Over the course of this blob you will get to know my story and how I came to be a film buff. The movies for me have always been a great escape. I think the first film I saw was probably something by Walt Disney (maybe Bambi?). This was in the early 1970's. I do remember going to see Escape from Witch Mountain at a theater in Westbrook that is now a Ruby Tuesday's restaurant, a Card Smart and a UPS store. I remember how huge the picture looked and also how colorful it seemed. (We didn't get a color TV until the mid 1970's)
The other thing that movies represented for me when I was a teenager was forbidden fruit. I was forbidden to go to any R-rated movies. No exceptions. Me and my friends used to go to a theater in Windham every Friday night after spending about an hour in the arcade playing Space Invaders. (This was in the late 1970's and early 1980s) My dad warned me if I went to an R-rated movie he would ground me for a year! He'd even call the theater to ask what things were rated. There was usually only one movie showing per week so it wasn't hard to figure out. One day I decided that I needed to see Apocalypse Now so me and my buds went to the Westbrook theater to see it. My dad would never know what we were up to....Upon exiting the theater, still feeling a bit pummeled by the violence in the movie and hearing the strains of the Doors' "The End" in my brain, a voice rang out in hazy summer air. "Donald Jeffrey Pride! Get in this car now!" Holy crap! It was my dad and he was ticked. We drove all the way to home in silence. When we drove in the driveway he told me I was grounded from movies for one year! Later on he changed it to six months. Still, it was a horrible thing to miss all those great movies in the theater.
Another weird moment in the theater came with my mom. I won a call in contest on WBLM to get free tickets to see The Man Who Fell to Earth at the beautiful new Nickelodeon Cinema in Portland. It used to be a great theater, with a live piano player and a gorgeous lobby. I decided to take my mom, since I thought that the movie being "Unrated" meant it was fine for all ages. WRONG! It didn't take long for some very uncomfortable scenes of nudity to start between David Bowie and a waitress to cause me to ask my mom if we could leave. We quickly left that theater!
I could go on but I'll let you know I own both of those films today, although I'll never watch them with mom. There was something about the movies that seemed very adult to me as a kid. I miss some of the old theaters we had back in those days but I suspect if I went to them today I'd think the sound and picture were awful. I remember going to that Westbrook cinema and looking at all the movie posters, especially the rated-R ones, wondering what forbidden treats they held. Many times I think of that when I pull out a movie like Taxi Driver from my own collection to watch on my home theater. Sometimes I even worry that my dad might invade my home theater and ban me from movies for the next 12 months.
The movies are my escape and I love to share them with my family and friends. Many times the presentation I can offer at home rivals the local theater and the movies are almost always better. Also, each of the different mediums bring back memories as well. Although many of them are being lost to laser rot, I still enjoy looking through my laserdisc collection. It's been hard to get rid of them, since they used to represent the best home theater had to offer. Now Blu-Ray has bettered them in every way except those large covers they had.
It is time to end this post and get on with my survey but I will lay some ground rules. I will cover everything in my collection, no matter how embarrassing. I will try to bring in autobiographical details into these posts, perhaps providing a character sketch of sorts. I will comment on sound and visual quality of the version I am watching. This post will cover my entire collection, which means movies, concert videos, documentaries, TV shows and whatever else is on my shelf. (A promo DVD for New England Conservatory? Sure! I'll review it!)
I think this will be a fun ride for me and I hope for you as well. Please comment and let me know what you think.
So we begin after Don Pride at the University of Maine at Farmington...P-R-I-...
NEXT:
Prince at the Aladdin Las Vegas from 2003
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