Welcome to Widescreen
My two earliest memories are almost like a blueprint for my entire life.
In my mind, life began in 1981 at the Twin Drive-In in Wheeling, where my parents took their 2-year-old son for what would be the first of many viewings of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." I vividly remember watching the nefarious Nazis' faces melting through the windshield of the maroon Plymouth Duster that would serve us well until the floods of 1987. To this day, whenever I think of "Raiders" (which is often lately, given what comes to theaters May 22), I think of Toht's glasses dropping to the ground as his face drips away.
My earliest memory: Watching faces
melt in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
The next stop on my personal timeline is one year later, when Mom took me to see "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial." Early in the film, Elliot searches his backyard for whatever threw that baseball back at him from the shed, and he comes across a squatty alien, screaming in a decidedly otherworldly voice. I bolted from my seat at the Des Plaines Theater into the lobby; when I calmed down, we went back in and I, of course, loved the rest of the movie. Who didn't? We went back a second time that summer. Mom watched through the lobby doors until the offending scream had passed, then we went in.
Many of my most vivid memories revolve around the movies. I remember driving to my father's drug store on Talcott, always passing the Nelson Funeral Home in Park Ridge that the Blues Brothers also passed early in their movie. I remember waiting on a curb in South Barrington with my sister for six hours to buy first-show tickets for "The Phantom Menace" in 1999. I remember my father's giddy laughter at Woodfield 1&2 as Capt. Steven Hiller flew his craft away from the mothership in "Independence Day." More recently, I cherished watching "Ratatouille" at Disney's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, holding hands with my lovely girlfriend.
I'm Sean Stangland. With this blog, I hope to share my love for movies and pop culture with you, and foster discussion about it. Though many dismiss movies, TV, music and video games as simple entertainment, many of us know better -- these are part of the common experiences that bring us together. We all have "that song." We all have that show the whole family gathered around every week.
But don't worry. This isn't going to be a drooling fanboy blog -- AICN does that just fine.
And we all have been shocked by something a famous person has done (and more and more often, these days). But don't worry. This isn't going to be one of those pop culture blogs that hates everything, or pokes fun at everything -- Jeffrey Wells and WWTDD do that just fine.
So do you have any memories like mine? Let's hear 'em.
My earliest movie-going memory is "Ghostbusters." I vaguely remember watching Slimer trash the dining room on the big screen. The ones I really remember as being a BIG DEAL when I was younger were "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Wayne's World." Those were the first movies I went to that seemed like an "event." To this day, my favorite movie-going experiences are big, laugh-out-loud comedies in sold-out, rowdy theaters. "Borat" was the best example, and most recently, "Harold & Kumar."
My grandfather thought they were evil. I'm not sure he was wrong.
But Star Wars happened, and that was 77 and that was too much for a kid to bear. Brian Kwan described the movie to me the next day and I thought I had to see this. I had to.
It came, and it went, and I was stuck on the outside. I got the toys. I joined the fan club, I read the novel. I had the playing cards, I had picture books, but the family ban on movies continued.
in 78 a kid had a birthday party where they were going to see superman. I lied and told my mom they were going bowling. It worked. I walked into the theater and it was like holy crap...here I am. smelling popcorn, I walked past the guy without giving him my ticket, so he grabbed me and said "hey! where you going?" and I felt like everyone would say "what are you doing here! you're not allowed!" and turn around and see my mom.
but I didn't. I saw superman. and it was pretty good, i liked him running alongside the train and throwing the football really far, really fun stuff. I was shocked by seeing the baby penis. I thought "is this allowed?"
and then in 78, they re-released star wars. my older brother and his stoner pal snuck me and my little brother out and we went to see it in this small theater. I knew how it went, I knew every scene, i knew the whole story and yet it still wasn't blown for me. it was awesome. no comparison since.
and ever since then I've snuck into places for fun.
So Sean how is your health these days? Are you down to 5 twinkies a day? ;)
I first saw Raiders a shamefully short time ago... I watched Temple of Doom and Last Crusade a million times on tape growing up, but I never actually watched the original until a couple years ago when it was playing at the Catlow in Barrington. Seeing the best installment of the best adventure series ever at a totally cool, old-timey movie theater? That was pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.
I can't really remember the first movie I saw in the theater, but a pretty early one was Batman (the Jack Nicholson one) at the Pickwick. Most of my favorite memories at the movies have been going to opening night (or midnight) showings of stuff like Harry Potter and Star Wars, because everyone in the crowd is always so excited and so involved in the movie every step of the way. I still smile when I remember how much everyone cheered for R2D2 in the opening scenes of Episode III. The opening night of Borat stands out as probably the rowdiest, most fun audience I was ever a part of. The naked wrestling scene resulted in about 500 people screaming for 3 minutes straight. It was hilarious.