Tell us about your first trips to the movies.
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I'm the blogger, Tom Blake
I live near Seattle and am retired and watch movies on DVD and some streaming through the public library, and also via cable TV including Amazon Prime. Over the years I have seen thousands of movies and my tastes have narrowed based on my experience and personal preferences. Documentaries and foreign films continue to interest me more than the kinds of movies shown in US movie theaters.
In my college days I discovered foreign art house films and did a lot of reading about movie making. I used to fantasize about becoming a director, but never got beyond the home movie level.
I like to watch a movie and then talk about it with my viewing companions, but nowadays I watch a lot of movies alone. When my daughter Anna used to watch with me, we usually got into a discussion, so she suggested I start this blog as a vehicle for on line sharing and dialogue.
In the last couple years this blog has morphed into more of a place for me to keep a record of what I have been watching, with my personal rating and a brief summary of the movie.
In my college days I discovered foreign art house films and did a lot of reading about movie making. I used to fantasize about becoming a director, but never got beyond the home movie level.
I like to watch a movie and then talk about it with my viewing companions, but nowadays I watch a lot of movies alone. When my daughter Anna used to watch with me, we usually got into a discussion, so she suggested I start this blog as a vehicle for on line sharing and dialogue.
In the last couple years this blog has morphed into more of a place for me to keep a record of what I have been watching, with my personal rating and a brief summary of the movie.
Not sure if it was the earliest, but I remember Kevin Erickson reading me the subtitles of what Jabba the Hut was saying in Return of the Jedi.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been around June 1983, so I would have been 5.
I was very young and my parents, I think, took me to see my first movie, Song of the South. I cannot explain why I remember that title given my age at the time, possibly 5 years old. The movie had an extraordinary impact on me, and on the rest of the audience, because I wailed out loud through the entire movie. Whoever took me thought I would love the movie because it was about the Disney characters, Brer Rabbit (please don't throw me in the briar patch!), Brer Fox and so on. Or were they Disney characters? I'm not sure. I could look it up on the internet, but I haven't because I sort of savor the feelings I experienced then.
ReplyDeleteI remember one of those large format children's books I had read to me and not much later read to myself about the Brer Rabbit stoies et. al.
What brought tears to my eyes and audible sobs was the story about the "real people" in the movie. A little boy or a little girl was losing his or her grandfather. The story was sad beyond anything I had experienced, and so real to me! There were segues between the real people and the cartoon people, and I wanted to stay in the world of the cartoon people.
I would love to see this movie again, to evaluate my childish memories of it against a wisened old man's view.
The movie premiered in Atlanta on my 5th birthday, and it was made by Disney. I was surprised to learn that Disney has not put the movie into re-circulation because of concerns about the impact of the movie on racial perceptions of impressionable youngsters. I think watching the movie with your children would provide great age specific teaching opportunities about American history and race. Looking back on movies with erroneous and outdated ideas would make an interesting blog topic.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever seen the full movie, just the animated excerpts and lead ins with Uncle Remus which played on TV in the 50s. I was old enough by then to appreciate the beneficent wisdom of Remus and to realize having him sing "satisfactual" was a false note.The Wikipedia article on the movie is quite informative. James Baskett, who played Remus, was so good that Disney campaigned and got him a special Oscar. He did not attend the premiere in Atlanta because segregation laws would not have allowed him to participate fully. The plantation and cotton field scenes, John, were filmed near Phoenix, and the young black boy was played by a Phoenix school boy.
I loved the Brer Rabbit story best. I liked to think of me as the rabbit and my step-dad as the bear. I was just singing the Zip-a-Dee song two days ago after Susan's granddaughter had been over and was playing with some bird figurines.
Tom, I just noticed your response of three weeks ago. I read the Wikipedia synopsis of the story and found that my memory of it was wrong. I'm not surprised that I forgot details of the story after all these years, but still I am shocked to learn that the lead character was not about to lose his grandfather; he was about to lose Uncle Remus. I guess I was color blind at the age of five. There were no blacks in my neighborhood or kindergarten so I must not have noticed that Uncle Remus was black.
ReplyDeleteI wish Disney would release this film.
It is about age five or six when kids start becoming more conscious of race. I think classics like Remus and Huck Finn are so great and provide such teaching opportunities about historically misinformed attitudes that we make a major mistake in presuming our kids would not be able to understand them. The failing, if there is one, is not with the kids, but with the parents and teachers.
ReplyDelete