Category: Film Review

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My first video game was Pong. I was not a fan, even though it was ground breaking at the time … boring.  I can remember riding my bike three miles to the local Wal-Mart to play Asteroids.  Atari, Commodore 64, I had them all.  But video games weren’t my only love.  There were also comic books and movies.  I wish I’d kept all of the old comics by the way – and the GI Joes – and the Evel Knievels.  But alas, I was in a rush to grow up.  As for movies, they existed in the theater and what you saw on TV or free HBO weekends.  But as a founding member of Generation X, I saw the birth of the VCR.  And later I attended its funeral.

The VCR changed everything … because we could record. We were no longer at the mercy of theaters or TV schedules.  Record and re-watch.  It was brilliant.  But what if the movie you wanted to see wasn’t on TV to record?  That too would change.  Although this was ten years before the first Blockbuster, mom and pop video rental shops spread like a small town virus.  Rent, watch and take it back!  The VCR was to movies what the internet became to information.

The VCR revolutionized the “sleepover.” Friends and pizza and a VHS of family friendly movies like 9 TO 5 or XANADU … until that was … mom and dad when to bed. Then we’d quietly pull out THE SHINING, CHEECH & CHONG, FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE FOG, CADDYSHACK,THE OCTAGON, USED CARS, MAD MAX … it was a cultural awakening.  And by the way, those are just movies released in 1980.  Every year presented us with a treasure trove of movie magic … all in the comfort of your own home.

And shall we embarrassingly speak of the sexual awakening? This was before Skinamax.  Before the Internet, before our parents were ready to talk the birds and the bees.  Does anyone actually use that term these days?  Doubt it.  Point is, we learned about sex from the VCR.  ANIMAL HOUSE, PORKY’S, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, PRIVATE SCHOOL, MY TUTOR, SPRING BREAK, REVENGE OF THE NERDS, SIXTEEN CANDLES, BACHELOR PARTY, POLICE ACADEMY, and every slasher that came out in the 70s and 80s.

We could record movies from TV, rent, buy and then there was the boom in home videos. With a camcorder the size of a small refrigerator, we could make our own spy movies and play them back for friends on the VCR.  Or record our high school band slaughtering the vocals on Boston’s More Than a Feeling.  I have an old VHS of my smashing performance as Frederick in the Pirates of Penzance.  I also have one of my stretching to catch an end zone pass while dragging my toes.  6 points.  And for those fearless few who felt confident no one would ever find and watch their hidden VHS tapes, there was homemade porn.  Eh… I may have been guilty once or twice.

OH! And let us not forget those rare, oft-forgotten VHS surprises you simply didn’t see coming.  I remember crashing at a buddy’s house; he was snoring and I couldn’t sleep so started scanning his VHS shelf.  He had FRIGHT NIGHT!  I popped it in the VCR and sat back to enjoy some Roddy and team… um.  It was porn.  Although official studio released movie tapes were “protected”, we’re not talking about breaking into the CIA here.  There was simply a tiny little plastic chad that when “popped” out, meant any tape could be recorded over with anything you wanted.  We all did it.  Instead of buying blank tapes, just grab a purchased movie that you either hated or no longer watched, pop the chad and bingo, you were recording JAWS from HBO!  That said, why anyone would tape over FRIGHT NIGHT… blasphemy!

Also let us not forget the impeccable durability of the VHS tape. We’re talking plastic cases made by the lowest bidder to protect roughly 570 feet of remarkably flimsy and utterly unrecyclable Mylar.  With each play the tape would degrade slightly.  If you were recording over said tape, then the degradation was even higher.  You were lucky if they lasted 10 years, and it wasn’t uncommon to eventually end up with VHS tracking lines: those thin, white horizontal lines at the top or bottom of the screen – sometimes both.  You could pop the VHS out and try to spool tighter.  Sometimes that worked.  More often it did not.  The fancier VCRs had a tracking adjustment but once those lines started… the end was near.  So, no – not really durable, but … at the time it was all we had.  And we were blessed to have it.

Laser disks gave the VHS a scare but the high price kept them out of the everyman and woman’s homes. But once DVDs appeared on the scene, the offer of better quality, more storage and longer shelf life meant the looming end of the VCR and VHS.  Although you can oddly enough still find the DVD/VHS combo on the market if you desire.

The last VHS I bought was actually a three pack. It was 1997 and I purchased the Star Wars Special Edition Trilogy.  And strangely enough they are the only studio VHSs remaining in my possession. In fact, I can see the set from here, on a shelf next to my Stephen King books.  I loved the VHS era.  It was a big part of my growing up.  The movies that inspired me to seek out the business of Hollywood were movies I viewed over and over on VHS tapes.  If I had a time machine, would I go back, would I live through that era again?  Nope.  Let’s not live in the past.

It was my birthday the day we saw the first Superman hit the big screen after a long absence. I was, as was my station in those days, in the projection booth putting a movie together and placing it on the platter ready for threading. These were the dark ages you understand, when film still passed through the projector. It was a fine time for me. I was learning to fence, fight, anything anyone would teach me.

The movie I had just finished assembling was Superman Returns. Now, in these times, it is almost impossible, unless you spend your days with your head buried in the sand, not to watch the development of movies from the announcement to the first teaser trailer, from the photos and the ever present prognostications of the obsessives.

I was going to see the movie that night. It was going to be my birthday movie, that was a given, and I had done my utmost not to know anything, or as little as humanly possible about the film prior to what would be my first viewing. There was however, a problem. There was going to be a screening in twenty minutes. The movie was on the platter, threaded, and ready to fly – so to speak.

This during the week, so the crowds were not going to be expansive and the lunchtime sessions had begun. I was threading the other projector when the inaugural screening of Superman Returns started rolling – the first Superman movie in a long time.

For the uninitiated, in the projection booth you can hear the movie, you can see the movie, when everything that you are supposed to be doing is done, you can even sit and watch the movie – that is if you are not bothered by the clattering of the projector in one ear. I didn’t want to hear or see Superman Returns, not yet. But like I said, I was busy on the other side of the room. The last thing I would hear before the credits began was this: “As a courtesy to others, please turn off your mobile phones, and keep your feet off the seats. On your way out, please put your rubbish in the bins provided.”

At least, that’s what I would listen for. Then the trailers roll. You’d splice these onto the head of the film, and at the theatre I worked at, we would tag on trailers of a similar style or genre of the film playing – just to put the audience in the mood. When the trailers roll, it is really the projectionist’s last opportunity to make sure the film is framed up right, the focus is good, the sound is on the level and the automation system has the curtains open and the lights down.

Okay. So I went over and check it, it was my job. The trailers were running smoothly, everything was cool, and I knew what the last trailer was, thus I knew my cue to stick in the earplugs and rock on, busy myself assembling another print while Superman rolled. Then, the phone rang. It was one of the many times I had answered the phone and it was some bozo on the other end, wanting to know what movies were playing, what was worth watching and finally the plots of said films recommended, thus negating the need really, to watch them at all. To each his own, to each his own.

Then, shit. Beautiful spoiler. Before I could get my own private soundtrack rolling, and because of the phone call delay, I heard the movie begin. I heard John Williams. I was excited. I was pissed.

For my own present relief at the time, that’s all I heard, before going back to what I was doing till the film was over, shifted to the bottom of the platter, and the next film was threaded and rolling.

At that point, since I knew my shift was going to be over in time, I thought I would catch the afternoon screening. Buzzing to the point of being annoyingly frenetic, I went down stairs to ask the boss if I could get a ticket for the 4pm. I recall feeling genuinely crushed when I came to the ticket counter and he told me the screening had been cancelled ‘cause no one had showed.

Shit, my inner monologue cried to heaven.

“You’re coming back tonight though, aren’t you?” the boss said.

“Yeah but I…”

“I know, it’s your birthday – birthday movie,” he said, a wry smile on his face.

“Yeah sure it’s that. But it’s Superman for god’s sake. I was one of those kids that tried to fly off the garage roof with my mother’s red table cloth tied around my neck,” I wasn’t lying.

“How’d that work out for you,” he said.

“It didn’t,” I said, “but I still wanted to be Superman.”

The boss was and is a good guy, but I could see, and knew him well enough to know that he was busy with important affairs of state. When he was like that, he was best left alone.

I walked away not saying anything when I heard his voice:

“You know how to run a projector don’t you?”

I turned.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then go watch Superman,” he said, without looking up.

“Seriously?”

“Happy Birthday,” he replied.

Now I don’t know about any of you; if you’ve been the only person in a theatre on a rainy day, the only person that showed up.

I do know rich cats like Tarantino have their own home theatre set up. But for the little boy in me that loves movies, the idea of walking into a theatre, threading the movie you want to see and being able to sit there, to revel in it without the hindrance of an audience. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of. Did I know how to run a projector? You bet your sweet ass I do.

So for the first time in my cinema history, I walked into a movie theatre, threaded the projector and went and sat alone in the dark and watched a movie on my birthday. And it was a Superman movie.

For the record, Superman Returns is what it is. I know you probably all have seen it by now, and most likely have your own opinions which I shall not attempt to alter in any way, shape or form. I have my opinion too, but that is not what I am writing about here. What I am saying is, for that moment, for that afternoon, I loved that movie. I felt it had all the ingredients, all the reminders of a movie I had seen before. A movie I hold most dear – needless to say that that movie is also a Superman movie.

So though Superman Returns struggles to fit into its cape – for that afternoon it was a great experience – a Superman movie on my birthday. It would happen again several years later. But that’s another story; a story involving Zack Snyder, shit, and the man of steel – much to my chagrin.