It's been a while since I posted but as I was very pleased with my piece on Boris Karloff I wasn't too anxious to push it down a post anyway. The blogger known as The Kid in the Front Row is hosting a blogathon of sorts today in which everyone participating contributes a post concerning an evening they had at the movies long ago (or recently or whenever, doesn't matter). Trouble is I can't think of anything but wanted to mention it here nonetheless in case anyone who hasn't heard of it has a story they want to relate on their blog today. And I really can't think of anything, honest. I've been to the movies many, many times as we all have but for the most part it's the movies that I remember not the experience itself. For me it's more the little things that stick out, like the lady at the showing of Bridge on the River Kwai standing up at the climax and shouting at Colonel Nicholson onscreen, "They're your people! You're betraying your own people!"
Or spending most of Top Gun smoking in the lobby (you could do that back then) and then returning to my seat to have my friend Jake lean over and start to explain what happened while I was out only to be abruptly cut off by me announcing, "I don't care."
Or seeing The Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D (on a double bill with It Came from Outer Space) and enjoying it more because quite spontaneously the entire audience quickly developed the habit of doing their own mock screams every time Julie Adams screamed in the movie. It started with just a couple of guys and before long we were all doing it, like an impromptu Rocky Horror crowd.
Or maybe the best one ever to my recollection, Witness, although it's definitely a case of "you had to be there" so I don't even know why I'm telling it. Anyway, I was watching it with some
friends in the student hall at college on movie night which they had only occasionally. Basically a movie would be rented and popped in a VCR and played on the big tv in the lounge (well, big by 1986 standards). Well, at the point in the movie where Harrison Ford's character of John Book is finally rising from bed after recuperating from a gunshot wound the phone in the lounge starts ringing. And it's ringer is LOUD! And the movie at this point is quiet. So there we are watching Book sit up from bed and emerge from his comatose state and this goddamn phone is ringing (which no one is bothering to get up and answer of course) totally breaking the mood, taking us out of the movie. Or so we thought. Finally, mercifully, it stops. And then, John Book speaks: "Is there a phone around here?" The whole goddamn place erupted with laughter. It was like Book was in the same room with us and was asking because he heard it ringing! It brought us right back into the movie in the strangest way possible.
So as you can see I don't have much in the way of grand personal stories to relate to about the movies, just little snippets. I remember seeing Jaws upon its release and loving every second of it. I remember seeing nudity on the big screen for the first time when I saw 10 in 1979. I remember hating Moonraker. And so it goes. But no big stories, no big remembrances, just the little things. Of course, in the end, it's the little things that matter anyway right? Right.
***************
This has been a part of the "One Night Long Ago" blogathon hosted by The Kid in the Front Row.
27 comments:
John Book rules.
All the time he's onscreen thinking, "Don't worry kids. Once the phone shuts up I'm bringing you right back in." You can count on him.
Even though I spent some time running down Harrison Ford on my own blog (read it today!) I do agree with Arbo that John Book rules. I love when he's showing the kid the gun, and telling him that it's safe when the bullets are out. Then Kelly McGillis walks in, and you can practically hear him thinking "Oh shit."
In the lounge at the time we were watching it I was showing a little kid how to use a gun and it was distracting the other viewers then... that fucking scene happens! Again, it was like he was saying, "Hey Greg, look. I'll do the same thing and it'll take the heat off you." He's fucking incredible!
And Bill's post is really good because he linked me twice in it so go read it and then... guess what - You can get back here by clicking on one of those links! Holy shit, it's like Bill is John Book now!
Kelly McGillis was in the news yesterday for being openly gay. And I was all like, "Nobody cares you turned gay but when did you turn into a hag?!" Serious! I'm talking a bona fide "double-bubble-toil-and-trouble hag!
I recall going to see "Edward Scissorhands" with a work pal who was, as I, in a mood for mischief.
We took scissors and made noises with them, and stood still when the usher came near to investigate.
Hag!
Arbo, thanks for the thoughtful update on Kelly McGillis. Ladies, chivalry is not dead yet.
Gloria, I hope you didn't run with those scissors. I think we both have a little of the Rocky Horror audience participation in us.
I hold open doors for hags, too. And then I yell "Hag!"
A gentleman to the end.
I'm guessing the "news" on Kelly McGillis (who was "outed" 23 years ago by my friends in the GLBT community in college) was caused by Meredith Baxter announcing that she is gay. Fortunately, Ms. Baxter (who I will always think of as Meredith Baxter Birney, even though she divorced David Birney so many years ago) still looks good. Heck, I'd do her, but then, with her recent announcement, I doubt she'd want to do me.
(Arbo, please make the check out to Fred for bailing you out. See, I've got your back).
She will always be Meredith Baxter Birney to me too. And I've never stopped calling Farrah "Farrah Fawcett Majors."
As for Meredith's appeal I personally never found her appealing but maybe that's because she was so goddamn good as Betty Broderick that it forever turned me off to her. I mean really, she was scary as that lady.
Greg -
That "Witness" anecdote is absolutely priceless - what fun it must have been to be in that audience.
On an entirely different topic - I finally got around to seeing "Fat City" last weekend. I mention that because it was here on this blog, in a post from much earlier this year, that I read high praise for Susan Tyrell's performance, and that's the reason I recorede it off TCM. And you're right, Greg, Tyrell is superba and right on the money. There was a lot I liked about "Fat City," but Tyrell's performance might have been the most importatnt. Where is she thse days, anyway?
Pat, I'm so glad you liked Susan Tyrell in Fat City, she's just great. Sad, happy, angry, gentle, loyal and duplicitous, all at once. Tyrell never got other roles that good and did mainly b-movies and theatre. In 2000 she lost both of her legs due to a rare blood disease but according to her bio still works on stage.
I just saw "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "2012" back to back. Fox was pretty good, but 2012 ... what a buzz kill. And the theatre was full for 2012 and almost empty for Fox. I did this, in case you're wondering, to placate my kids and wife, who liked the latter. We are considering divorce.
And unlike what Fox said over on his blog, I didn't think Amanda Peet looked like a tranny, but at times she looked like a hag.
When I saw "Witness" in the theater the people in the row ahead of us didn't think much of it. When it was over, I overheard the woman saying to the man, "That's the last movie we ever see about Quakers."
What did that woman have against quakers? They make real good neighbors.
Rick, Fox has a thing for Amanda Peet so when he says she looks like a tranny it's his way of pulling the hair of the girl he has a crush on.
Give your wife one more shot. But just one!
Kevin - One, what would she have against Witness. It's well-paced, a decent thriller with some decent drama. I mean, it's one of the most non-threatening unoffensive thrillers ever. But then, the Quakers line! Was she even awake through most of it?
Greg: I agree with everything you said. I wonder if she was watching the same movie as everyone else.
It was an interesting audience at that screening. When Kelly McGillis had her topless scene, some guy yelled out at the top of his voice, "YEAH!"
You must've seen the showing Arbo was at.
Just got your message on my blog and am confused! I linked to everything. A whole blog about it.
Who is Ryan? Not sure if I saw his one!
I missed that post. I must not have refreshed once I went there. Ryan's got a great entry that you can include. You can find it here. Great idea for a blogathon, thanks for the invite.
That line about Quakers is just amazing. If she had said Mennonites, I could understand (most folks get Amish and Mennonites confused). But Quakers? Pass me the shoofly pie.
And Apple Pan Dowdy. It makes your eyes light up. Your tummy say "Howdy."
Post a Comment