My Two Favorite Movies

I've been seeing a movie every Saturday at my local AMC Theatre for the past three years, rarely missing a weekend. Richie, my movie buddy, brings Nino's Bakery danish or creampuffs for us both. Umm, good. I buy us Dunkin coffees afterwards and we shoot the breeze. Umm, good.

I hardly ever see the same movie twice, although I've made exceptions like 1977s Star Wars which I saw four times during its first week. Oh, it blew me away! Science Fiction is my favorite genre, so, more recently, Avatar was another mind-blower. I have the Star Wars Trilogy and Avatar on DVD as well, two of only a few movies I bought. Actually, I don't buy any. But on occasion I will put one on my Wish List and get it for Ayyam-i-Ha, my birthday or Christmas. Aren't holidays wonderful!

Speaking of science fiction, two movies changed my outlook on life completely. Before seeing these movies I was parochial, focused only on life around me and the joys of childhood unencumbered, with no thoughts of a world larger than what I could touch. These specific movies, changed my outlook and worldview, or should I say, gave me a worldview that would stay with me all my life. Of course I have these two movies on DVD also, one black and white, one colorized. I watch both of them at least once a year, with the lights out, in the comfort of my bedroom, alone.

It's a fantastic blessing having lived in the 20th, and now the 21st, centuries. None of us can fully appreciate the time in which we live, I don't think. By the 1950s movie special effects could be very haphazard - some done well, some not. Very different from today where movies like Life of Pi (which I saw and loved) are incredibly seamless. Its really, really hard to believe the tiger Richard Parker is 100% computer generated. At least that's what I heard, but I can't vouch for it. Either way, movies today are all incredibly good with SFX. (I know, SFX stands for sci-fy, but to me they're synonymous.)

I can't remember which one I saw first, so I'll describe them by release date. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), starring Michael Rennie as Klaatu with a wonderful, believable, supporting cast, blew me away the first time I saw it. I must have been 10 or so, circa 1960, watching it on our small black and white TV at our 84 N. Clinton Ave apartment in Trenton NJ. I have basically memorized the movie, so I won't go into details.

However, the climax is what affected me most, besides the fantastical alien-inspired storyline. The point I got from the movie, which I firmly believe, is that all people must learn to live and cooperate at all levels (or we will destroy ourselves), and that we are NOT the only sentient creatures in the universe. The corollary is that anything is possible. This was years before I fell in love with Captain Kirk and Spock in Star Trek.

The second was Forbidden Planet (1956) with a dramatic role by Leslie Nielson, and again, a great cast of characters well-played, especially, when I was younger, Robby the Robot, played by Frankie Darro (thanks Wikipedia).  Almost exactly the same themes as The Day the Earth Stood Still, only from a human point of view. Richard Parker reminds me of the real tiger in Forbidden Planet -- both totally believable. The colorized version of the film is just superb.

To be fair, I've hardly ever seen a movie in a movie theatre that I didn't like, unless you count Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof in Grindhouse, overall an absolutely horrible film.When I was a kid and watching House on Haunted Hill at Trenton's Lincoln Theatre on Warren St., where an actual (fake) human skeleton rolled out on wires from the back of the theatre, or George Romero's Night of the Living Dead at the Lawrence Drive-in with Dad, I loved horror films. That stopped four decades ago. Now with movies like Saw, I am appalled.

I hope to start a movie review blog just for fun. Last night (12/1/12) I saw Twilight: Breaking Dawn II. It had good, and slow, parts. The (movie) story was not told as well as it could have been. But the action/fight scene was incredibly well done, and the surprise ending handled very well (even though I read all the books, I had forgotten). I do like action more than anything. Being "a man of action under all conditions" is another thing entirely, and something I strive for.