Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Dystopian Movie Meme
I saw this on Travis' site. She got it from Annika. You copy the list then bold the ones you have seen. Adding notes to a few was my idea...
1. Metropolis (1927)
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
3. Brazil (1985)
4. Wings of Desire (1987)
5. Blade Runner (1982)
6. Children of Men (2006)
7. The Matrix (1999)
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
9. Minority Report (2002)
10. Delicatessen (1991)
11. Sleeper (1973)
12. The Trial (1962)
13. Alphaville (1965)
14. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
15. Serenity (2005)
16. Pleasantville (1998)
17. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
18. Battle Royale (2000)
19. RoboCop (1987) --watched this one again on election night 2000. I figured since Bush was the winner I might as well get acquainted with the near future.
20. Akira (1988)
21. The City of Lost Children (1995)
22. Planet of the Apes (1968)
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
24. Metropolis (2001)
25. Gattaca (1997)
26. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)--didn't see but read the book recently and it BLEW MY MIND!
27. On The Beach (1959)
28. Mad Max (1979)
29. Total Recall (1990)
30. Dark City (1998)
31. War Of the Worlds (1953)
32. District B13 (2004)
33. They Live (1988)
34. THX 1138 (1971)
35. Escape from New York (1981)
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
37. Silent Running (1972)
38. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
39. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)--Hmm, did I see this movie or am I just remembering scenes from Ridley Scott's Apple commercial? We read the book in high school in 1984 and I dressed up at Julia for school one day.
40. A Boy and His Dog (1975)
41. Soylent Green (1973)
42. I Robot (2004)
43. Logan’s Run (1976) I've even been to the crazy fountain in Ft. Worth where they shot scenes.
44. Strange Days (1995)
45. Idiocracy (2006)
46. Death Race 2000 (1975)
47. Rollerball (1975)
48. Starship Troopers (1997)
49. One Point O (2004)
50. Equilibrium (2002)
1. Metropolis (1927)
2. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
3. Brazil (1985)
4. Wings of Desire (1987)
5. Blade Runner (1982)
6. Children of Men (2006)
7. The Matrix (1999)
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
9. Minority Report (2002)
10. Delicatessen (1991)
11. Sleeper (1973)
12. The Trial (1962)
13. Alphaville (1965)
14. Twelve Monkeys (1995)
15. Serenity (2005)
16. Pleasantville (1998)
17. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
18. Battle Royale (2000)
19. RoboCop (1987) --watched this one again on election night 2000. I figured since Bush was the winner I might as well get acquainted with the near future.
20. Akira (1988)
21. The City of Lost Children (1995)
22. Planet of the Apes (1968)
23. V for Vendetta (2005)
24. Metropolis (2001)
25. Gattaca (1997)
26. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)--didn't see but read the book recently and it BLEW MY MIND!
27. On The Beach (1959)
28. Mad Max (1979)
29. Total Recall (1990)
30. Dark City (1998)
31. War Of the Worlds (1953)
32. District B13 (2004)
33. They Live (1988)
34. THX 1138 (1971)
35. Escape from New York (1981)
36. A Scanner Darkly (2006)
37. Silent Running (1972)
38. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
39. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)--Hmm, did I see this movie or am I just remembering scenes from Ridley Scott's Apple commercial? We read the book in high school in 1984 and I dressed up at Julia for school one day.
40. A Boy and His Dog (1975)
41. Soylent Green (1973)
42. I Robot (2004)
43. Logan’s Run (1976) I've even been to the crazy fountain in Ft. Worth where they shot scenes.
44. Strange Days (1995)
45. Idiocracy (2006)
46. Death Race 2000 (1975)
47. Rollerball (1975)
48. Starship Troopers (1997)
49. One Point O (2004)
50. Equilibrium (2002)
Labels: movies
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Summer Movie
We went to see Transformers today.
Mindless summer popcorn movie: fun, silly, lots of hot bot action. Just what you want. But then, right when you are settled into the movie, it all goes wrong. All suspension of disbelief is blown:
The government agencies use Macs, even inside the Pentagon!
Dammit! I was having a good time laughing at, I mean, along with the movie and they have to go and ruin it.
Kurt summed it up nicely: It's no National Treasure.
Mindless summer popcorn movie: fun, silly, lots of hot bot action. Just what you want. But then, right when you are settled into the movie, it all goes wrong. All suspension of disbelief is blown:
The government agencies use Macs, even inside the Pentagon!
Dammit! I was having a good time laughing at, I mean, along with the movie and they have to go and ruin it.
Kurt summed it up nicely: It's no National Treasure.
Labels: movies
Thursday, July 12, 2007
I Hate Teaser Trailers
Yesterday before Harry Potter, we saw this teaser trailer:
And I am still watching it and laughing about the phone bit. And Duane Johnson? AND Alan Arkin?!?! Genius.
But dang it! Summer 2008!!
And I am still watching it and laughing about the phone bit. And Duane Johnson? AND Alan Arkin?!?! Genius.
But dang it! Summer 2008!!
Labels: movies
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Potter
Okay, so I've been holding it in until now. But we're going to see Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix at 3:30 in Westwood at the big ass theater. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111!!
All day, I have been having Potter on the brain because whenever I want to use an example, it's related to HP. My mom wrote back about the appliance porn and said, "you win" and what came to mind was "oh no, anytime you bring up Sub-Zero, you win. It's like catching the snitch." Seriously, I was going to write that to my mother. But I wrote it here instead.
Okay, there were more but now I can't recall. Clearly I need a remembrall.
I love being freelance!
All day, I have been having Potter on the brain because whenever I want to use an example, it's related to HP. My mom wrote back about the appliance porn and said, "you win" and what came to mind was "oh no, anytime you bring up Sub-Zero, you win. It's like catching the snitch." Seriously, I was going to write that to my mother. But I wrote it here instead.
Okay, there were more but now I can't recall. Clearly I need a remembrall.
I love being freelance!
Labels: movies
Monday, June 11, 2007
Woman in Film
In 1992 I broke up with Los Angeles and left her for another city.
I got here in the fall of 1985 to begin my freshman year at LMU. I was in the big city going to film school! I loved my time at LMU, the roommates, the dorms, the crew team (crew rules, by the way), the film classes. Oh the film classes. I remember my first day of an intro to film class and it was in a movie theater. Okay, we say screening room now, but back then--holy cow I'm in a movie theater for school!!!11! The other great part about going to LMU was that I had four protective years to get to know Los Angeles. From the comfort and safety of school life, I could explore LA at my own pace. I grew up in a small town and so while I couldn't wait to get to LA, it was still a bit intimidating. Best way to get to know Los Angeles? Get a job as the Editorial and Animation classes Teacher's Assistant and drive from LMU to FotoKem twice a week -- no freeways. My little red bug and I just cruised it and I learned how to drive in LA. I'm a very good driver, definitely a good driver.
After graduation in 1989 I went on a backpacking trip to europe with friends, then came back to start living the high life in film! Okay, not so high at first. But after two years of work I got a job as visual effects coordinator at Boss Film Studios (RIP) on Alien 3. I was stoked to have a great job on a big movie. It meant I could save money and travel again! So I saved and saved and told everyone I was going to travel again and the show came to an end and I went. My bosses at Boss complimented me highly by asking me to please stay and work on Cliffhanger, but I said no. I had to travel, europe was calling me back.
That was 1992 and while I love to travel, that trip was also the camouflage for my break up and running away from LA. I didn't know how long I would be in europe and I decided I was going to move away from Los Angeles when I got back. Why? Because I hated it here. That is what I told myself. I missed the small town feeling of where I grew up. I missed knowing exactly where to go to find a windshield wiper or my favorite foods or my favorite beach. The beaches here are so big and impersonal. The last straw was that I got into an accident. I was the last person in a line of 4 rear-end smashes on the 405 north/101 interchange -- you all know about that severe right lane slow down. Luckily, no one was hurt and I did all the right things, my insurance was good so it was all covered. Then came the morning when I woke up at 6am to someone knocking on my door "Julia Rivas?" "Yes?" "You've been served." I was being sued by one of the people two cars ahead of me. I was so mad. I thought, if this had happened where I grew up, I would know someone in the accident or the cops or someone related to someone. And NOBODY would sue me! Furious. Of course, I found out a bit later, I had been on the business end of an insurance scam.
I'd had it with this big, impersonal, harsh, hot, dry, brown, too-sunny, lame-ass city. Fuck the movies, I was out of here.
I moved to Seattle since it was someplace I had been to once and liked and I knew some people from LMU there. And it was completely different than LA. They have seasons, but more importantly, they have *weather* in Seattle. It rains there. A LOT. And I love rain. Love it. It even snowed enough in the winter to be fun, not harsh. And the fall, oh the colors! And the spring--Oh man, the flowers bloom all over the place! I was in heaven. I found a place to rent with a nice roommate and found two part-time coffee jobs, neither of which was at Starbucks. I was a barista and made about $850 a month and lived a very nice life on that. Incredible.
A friend in LA introduced me to a friend who lived in Seattle, a guy named Mark. Nice guy, he was into film and photography and taught school in Seattle. I came to his class one day and talked to students for a little while. He asked if I would help him with a photography project and I said sure. So we met at an empty warehouse and he had a reel of 35mm movie print. (It's called "sound fill" which is so old-school analog of me to say.) Here is what we came up with (click for bigger):
He called it "The Unbearable Lightness of Being Julia." I called it Woman in Film. The print he gave me is dated 5/93.
I lived in Seattle for about ten months (August 1992 -- May 1993). I stayed in touch with all my film friends in LA and knew about all kinds of job possibilities. I never stopped loving the movies and really had no idea what I would do in Seattle. Then in April of 1993 I had an epiphany. I had an amazing two weeks where my eyesight, my third-eyesight, became crystal clear. If felt physical, like the lenses in my eyes were being manually focused so I could see sharply as I never had before.
In that two week period songs came out at me -- two very important songs. One was Johnny Nash singing:
I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.
What I love about that song is that is based on reality -- the obstacles in life aren't gone, they are stiil there, but now I can see them clearly.
The second song that spoke to me loud and clear was by 10,000 Maniacs called These Are Days (from the album Our Time in Eden). The lyrics are:
these are days you'll remember
never before and never since, I promise
will the whole world be warm as this
and as you feel it, you'll know it's true
that you are blessed and lucky
it's true, that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you
these are days you'll remember
when May is rushing over you with desire
to be part of the miracles you see in every hour
you'll know it's true, that you are blessed and lucky
it's true, that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you
these are the days
that you might fill with laughter
until you break
these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face
and when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know their meaning
you'll know how it was meant to be
hear the signs and
know they're speaking to you
to you
The signs were speaking to me and I decided to move back. Once I decided, things fell into place crazy fast. My roommate found another place to live, no problem. I called my old landlady in LA and she just had someone vacate her rent-controlled studio apartment in Santa Monica (two blocks from Montana) and did I want it. Um, YES! I called friends and lined up job interviews.
By the end of May 1993, I got back together with Los Angeles, realizing that it wasn't LA's fault, it was my own. The problem had been in my brain and heart and soul all along. I wanted my small town life and big Hollywood career all at the same time. And I finally figured out I couldn't have it both ways. Most of all, I wanted to make movies. This photo of me wrapped up in film is apropos and I'm going to frame it and hang it in my office.
I don't ever want to be without the movies and without my city, La Ciudad de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles.
Did LA and I instantly kiss and make up? No. That's not how relationships work and that is a blog post for another day.
I got here in the fall of 1985 to begin my freshman year at LMU. I was in the big city going to film school! I loved my time at LMU, the roommates, the dorms, the crew team (crew rules, by the way), the film classes. Oh the film classes. I remember my first day of an intro to film class and it was in a movie theater. Okay, we say screening room now, but back then--holy cow I'm in a movie theater for school!!!11! The other great part about going to LMU was that I had four protective years to get to know Los Angeles. From the comfort and safety of school life, I could explore LA at my own pace. I grew up in a small town and so while I couldn't wait to get to LA, it was still a bit intimidating. Best way to get to know Los Angeles? Get a job as the Editorial and Animation classes Teacher's Assistant and drive from LMU to FotoKem twice a week -- no freeways. My little red bug and I just cruised it and I learned how to drive in LA. I'm a very good driver, definitely a good driver.
After graduation in 1989 I went on a backpacking trip to europe with friends, then came back to start living the high life in film! Okay, not so high at first. But after two years of work I got a job as visual effects coordinator at Boss Film Studios (RIP) on Alien 3. I was stoked to have a great job on a big movie. It meant I could save money and travel again! So I saved and saved and told everyone I was going to travel again and the show came to an end and I went. My bosses at Boss complimented me highly by asking me to please stay and work on Cliffhanger, but I said no. I had to travel, europe was calling me back.
That was 1992 and while I love to travel, that trip was also the camouflage for my break up and running away from LA. I didn't know how long I would be in europe and I decided I was going to move away from Los Angeles when I got back. Why? Because I hated it here. That is what I told myself. I missed the small town feeling of where I grew up. I missed knowing exactly where to go to find a windshield wiper or my favorite foods or my favorite beach. The beaches here are so big and impersonal. The last straw was that I got into an accident. I was the last person in a line of 4 rear-end smashes on the 405 north/101 interchange -- you all know about that severe right lane slow down. Luckily, no one was hurt and I did all the right things, my insurance was good so it was all covered. Then came the morning when I woke up at 6am to someone knocking on my door "Julia Rivas?" "Yes?" "You've been served." I was being sued by one of the people two cars ahead of me. I was so mad. I thought, if this had happened where I grew up, I would know someone in the accident or the cops or someone related to someone. And NOBODY would sue me! Furious. Of course, I found out a bit later, I had been on the business end of an insurance scam.
I'd had it with this big, impersonal, harsh, hot, dry, brown, too-sunny, lame-ass city. Fuck the movies, I was out of here.
I moved to Seattle since it was someplace I had been to once and liked and I knew some people from LMU there. And it was completely different than LA. They have seasons, but more importantly, they have *weather* in Seattle. It rains there. A LOT. And I love rain. Love it. It even snowed enough in the winter to be fun, not harsh. And the fall, oh the colors! And the spring--Oh man, the flowers bloom all over the place! I was in heaven. I found a place to rent with a nice roommate and found two part-time coffee jobs, neither of which was at Starbucks. I was a barista and made about $850 a month and lived a very nice life on that. Incredible.
A friend in LA introduced me to a friend who lived in Seattle, a guy named Mark. Nice guy, he was into film and photography and taught school in Seattle. I came to his class one day and talked to students for a little while. He asked if I would help him with a photography project and I said sure. So we met at an empty warehouse and he had a reel of 35mm movie print. (It's called "sound fill" which is so old-school analog of me to say.) Here is what we came up with (click for bigger):
He called it "The Unbearable Lightness of Being Julia." I called it Woman in Film. The print he gave me is dated 5/93.
I lived in Seattle for about ten months (August 1992 -- May 1993). I stayed in touch with all my film friends in LA and knew about all kinds of job possibilities. I never stopped loving the movies and really had no idea what I would do in Seattle. Then in April of 1993 I had an epiphany. I had an amazing two weeks where my eyesight, my third-eyesight, became crystal clear. If felt physical, like the lenses in my eyes were being manually focused so I could see sharply as I never had before.
In that two week period songs came out at me -- two very important songs. One was Johnny Nash singing:
I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
It's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day.
What I love about that song is that is based on reality -- the obstacles in life aren't gone, they are stiil there, but now I can see them clearly.
The second song that spoke to me loud and clear was by 10,000 Maniacs called These Are Days (from the album Our Time in Eden). The lyrics are:
these are days you'll remember
never before and never since, I promise
will the whole world be warm as this
and as you feel it, you'll know it's true
that you are blessed and lucky
it's true, that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you
these are days you'll remember
when May is rushing over you with desire
to be part of the miracles you see in every hour
you'll know it's true, that you are blessed and lucky
it's true, that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you
these are the days
that you might fill with laughter
until you break
these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face
and when you do
you'll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know their meaning
you'll know how it was meant to be
hear the signs and
know they're speaking to you
to you
The signs were speaking to me and I decided to move back. Once I decided, things fell into place crazy fast. My roommate found another place to live, no problem. I called my old landlady in LA and she just had someone vacate her rent-controlled studio apartment in Santa Monica (two blocks from Montana) and did I want it. Um, YES! I called friends and lined up job interviews.
By the end of May 1993, I got back together with Los Angeles, realizing that it wasn't LA's fault, it was my own. The problem had been in my brain and heart and soul all along. I wanted my small town life and big Hollywood career all at the same time. And I finally figured out I couldn't have it both ways. Most of all, I wanted to make movies. This photo of me wrapped up in film is apropos and I'm going to frame it and hang it in my office.
I don't ever want to be without the movies and without my city, La Ciudad de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles.
Did LA and I instantly kiss and make up? No. That's not how relationships work and that is a blog post for another day.
Labels: los angeles, movies, seattle
Other Jobs
People think I have such an amazing job -- Visual Effects Producer. Yes yes, I work in the movies and it is so glamorous...*
However, I was emailing a friend who is a scientist and academic in Minnesota and he said he had to go to Colorado for 36 hours. I asked why 36 and he responded with this fabulous sentence:
I need to take a few lizard tail tips for DNA analysis, all I need is 36 hours, good hiking boots, a noose, and decent weather.
For some reason it made me think of this quote from The Blues Brothers:
It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Hit it!
*I'm grateful for my FX Career, really I am. It bought me a house. But now I'm moving into more creative pursuits.
However, I was emailing a friend who is a scientist and academic in Minnesota and he said he had to go to Colorado for 36 hours. I asked why 36 and he responded with this fabulous sentence:
I need to take a few lizard tail tips for DNA analysis, all I need is 36 hours, good hiking boots, a noose, and decent weather.
For some reason it made me think of this quote from The Blues Brothers:
It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Hit it!
*I'm grateful for my FX Career, really I am. It bought me a house. But now I'm moving into more creative pursuits.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Paradise O and Planes
Thanks to this post on LAist, Kurt and I were inspired to sign up with ParadiseO. Today was our first delivery and we got this:
I washed the head of lettuce really well. This is not the triple washed in a bag stuff! I have to on the ball with these items as they are organic and not from a factory. Can't wait to eat it all up.
For lunch Kurt and I went non-organic and ate cheeseburgers and fries at our favorite In-N-Out Burger at the airport. There were plenty of parents and kids pic-nicing in the small park watching planes land (which is why we went to that one.) I always love a 747 coming almost right over your head at about 150 feet.
Here are some other folks watching:
Did a little gardening, watered the tomatoes and fixed some sprinklers. Nice day!
Oh and it all started off with a trip to the Multi-Plex with my good friend Sarah to see Ocean's 13. We had to contain ourselves when Jacquie Barnbrook had her scene!!! GO Jacquie!
Jacquie is a personal friend of ours. We're like this:
I washed the head of lettuce really well. This is not the triple washed in a bag stuff! I have to on the ball with these items as they are organic and not from a factory. Can't wait to eat it all up.
For lunch Kurt and I went non-organic and ate cheeseburgers and fries at our favorite In-N-Out Burger at the airport. There were plenty of parents and kids pic-nicing in the small park watching planes land (which is why we went to that one.) I always love a 747 coming almost right over your head at about 150 feet.
Here are some other folks watching:
Did a little gardening, watered the tomatoes and fixed some sprinklers. Nice day!
Oh and it all started off with a trip to the Multi-Plex with my good friend Sarah to see Ocean's 13. We had to contain ourselves when Jacquie Barnbrook had her scene!!! GO Jacquie!
Jacquie is a personal friend of ours. We're like this:
Monday, April 09, 2007
Signs of Summer
A few weeks back I wrote about the Signs of Spring (and impending summer) where I grew up and how that connected to Los Angeles via the jacaranda trees. Yesterday, while driving on Santa Monica Blvd, I was reminded about the other Signs of Summer that pop up in LA to remind us that warm weather (really warm weather) is just around the corner.
First was this one (click to make bigger, but it doesn't get too much bigger):
Then a block or so later, this one (also click to make bigger--again, not much):
(Apologies for the super lo-res quality -- I only had my camera phone on me. The marine layer wasn't helping. And I was DWP (thank you Sarah): Driving While Photographing.)
To me, these signs are just as exciting as the Jacarandas, though in a different way. I love movies. No, you don't understand: I LOVE MOVIES. I grew up on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and we had two movie theaters, each with one screen of course, and we had to wait what seemed like FOREVER for movies to come. Then they stayed for weeks. In high school, instead of just following the crowds every weekend to the party in the pineapple fields, I would sometimes just go to the movies by myself. I loved going by myself, no one to bother you with chatting, you sit where you want, eat the greasy popcorn just the way you liked. Before I got married, my favorite weekend thing to do was to Worship at the Church of Cinema -- go to the 11:00 am Sunday movie, by myself.
When I moved to LA to go to film school -- oh, do I need to share my "what am I going to study in school/epiphany!" moment? Okay, Okay, I'll share. It was the summer of 1984 (in between my junior and senior years of high school) and my college counselor said -- think about what you want to study in college. I had no idea. I loved history and I loved the spanish language, but what do I do with that? Oh well, summer's here, I'll worry about it later. Well, I worried about it a lot (I was so excited about going to college.) I got to spend about six weeks in Los Angeles in the summer of 1984, visiting friends and family. It was a BIG DEAL to go on a trip like that. And I got to go to the movies. In Los Angeles. Where they make movies!
Think back to the summer of 1984 -- it was a big movie summer: Ghostbusters, Splash, Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins, Purple Rain, Romancing the Stone, Footloose. But most exciting of all, I mean, ZOMG!!!1111!!!!!ONE11!! was: INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM!!! The sequel was finally here. Oh man, I was so excited about it, beyond excited. I mean I bought clothes at Banana Republic, back when it was safari clothes (Remember? Yes you do.) I had a gun belt and a fedora. Yes I did. My friends called me "Diana Jones." I'm not ashamed.
So there I was, in a real movie theater, a movie palace, with a huge screen and a big audience, seeing a first run movie within a week of its release. My heart was racing. Then the movie started and--let's be honest--it was not the best of the series, but who cared at the time? Anyway, there was I was, enthralled and in the middle of the mine shaft chase sequence it happened: I had a life changing epiphany. I COULD GO TO FILM SCHOOL! I COULD WORK IN THE MOVIES!
So I did and I do.
And I love it. And even after all the years in the biz, am I jaded? Hell no. To this day or at least to the most recent day I sat in movie theater (about 10 days ago, "Shooter") When the lights go down and the trailers start, I get goosebumps and my heart races with the excitement of being in a theater, watching a movie. It is making me smile as I write this.
And while my epiphany happened during a sequel that wasn't as good as the original, I made up for it by going to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on opening day at the Mann National in Westwood, at 11:00am. It was May 24, 1989 and I was just about to graduate from film school. It was heaven to be in that theater, the anticipation of seeing the movie, the anticipation of being launched into the big wide world of movies and making movies. The anticipation of my life getting started and it all being up to me. My heart was racing. Fade in.
First was this one (click to make bigger, but it doesn't get too much bigger):
Then a block or so later, this one (also click to make bigger--again, not much):
(Apologies for the super lo-res quality -- I only had my camera phone on me. The marine layer wasn't helping. And I was DWP (thank you Sarah): Driving While Photographing.)
To me, these signs are just as exciting as the Jacarandas, though in a different way. I love movies. No, you don't understand: I LOVE MOVIES. I grew up on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and we had two movie theaters, each with one screen of course, and we had to wait what seemed like FOREVER for movies to come. Then they stayed for weeks. In high school, instead of just following the crowds every weekend to the party in the pineapple fields, I would sometimes just go to the movies by myself. I loved going by myself, no one to bother you with chatting, you sit where you want, eat the greasy popcorn just the way you liked. Before I got married, my favorite weekend thing to do was to Worship at the Church of Cinema -- go to the 11:00 am Sunday movie, by myself.
When I moved to LA to go to film school -- oh, do I need to share my "what am I going to study in school/epiphany!" moment? Okay, Okay, I'll share. It was the summer of 1984 (in between my junior and senior years of high school) and my college counselor said -- think about what you want to study in college. I had no idea. I loved history and I loved the spanish language, but what do I do with that? Oh well, summer's here, I'll worry about it later. Well, I worried about it a lot (I was so excited about going to college.) I got to spend about six weeks in Los Angeles in the summer of 1984, visiting friends and family. It was a BIG DEAL to go on a trip like that. And I got to go to the movies. In Los Angeles. Where they make movies!
Think back to the summer of 1984 -- it was a big movie summer: Ghostbusters, Splash, Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins, Purple Rain, Romancing the Stone, Footloose. But most exciting of all, I mean, ZOMG!!!1111!!!!!ONE11!! was: INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM!!! The sequel was finally here. Oh man, I was so excited about it, beyond excited. I mean I bought clothes at Banana Republic, back when it was safari clothes (Remember? Yes you do.) I had a gun belt and a fedora. Yes I did. My friends called me "Diana Jones." I'm not ashamed.
So there I was, in a real movie theater, a movie palace, with a huge screen and a big audience, seeing a first run movie within a week of its release. My heart was racing. Then the movie started and--let's be honest--it was not the best of the series, but who cared at the time? Anyway, there was I was, enthralled and in the middle of the mine shaft chase sequence it happened: I had a life changing epiphany. I COULD GO TO FILM SCHOOL! I COULD WORK IN THE MOVIES!
So I did and I do.
And I love it. And even after all the years in the biz, am I jaded? Hell no. To this day or at least to the most recent day I sat in movie theater (about 10 days ago, "Shooter") When the lights go down and the trailers start, I get goosebumps and my heart races with the excitement of being in a theater, watching a movie. It is making me smile as I write this.
And while my epiphany happened during a sequel that wasn't as good as the original, I made up for it by going to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on opening day at the Mann National in Westwood, at 11:00am. It was May 24, 1989 and I was just about to graduate from film school. It was heaven to be in that theater, the anticipation of seeing the movie, the anticipation of being launched into the big wide world of movies and making movies. The anticipation of my life getting started and it all being up to me. My heart was racing. Fade in.
Labels: college, movies, summer
