Movies

For as long as I've remembered I've loved movies. I was eight when I saw my first Star Wars movie (Episode four, also known as A New Hope), I was at my usual weekend visit with my dad and my younger brother and I were playing outside when for whatever reason I decided to go inside. I walked in just after Luke first meets Ben so I stopped and started to watch. I was hooked the moment I saw the light saber. My brother and I used to play star wars while beating the crap out of each other with sticks (which wasn't exactly fair if I think about it now, I do have a few years on him) but at the time it was perfectly fine.
Over the years movies have become like a comfort to me. If I'm pissed off I'll watch a slasher film, if I'm sad I'll... Well, to be honest I'll probably watch a slasher- or a Tarantino film, give it a little variety. Watching Mr. Pink dispute tipping or Freddy Krueger ripping through the sleeping children of Elm St. usually makes me feel a little better about how life is going for me- call me sick, call me whatever you want, I just think of it as I could be that waitress, or I could be that teenager on Elm St., but lucky for me, I'm not. If I'm in a good mood, I'll watch a western (Anything with Clint Eastwood, though I've become a recent fan of Lee Van Cleef) or something by John Waters.
One of- Well, okay two of his classic films hold the number four spot in my top five movies of all time. Two holding one spot only because I don't know if I prefer Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble, both are great films. Pink Flamingos being one of the first sexually explicit films I've seen I watched when I was seventeen to the dismay of my step dad who tried every excuse in the book to not let me watch it, but when my mom just shrugged and said "She's seventeen, it's an NC-17 film, we can't stop her" the DVD was on and playing no less then five minutes later in my room. I had never seen anything like it before. Sure, I had seen John Waters films, Hairspray and Cry Baby, campy and a little more mainstream for my taste, but still great films. Female Trouble I watched online a few weeks after seeing Pink Flamingos.
One of my favorite genres of film is Zombie films. I love zombie films. I can't remember what my first zombie film was, probably the 1978 Dawn of the Dead because I have vague memories of watching that with my father as well, but who knows. The first time I really remember watching one was with my younger step brother, then he introduced me to the 2004 remake. Since then I've been stuck on Zombie films like no other, even earning me one in my Christmas stocking one year (White Zombie, one of my favorite scenes, a character is being thrown into water by some zombies and as they let go the actor covers his nose).
More recently I've become a fan of exploitation films, getting my true Exploitation education from a co-worker and good friend of mine, I try to familiarize myself with as much of the good exploitation as I can. Some of you may say that's an oxymoron, but I assure you, there is a difference.
I've always loved classics, two of my favorite films growing up were Shirley Temple films, the 1937 Heidi and her next film, the 1938 Rebecca of Sonnybrook Farm. I don't know what happened to those tapes, I probably wore them out, I'd love to find them on DVD someday but I have no idea if they're in print. Another movie I loved around the same time was Bed Knobs and Broomsticks staring Angela Lansbury, which I know came out some years after both Shirley Temple films posted, but it was another film I probably wore the VHS out on. I loved the idea of a flying bed, the songs were great and the cartoons along with people were pretty awesome too. It's a film that even now watching it (On youtube) I can sing along to the words and still laugh like I did when I was a kid.
Nowadays I spend most of my free time at a revival house and pay my way into any double- and sometimes triple- feature I can. I used to consider myself a movie geek, but having met some of those over the past few months I prefer to call myself a 'Geek in training'. These days I watch anything, I love expanding my film knowledge and I love hearing other people's thoughts on film. I guess that's why I named this blog 'Thoughts in 35mm'. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this blog as much as I keep up with watching movies.