Movies

Finally, Speed Racer is coming today. Which sounds like a Trixie joke, but I just mean that the movie finally opens.

I’m about as excited to see Speed as I was to see Iron Man, but I was a huge Speed Racer watching kid way back when (before the internets, if you can imagine. Yes, we had electricity, and television, but not cable). Anyway, I grew up watching the show, and want to see what the Matrix Brothers do with it - although from all the previews they’ve released, I have a pretty good idea.

Little different than the original? A few reviews have said it’s too much - too much color, noise, action. I’m thinking - I sat throught Cloverfield and didn’t throw up, and Sharkboy and Lavagirl, I can do this one.

Besides, Ricci as Trixie? How cool is that?

PS: funny enough, my car is in the shop, if it were outside I might think about playing hooky and going to see this w/o the kids, since all they’ll do is sit there and go “boooring, c’mon, my playstation has better graphics. When do the bad guys start killing everyone? Are there gonna be zombies?” etc.

I know, I know, I should be talking about Iron Man, which so far promises to be kick ass (current plan: I take the boys to see it tonite, while my awesome wife and daughter stay home and watch Enchanted and/or Barney).

So, yes, Iron Man will be awesome, and I’ll have to gush about it. But I just found this and it kicks. ass.

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Mrs. Flinger has another Flashback Friday theme up, today it’s movies.

Now, of course, I’m not going to answer the question directly, cuz I’m old and don’t remember.

I do remember what a Big Deal it was when Wizard of Oz was going to come on. It only happened like once a year, and we kids would talk about it for days ahead of time. “Is Oz on tonite?” “Yeah.” “I can’t wait to see it!” Then of course, we’d spend half the movie hiding behind a chair because of that scary witch and her freaky flying monkeys. (My kids watched this and thought the “effects were lacking.” Whatever)

I don’t think this was the first movie, but I remember seeing Digby on the big screen, and forever have ingrained in my mind the famous line: “Digby! Don’t swallow!” Yes, It has warped me ever since.

My parents took me and my friends to see Escape to Witch Mountain at the theater on my birthday (Canyon Creek Twin, long gone now). I fell in love with Kim, as little boys do. At the drive in I remember seeing M*A*S*H and Bullitt and some other early seventies movies.

One of the most memorable movie experiences: Jaws. Scared the living fuck out of me, in a way that kids who have been immersed in CNN 24 hour Shark Attack Coverage can’t really appreciate. I bought the album because it had a nekkid girl on the cover. About to get devoured, yes, so?

So, what was your first movie experience?

(btw, I’ve deliberately kept this to the ten-and-under movies, there were many many more memorable ones later on)

This will always be the first Charlton Heston movie I can recall seeing, because we weren’t into gladiator movies at the casa and I liked sci-fi and apes.

I was three when it came out, so the first time I saw it was on TV some years later (most of you, go ask your parents what the world was like before VCRss and Tivo. Catch that misty look in their eye? It’s cuz they’re OLD) And you know what? It sucked me in. I honestly didn’t think that it would end the way it would (”Goddamn you all to hell!”)

I really liked the refreshing dialogue and politically correct treatment of simians.

Bye, Chuck.

It’s not a secret, I’m a sucker for movies released on the 4th of July holiday. Just about every summer I’ll find something I want to see. Last year we saw Transformers, for example, and we were 800 miles from home in a condo on the freakin’ BEACH and we still went to the movies. It was raining, really hard, that day, but still.

So, this summer? I’m dying to see this one:

Never mind that, if I could, I would have Will Smith’s baby. This looks like a great movie. Even if it’s crap, it’ll be great crap.

More pictures here. Thanks to Joblo for the heads up.