Some Bad Movie Experiences

Some Bad Movie Experiences
     
by
             
Jay Agan


Military school, late 60s, rec hall, Wednesday night. Don't let nuns pick your movies! This one was particularly cruel & unusual. Carusel turned me off to musicals forever. We had a choice either watching this ultra-turkey or study hall. Should have taken study hall. (Sing & dance! Dance & sing! la la la la laaaah! Diddley dee! diddley doe! La la la la laaaah! Aaaaargh!) All that krap and hardly a story to be found.

Another military school vignette. This time the Vatican I types scored right but I only came to appreciate this flick later in life. AIPs' Pit & the Pendulum. It moved kinda slow for me until "Uncle Vince" and the gang disinterr the corpse. Hit me like a ton of plutonium bricks! Later that night & early morning, I'm surrounded by a hundred other snoozing cadets & I can't sleep! I KNEW Elizabeth was waiting out in the dark to get me!

High School Social(ist) Studies assignment: Watch West Side Story tonight. For some reason our educators & zampolits had the idea this would raise our conciousness about inner city "culture". From the moment of the first pirouette in the first "fairy fight", I knew something was terribly wrong with this movie. I was actually grateful for the commercial interruptions as I could take frequent bathroom breaks. This garbage had me going at both ends. (Leonard Bernstien, I absolutely loathe you. Tonight! Tonight! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Tonight! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Waah! Waah! Waah! Waaaah! Tonite!Toooooniiiiite! TOOOONIIIIITE! Geeze! Holy stinkin' krud!)

Bad movie experience: Seeing a scary movie with a certain girlfriend. Fun movie experience: The same scary movie with that same certain girlfriend. 1979. Had been going with this young lady a few weeks. It didn't even cross my mind how she would react to a horror flick.

Phantasm. Right arm around her ladyship. Everything smooth sailing. Until the floating, bladed, steel ball smacks into the hapless extras' face & starts drilling, blood shooting out the back.

Pain. Deep, dull/sharp, shooting, excriuciating agony in my right shoulder. Through my watering eyes I could see she had rammed her forehead into my shoulder in an effort to look away from the screen. Kid had a head like a rock! Strong too. Try as I might, I couldn't pry her noggin off. If it weren't for the sensation of needing some bones set, I would've enjoyed this. Shoulder hurt for over a week. I think this is why I have arthritis in that shoulder today.

On later outings, she knew not to react so violently. She'd strain the movies through her hands over her face. Said she hated these films but always insisted on seeing them.

I remember an epic arguement we had over a flick that wasn't so much a horror film as it was a horror. I had seen Cruising with a friend the week before. She to had already seen it & insisted on seeing it again. No way. There are some things I won't do for love.

I really miss her.


Article copyright © Jay Agan

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