Well we have started another year, 2022. I can’t remember feeling weird about the years changing when I was growing up as much as I do now. Ever since we flipped over to 2000 instead of the 1900’s, I’ve had this feeling that we are one good snoot full away from waking up to find out we are required to wear Star Trek suits. It’s a scary thought because even Mr. Spock looked pretty decent in his skin-tight shirt and cool boots. If everyone looked like Lt. Nyota Uhura, hell yes, I am all in. However, now that I think about it, I never saw one single overweight person on the starship Enterprise nor did I see any on any planet they may have visited. I know I’m not in the physical condition conducive to looking snappy in a skin-tight shirt and it is not one of my new year resolutions either. I just can’t imagine a society where individuality is frowned upon and the freedom to wear the dumbest outfits (Bell bottoms & Tube Tops) available is prohibited. It will never happen. The first thing that would have to happen for that type of universal conformity is for a governing entity to make soft and almost unnoticeable adjustments to our daily attire in the name of safety and good will toward men so as to make everyone the same, say like mandatory face coverings. Sorry, I’m running amok and risk getting off topic…
Anyway, none of that is my point, in fact I don’t have a point so let’s talk about what one of my grandson’s got for Christmas. Our oldest grandson got this cool poster that is like a lottery scratch off ticket where it lists the Top 100 movies you must see and once you have watched the movie you scratch off the square to indicate that you have completed the chore. There is no prize in the scratch off, just a sense of satisfaction that you have accomplished something without getting off the couch…my kind of poster. My sticking point with that poster was the top 100 selection. Obviously, the person that developed this poster needed to put down the little Buda shaped bong with the chimney coming out of its head before they completely lose all sense of direction and intelligence. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the bong, I had a college roommate that spent his entire freshman year on the window seal of our fifth-floor dorm vigorously inhaling the contents of his bong and he turned out ok. Just ok though.
This poster my grandson received had some good selections along with some bad ones. I mean, Broke back Mountain would not be in my top 100 of any genres nor would the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I saw them both, one gave me a slight fear of tents and the other reinforced my disdain for haunted houses. Oh, I stuck it out through both movies, no pun intended and yes, the acting was pretty darn good in both. Even Meatloaf may have given the finest cinematic performance of his life in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with the exception of Paradise by the dash board light. The sheer length of that song qualifies the video version as a feature film.
On this poster, there is also the film, Stand by me, one of my all-time favorites. The adventures of four middle school aged boys, unsupervised, trekking off in the back woods of Maine to see a dead body. I can’t tell you how many times I did the same thing as a youngster. That’s some good wholesome fun if there ever was. That movie would be in my top 100 for sure. There is also the Shawshank Redemption, which I have to admit that I am a softy for prison movies but this one has to be the top prison movie of all time, hell it’s probably the best film of all time and if not, top 5 for sure.
Also, on his poster is The Godfather. This is one of my top movies but it may very well be in the top 5. It is one of the first movies that I can recall that I watched with my older brother on a Sunday night. I didn’t see it in the theater, my mother would never allow that. I saw it on a Sunday night once when I was allowed to stay home from Sunday night church service in the care of my older brother. My older brother decided that I was fully prepared at the ripe old age of 7, to watch a man get mowed down by machine guns for simply trying to pay his causeway toll. I’ve been leery of toll booths since that time. There may have been some mental and emotional scaring done that night when Michael Corleone, after apparently getting upset about the suggestion of eating Veal in an Italian restaurant decided to put a bullet directly in the foreheads of his dinner dates, but it is too soon to tell. I also remember the TV guide disclaimer, “Due to mature subject matter, parental discretion is advised.” Has anyone ever had an older brother that exercised discretion while babysitting their younger siblings? Me either.
There are some other good movies on the list like “Rocky”. I remember that my big sister took me to see Rocky in the theaters, I will always appreciate that because I wasn’t old enough to drive in 1976 and I really wanted to see this movie. I am glad she took me. Once the movie was over, I remember wanting to beat the hell out of someone but since I weighed about 90lbs back then, I settled for air boxing all the way back to our car. For weeks, I begged my mom to get some chickens so I could chase them around the yard like rocky did in the movie, but despite my pleas for a workout partner in the form of edible barn fowl, she never gave in. One morning with Rocky still heavy on the brain, I put on some long johns covered by gym shorts (I didn’t have any gray sweatpants), cracked a bunch of raw eggs into a glass and drank it down because I just knew it would give me tons of extra stamina and energy, but all I got was diarrhea and some bad breath. It is amazing the impact that movies have on us. I could still watch Rocky today and every time I watch it, I not only think of my big sister, I develop a Pennsylvania leg breaker accent, “Yo Adrian… I was wonderin if you wouldn’t mind marrying me too much.” That is romance if I have ever heard it.
I could go on and on about the travesty of this top 100 poster and the Academy award winning performances that were clearly overlooked but I won’t. Geez, they didn’t even have FRONTERAS on the poster so I know it can’t be legit. What is legit though, is the time that my grandson gets to spend with his dad as they check off the list. Now that’s genius.