I’ve been a massive movie buff my whole life. I remember well the first movie I ever saw in a theater: “The Muppet Movie”. Yes, the original 1978 Muppet Movie. “Annie” is the next memory, and I remember being absolutely abhorred at the thought that some kids in the world don’t have parents! Naive I have been called, naive I have always been… Next came the Star Wars series, Indiana Jones and assorted Star Treks that we usually watched when they were finally shown on network TV. We used to tape them via VHS to tapes, and it never failed that the night the movie aired there was a severe weather watch of some kind, so every time we’d watch the recorded movie there the weather warning was.. preserved for all time! I still have those old taped-off-of-TV VHS tapes in a closet upstairs. While I’ve long ago quit watching them, and have DVD or Blu-Ray versions of the movies, I just can’t bear to part with those old tapes.. weather alerts and all.
There are many childhood memories associated with movies for me. I still can not watch the scene in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” when Chekov gets those bugs put in his ears. Creeps me the HELL out. I have to avert my eyes. I love Star Trek, everything Star Trek, but I can not watch that scene. In “The Dark Crystal” the scenes where the creepy light sucks the life energy out of those muppet characters, it gave me such nightmares I still, at age 40, can not watch that movie. At all. It gives me the creepy crawlies to see the DVD on store shelves and on the Netflix queue. I will try to bring myself to at least watch it to write a review for this site, but I make no promises.
Not all my movie memories are bad memories though, not at all. Mostly my movie memories consist of evenings eating popcorn from my mom’s old Stir Crazy popcorn popper (which I loved so much I insisted on getting one as a Christmas present last year). Our TV was an old Quasar, with no remote. Well, I guess technically *I* was the remote, as whenever the volume needed adjusting or the ancient cable box with the dial needed changing I was the one told to get up to deal with it… When I was 15 we got our first remote controlled TV, and I was ecstatic! The cat would spend the evenings on the couch with us, and those are the kind of memories I hope I can give my kids.
Over the years I became able to recite the dialog to every Indiana Jones movie, Star Wars, Star Trek, Monty Python, and Muppet Movies. My movie collection now consists of almost 1000 titles: VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray and MP4 format… I’m not picky. All I ask it to be entertained by a movie. Heartstring-pulling, blood & guts pouring, kill-everyone-for-the-sake-of-killing aren’t my style, I want my movies to capture me. Not make me cry, not make me vomit, just entertain me.
In this blog, I’ll be reviewing movies from a parent standpoint. Will this movie scare kids? Is it appropriate for kids? Those answers aren’t the same for every kid, some kids are far more easily scared & frightened than others, but I’ll try to give a good parent’s-eye view of movies, new & old.
Questions, comments, reality.. always welcomed at amber@mqaaord.com