At the Movies, Then and Now.

The first time I saw an Indiana Jones movie, I was really frightened. I hate to admit it. But the scary music on Scooby Doo used to scare me, too, which is just funny, I guess. My sister recently explained her theory about why movies used to affect us so much: it was because we didn't have TV and hardly ever, ever, went to movies. We could therefore not foresee the formulaic plot because we did not know the formula. I could count on one hand the number of movies I went to until I was 10: On Golden Pond, Tron, ET, Windwalker, and some Clint Eastwood movie ... oh yes, thank you IMDB, it was Bronco Billy. Windwalker was the worst movie in memory. It was the worst because it was supposed to be something fun I did on my birthday, and I remember that the whole movie seemed to consist of a Native American walking through the snow and the wind was blowing. That was how I felt about my birthday. Since my birthday is in the cold, dark, dead wintertime, there's nothing fun to do on my birthday, usually. At least not when you live in a very small town, a small town that had one movie theater with only two movies at one time (I think it has grown to about seven now). My mom was going out of her way to do this nice thing for me, take me and a friend to the movies. I believe there was pizza involved, too.
Ah, but I have digressed. My point was that the most mild of movies made me afraid. I didn't know that the good guy always gets out, gets away. That is, if we're talking about Scooby Doo or Indiana Jones. I didn't know how to predict the twists and turns and I didn't have the knowledge that everything was actually all going to be safe, that there would be something entertaining, amusing, or sort of awesome to come out of a suspenseful or chaotic scene. That would have made it all a little less interesting.
I guess I sympathize too much with the pain and the stress that the characters are facing. That's the curse of the sensitive person. You can sense what other people are thinking and internalize it. If you are away from home for two days, and the phone did not ring once during that time, you internalize it and wonder why no one likes you. Others who are less sensitive would just be glad no one was bothering them and glad that there was no affirmative duty to stop what they are doing and call back.
One of my favorite lines from the new Indiana Jones movie is:
"You fight like a young man. Too eager to start and too eager to finish." I could relate to that. There was another line filled with wisdom that I liked. It was something Harrison Ford said. I can't remember it right now.

Update: I remembered. See May 28.