Dark Knight Begins Forever

I was never a fan of Batman before the 1989 Tim Burton feature. I never read the comics, and the TV show was so campy that even 8 year old me couldn't completely embrace it. I was not very excited about a new Batman movie coming out, but I remember everyone else seemed to be. Somehow I ended up seeing this the day before opening day (with Diego Bagatell I'm pretty sure) after a day of hanging out at Piedmont Park. Why I went to an apparently sneak preview screening of a movie I wasn't even excited to see, I don't remember. But I do remember loving it.

The screening was at Hoyt's Midtown 8, later to become United Artists' Midtown 8, where I worked from 1996-1999, and now Landmark Theatre's Midtown Art Cinema (which is essentially the same shitty theatre, but now with tacky carpet, more froo-froo concession options, and a somewhat more discerning programmer, which I guess gives them license to call it an "art cinema."

Dinamation!

What kid doesn't love dinosaurs? What kid doesn't love the zoo? This must've been a great day: animatronic dinosaurs and gorillas. This was the closest I ever got to going to an actual Jurassic Park.

Why the name "Age of the Living Dinosaurs" though? "Age of the Dinosaurs" would be enough, but sounds too educational. I suppose calling it just "Living Dinosaurs" could get them in trouble for false advertising. "Age of the Living Dinosaurs" makes it sound like zombies are going to be involved. Has anyone made a dinosaur zombie movie yet? Don't.

Restricted

One of the challenges of loving action and horror movies as a teenager in Clinton's America was skirting the "no unaccompanied children under 17" policy. The easiest way to do this was to simply buy a ticket to another movie and rest assured that the other teenagers who are tasked with upholding the integrity of the Avondale 16 second-run shitorium don't really care what you do once you're inside. I never did see A Goofy Movie, and I can't exactly remember what I did see instead. Looking at a list of releases from 2-3 months prior, I would guess that it was probably Die Hard: With A Vengeance, which means I probably was with Rich Adams or Jon Jowers.

Crappy movies I paid to see at Beechwood

That's right, you snobs, I thought Crouching Tiger was crappy. At least the Cell had a split horse! If I have to watch a fantasy kung-fu movie, I'd rather watch Sammo Hung fight hopping vampires than see Chow Yun Fat look extremely awkward as wires jerk him all over the screen.

Beechwood was the closest, most mainstream theatre to everywhere I lived in Athens. Probaby 90% of the movies I saw between 1999-2003, I saw there. Almost always, if I was seeing a crappy movie, I would have been with James Godino or Matt Gragg. James and I would often see two movies for the price of one (I believe the technical term is "hopping"). I'm pretty sure we saw Tomb Raider after we saw Shrek. June 19, 2001 shall henceforth be known as Black Tuesday.

Chucky Bride

One of my favorite places to see horror movies in Atlanta was North Dekalb Mall. Around my junior year of high school, they started adding midnight shows on weekends, and you could be assured the crunkest crowds would be out in full force during opening week. It was like every clown, joker and wise-ass from Atlanta, Decatur and wherever the hell else seemed to put down their crack-pipe, 40 oz., or in my case, Mountain Dew, and flow like a raging river of crazy to communally witness the wholesale slaughter of second-rate TV actors as written by second-rate TV writers and directed by third-rate Hollywood directors. Or in the case of Bride of Chucky, second-rate Hong Kong director, Ronny Yu.

A midnight movie at North Dekalb was 3D before 3D came back into fashion. It was Movies 2.0 where every member of the audience was interacting with the movie, whether you wanted them to be or not. I'm not talking about snide, post-MST3K comedic cat-calling hipster douchebags (see a horror movie in Olympia, Washington and you'll understand). The interaction I'm talking about is way weirder and more akin to the "Don't go in there!" and "Ohnohedi-uhnt" stereotypes of lore, but far more surreal and tolerable.

Bride of Chucky is perhaps my favorite North Dekalb experience of all. The movie, if nothing else, is a crowd-pleaser if your crowd consists of me, my friends who counted Jack Frost and Getting Lucky amongst their favorite films, and 300 rowdy, inner-city African American kids. People had clearly snuck into the theatre, as there were no more seats in the room, and kids were sitting on the steps.

A most joyous burst of "Yeah Chucky, smoke one!" united the audience in laughter and mirth as on-screen a puppet lit a marijuana cigarette.

An awkward tension was quickly defused by a cheer of "Chucky bust-a-nut!" as on-screen two plastic dolls joined in passionate coitus.

Everyone left that screening changed for the better.

Postscript: Years later I was told that a friend of a friend who works in a video store in Alaska was amazed by how well Bride of Chucky continues to rent to this day... or at least with a segment of the African American community in this Alaskan town. According to the legend, few weekends pass without the question "Y'all got Chucky Bride?!"

Uncontrollable Urge

Most people probably don't know that I collect ticket stubs. I must have started when I was around eight years old or so. I'm not sure what spawned the habit, but I've pretty carefully held onto every tiny piece of paper detritus from each movie, sporting event, or concert I've been to since 1988. The only exception is Seattle's Landmark Theatres' ticket stubs, which are printed on flimsy receipt paper, and are hardly worth saving.

I've been meaning to scan these ticket stubs into a digital format before they fade away or disappear. For over a decade they collected in a little wicker basket in my bedroom, but I've since relocated them to Ziploc freezer bags in a shoebox. Somewhere in an attic in Atlanta, my earliest stubs are collected in a scrapbook.

Tonight while I was on the phone with my mom, she mentioned that her and my dad took me to a Devo concert in 1982. I immediately remembered a ticket stub: one that I found amongst my parents' things (and horded for my own collection) decades ago. This inspired me to finally get this idea going.



I have no memory of being at this concert (give me a break, I had just turned 2), but I'm told I enjoyed it. Thanks, Devo. With most stubs I will try and post some sort of memory, even if it's just who I was with and what I remember. Like when Jordan Smith and I saw Metallica in 1992 from a "pit" in the center of their circular stage at the Omni:



This is Jordan and I on Halloween (probably 1999). In the background you can see the aforementioned wicker basket as well as my discontinued Coca-Cola bottle and can collection, and an odd collection of posters that reflected my interests at the time.



I plan on randomly pulling a few ticket stubs a week and posting them here until I get bored with it, or I am told to stop. Of course, not everything I pull will have a personal story with it. For instance:




I never went to Lollapalooza. And I certainly would have remembered seeing Poison. I'm just such a packrat that at some point I found these ticket stubs on the ground, picked them up, and added them to my stockpile. Weird, right?

Speaking of weird, I was at this show: