Distractions: Movies

The series continues…When life gets a little too mothertruckin’ much, we seek out distractions. Sometimes it’s simply a good movie, or a cold drink, or a big laugh with friends. Since I don’t feel the need to belabor the bs, I’ve decided to dedicate the next few blogs to the best distractions around. Since I’m looking for as many distractions as possible, please use the comments section to submit your favorite memory related to the topic of the day, which today is…

I like movies.

When drive-ins still provided a welcome respite to the underfunded or those with vehicle fetishes, I often found myself watching movies through the space between the driver and passenger seats. These were the days before drive-ins broadcast the film audio over low frequency radio. Those were the days when you heard the pre-Dolby sound powering through a tinny speaker that had been sitting out in the rain for ten years.

But they were good years.

I have distinct memories of four drive-in movies: Friday the 13th (the only good one in the series), Prom Night, The Thing, and E.T.

I watched them all from the back seat of a black Monte Carlo. It’s where I developed my fear fetish.

After that, the chronology of my short life coud be measured in film stock. While the following is not a list of my favorite films (far from it), it is a list of memory trailers to distract me for the rest of the afternoon:

* Zapped!–At least I think that was the name of it. All I remember is that Grandma had just gotten cable and fell alseep while I stayed up to watch. There was a flash of boobies in that movie that I still giggle about today.

* Ghostbusters: At the Battlefied Mall in Springfield, MO. Somehow my dad shelled out for a dozen or so kids to watch it for my birthday. That was a great day.

* No Way Out: Somehow this Cold War spy film became required viewing on New Year’s Eve among me and my pre-drinking buddies. We ate peel-and-eat shrimp, drank tons of soda, and stayed up late watching movies and playing cards. Those were fine, pure years.

* The Big Chill: It was a fine film on its own. My memories associated with it are fine on their own. Together, they make for a fine way to think back on a fine step in the growing up process.

* The Silence of the Lambs: Beyond enjoying the hell out of the movie, later that night, after we got home, the memory of the film still fresh in mind, my Aunt Cindy scared the bejesus out of me. I’m not sure I ever jumped as high.

* Forest Gump: This was one of those films that everybody liked. When I was in college, it played on cable a lot. No matter what my friends and I were doing, we’d almost always sat down and watched 15-20 minutes of it. Since it was on almost every day, our house rarely got cleaned.

* Pulp Fiction: Again, a film almost everybody liked. I did, too. But I prefer the memory of all my college friends getting togther for the premiere in downtown Columbia.

You know, after that, I watched a lot of movies and enjoyed even more. But I don’t think I’ve made many memories watching movies since that time. Maybe I’m wrong.

You have any worth mentioning?