueled daytime play like Return of the Jedi and Transformers the movie, ET. (I was in shock like the rest of the theater when Optimus Prime was pronounced dead at the hands of Megatron). I also remember seeing movies in that theater that I didn't quite understand at the time like Big Trouble in Little China. Still, I didn't care if I got it at the time because going to the movies always meant great adventures, made better by popcorn and candy and air conditioning during long summers of childhood.

I remember the Three Stooges and the Little Rascals opening my eyes to those movies, that for some reason, were not in color, but still hilarious (though it would mean big trouble to try the Moe eye poke in real life, I found out).  Growing up, I was lucky that my mom and dad loved watching old movies, and my eyes were opened from an early age to other early movies that held up amazingly well with age. The Marx brothers still manage to be funny so many years later.  The Best Years of Our Lives and All Quiet on the Western Front are still relevant, though the wars have changed.  I was also introduced to the artistry possible that differentiates actors and directors and their unique styles by watching these classic movies - these are the ones I can watch over and over and catch something new each time.   I was thrilled when I met Erin, for a million reasons that I fell in love with her, but it also helped that she loved movies of all eras..

That's why I'm thrilled about our plan to watch and blog on those movies picked best for the year by their contemporaries.  I look forward to seeing some movies I missed.  I hope to find new favorites and get some insight into what movies were like in all eras and, in turn, what movie watchers appreciated in all of these eras.  Lets get started; pass the popcorn!

PS....I don't like Battlefield Earth. The rest can stay. 

Consider this a Preview

Try to visualize the lights dimming and that magical green screen appearing. Eat some popcorn. Settle in. The show is about to start. 

Let me tell you a story.

These are the most exciting words I have ever heard. I don’t really care how I hear/see/experience this story. Tell it to me while I am going to sleep, safe in my blankets. Draw it out in little boxes, with a giant slash page at the end for me to freak out over. Let me read the whole thing on a rainy afternoon with a cat in my lap. Piece it out to me over an entire fall season, and within that, piece it out amid 5 commercial breaks. Or let me Netflix-binge it, while forgetting to shower, dress, or feed my kids for 2 days. And, however you tell it, please, please show it to me in a hushed darkened theater after I have opened my illegal-purse-Rasinets. (The plastic wrapping makes such noise; I try to always open it before the previews. Side note; never miss the previews. One of the best parts of going to the movies is the previews.)

I love movies. I always have. I always will. I prefer to watch them in the theater, but curled up on the couch with all the lights off and a bowl of homemade popcorn will work in a pinch. What I won’t do is watch them on a phone; yuck. I don’t want the boulder chasing Indiana Jones to be the size of a marble or King Kong to look like an ant.  

I don’t have a favorite movie. That would be kinda like picking a favorite child. I certainly have ones that I prefer over other ones, but really, I can probably find something redeeming in most film. (Nude Nuns with Big Guns aside….how exactly did this get funded?)

Mysteries and thrillers are usually my favorite; I forgive a lot if you confuse and delight me with a good twisting tale.

I watch too many animated and children's films currently, but I still value a solid moral message, saturated color, and a happy ending.

I don’t love horror films, but I can appreciate the pacing and building tension.

Westerns leave me a little cold, but you can not beat those sweeping crane shots or muted colors.

Musicals are usually really great or really terrible, with very little middle ground.

I find the genre of “foreign film” to be rather ridiculous; film is visual storytelling, I don’t mind if I have to read a little to follow along. I once saw a French thriller better than anything Hollywood is producing but just because your movie is shot at weird angles and in Swedish does not make it arty. It might just be weird.

Drama can be heavy-handed and weepy, and comedy can be ham-fisted and ridiculous; but when they are done correctly (and the magical times they fuse into one glorious whole), they are the perfect catharsis that the Greeks were always raving about.

In an attempt to un-mom myself a little and spend some quality time with my adorable but sadly very busy husband (you can go read about my awkward mom adventures here), we are returning to our movie love in a fairly organized way. Oh, we sneak a movie here and a movie there, but in a house where you are outnumbered by folks who just want to watch Star Wars Lego on repeat, you gotta be a little organized about things.

Henry and I are determined to watch, or attempt to watch, every movie ever nominated for an Academy Award. Henry thought it would be fun to start with those nominated in the makeup or set design categories, but I overruled him and we are starting with the best picture nominees. We are going to start with those from the 1927/1928 awards and work our way to today. I am pretty sure that this is going to take the rest of our lives, considering we really only get the television for like 3 hours a week, but what else do we have going on anyway? (I mean, other than 1 medical residency, potential fellowship and/or job search with imminent, possibly cross-country, move, 3 children and 1 on the way, 3 cats, another blog, a boatload of fun and slightly crazy friends, a family tree full of decidedly crazier family, a tendency to fall asleep the second the children finally give in and go to bed, and fairly full and active lives.) Sounds totally doable to me.

Stay tuned for our first film blog post sometime very soon. Little spoiler....it will be Wings, the first film to ever win an Academy Award Best Picture, although an argument could be made that Sunrise shares that honor, but I am getting ahead of myself there. More on that later. And speaking of spoilers, I have a feeling that our posts might be full of them; we kinda have big mouths. Furthermore, we don't exactly view ourselves as film experts or critics; we are really more film fans than anything else. I don't know that we will review things so much as share our impressions. Neither Henry nor I are very good at critiquing things, especially Henry, who has only ever seen one movie that he didn't have something nice to say about. If you ask him nicely, maybe he will tell you which one it was......

This preview has been approved for ALL AUDIENCES by the Motion Picture Watcher Erin. I can't promise that your next preview will be; if Henry is in a salty mood, it might be the dreaded (but secretly fascinating) RESTRICTED AUDIENCES ONLY red screen. What? You didn't think you were getting only one preview, did you? Silly. That is why you come early; to get a good center seat, open your snuck-in candy, and watch all the previews.