Reflection Upon Watching Movies 2

About a month and a half ago, I shared a bit about myself and the movies I grew up watching.  It was a good reflection upon why I became the way I have become.  It’s not that the movies themselves got me interested in movies as a form of entertainment or a form of art.  The movies I discussed were movies that made me who I am.  They were movies that were important to me in one way or another.  I decided to take some time tonight to reflect upon more of the movies that have been a part of my life from the time I was a child up until now.  Who am I kidding?  I’m not going to talk about now.  I don’t know how the movies I watch now are going to affect my future self.

I remember being four when The Lion King came to theaters.  My aunt took me to the theater to see the movie.  I don’t remember much about watching The Lion King in the theater.  I remember much more what happened prior to being picked up to go there.  I, for some strange reason that I will probably never comprehend, decided to stand under a downspout.  It’s not the worst thing ever.  I’m sure there were good intentions to doing it.  Maybe I wanted to show that I could give myself a shower.  I have no idea.  Either way, I made a mess of myself by getting covered in the dirt and grime that had washed off of the roof.  I guess that this isn’t really a tale of the movie but it is a memory that I have had attached to the movie since the age of four.

Halloween 2010, I decided to watch the House movies.  These are unrelated to the Japanese movie Housu.  Seeing the plot description for the first movie compelled me to seek them out and watch them.  To my surprise, when I got to the climactic scenes of the movie, I remembered them.  I have not been able to figure out where I watched the movie before.  All I know is that I watched it at some time.  It was the breaking of the mirror that clicked in my head and the stuff that happened after that.  I had seen this movie.  I asked my parents about the movie.  They’ve never seen it and don’t even know what it is.  It may have been at my cousin’s house.  The only movies I remember watching there, though, were Dogma, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Perfect Storm, and Romeo + Juliet.  I do not remember ever watching House.  Could it have been my neighbours’ house?  Sure, it could have been.  But once again, I remember the movies I saw there.  I’m not sure where I saw House, but I’d been trying to find that movie ever since I had seen it so that I’d know what it was.  As of Halloween 2010, I know it was House.

Speaking of my neighbours’ house, I went there the night my grandfather died.  I was twelve at the time, it was around ten or eleven at night when we got the phone call, and my parents didn’t want to have me or my younger brother be scarred by seeing our late grandfather at that moment.  We were sent next door so that someone could watch us well we slept.  Not in a creepy way.  Just in a way where our parents didn’t want to leave us at home alone during the night.  It’s hard to fall asleep when you learn that a family member has died.  Well, when you care about that family member it is.  It was difficult for me to sleep so I ended up watching television.  I was lucky.  I didn’t happen upon some drama that would take my twelve year old self into a downward spiral of depression.  Instead, as I clicked through the channels, on comes a Mel Brooks classic, Men In Tights.  The movie lightened me up a little bit on a sad night.  At least, it brought me up enough to get to sleep.  There isn’t much more to say about that one.  I love the movie, and it’s made even more special to me because of that experience.  That’s not the only movie that I associate with my grandfather, but another time I’ll give more on that thread.

That kind of knocked the wind out of me a little there.  I think I’m going to leave off there.  Three movies with three important spots in me that have helped to establish me as the person that I am.  Each one has brought something different to me.  One is a childhood memory.  Another is a quest that was accomplished.  The third, a memory of a loved one.  Each movie is one of the building blocks that have built me into the 21 year old man that I am right now.  Without any of them, I wouldn’t be who I am.  I would not be me.