Everyone knows that sense of anticipation you get when you walk in. As you walk off of the carpet to a seat, your shoes peel off of the floor with a sticky sound. Your hands offer two different sensations: Cold from the icy drink in one, and warm from the bag of popcorn in the other. The smell of said popcorn dancing in your nose as you shuffle to that perfect seat, the springs groaning as you push it down. As you get comfortable, you look up at that white screen in front of you, knowing that soon it won’t be a screen anymore. Oh, no. It will be a portal to another place. A place where you can let yourself fade into the background. And you wonder to yourself: “Where am I going today?”
The lights dim, the projector starts up whirring madly. Then, a silvery light cuts through the darkness, illuminating that screen and the portal opens! Instantly, your cares melt away as you watch the events unfold before you. The wonder that you feel looking into a galaxy far, far way. The sadness you feel as E.T. and Elliott lay dying on the bathroom floor. The terror you feel as Mola Ram rips the heart out of an unwilling human sacrifice. It doesn’t enter your mind that the alien is a latex puppet any more than the spaceships being miniature models. It’s all real, and it’s unfolding before your eyes.
To me, those are the feelings that go through my mind when I recall going to the movies when I was much younger. I remember that sense of awe and wonder I’d get watching these movies. I never wanted them to end. It was a more pure experience back then. That’s not a knock on modern Hollywood, it’s just how it is. Watching film through innocent eyes, letting yourself go, wrapped in that aforementioned wonder for an hour and a half at a time. No cynicism or negative thoughts whatsoever. Just pure enjoyment, and those memories stick with you. I remember my mother having to apologize to the people behind us in Ghostbusters, since I covered them with popcorn when the library ghost scared the boys off. I remember hiding under my seat when the heart ripping happened in Temple of Doom. I don’t get that anymore. I still love going to the movies, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that with growing older and life kicking in, you lose some of that awe. You learn how the movies are made. I guess, in a nutshell, you grow up. But you can still look back on those times when you were five years old, with your family in that dark theater. You may look sitting there in that creaky seat, but you are really in another place.
I love those memories. They are responsible for getting me into writing. I’d love to be able to write something that would stir inside someone those same feelings that I had. In a way, I’m lucky. My son Jason is getting older every day. Soon he’ll be old enough to go to the movies and actually comprehend them. I can already see him toddering down the aisle with his small popcorn looking huge in his hands. Stray kernels tumbling out of the bag, bouncing off his arms to the floor. Looking back at me, he smiles and tells me to hurry up. He picks his seat and we scoot down the aisle to the middle and sit in our seats. I can see the excitement in his eyes as the lights dim, and the beam from the projector illuminates his smiling face. Then I lean over to him and whisper:
