Movie Magic: One Night At The Movies Long Ago

So there's little Blog-A-Thon going on today (we write) / tomorrow (we all get linked up to) organised by the Kid In the Front Row, and I thought it might be fun to join in! The idea is to all "share a memory from a memorable time we had at the movies, from some time in our past".

My only problem has been choosing just the one!

 Should it be the time I went with my mom and sisters to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? When my mom was all excited because I actually recognised "the Canyon of the Crescent Moon" and "The Temple" (Petra, Jordan) and told her "I've been there, right? I remember those places. We rode horseback through that canyon and there was a camel sitting in front of the temple and Gabby and I got to ride on it and we had to be very careful not to fall off forwards or backwards when it got up or got back down". And she was happy because at least some of all that crazy travelling we did once upon a time was still registered somewhere in my memory banks (it had been 6 years before the film). Oh, and that Temple isn't nearly as impressive on the inside as it is in the movie! :p

(image from Virginmedia.com)

Or should I choose the magical evening in a cinema in Mexico City when I went with a group of friends to see Willow and one of the guys and I gave in to our curiousity and discreetly peeked into an open door in the theatre. Who said curiosity killed the cat? We got treated to a delightful and for us magical introduction into how the movies we loved watching ended up being projected on that big screen in front of us! A wizened old man was running the projectors and he showed us the works! We got to see the reels, got see him put them up on the projector, have him explain to us how he cut one reel into another so we wouldn't notice a break in the middle of the film... Willow seemed all the more magical after that!

And what about the moment I realised I was an even bigger Star Wars fan that I thought? When the "restored" versions of the classic trilogy were re-released in '97 (?) I was in my second year of University in Alicante. I headed downtown to see the first one ("A New Hope") asap in the best theatre available at the time (they had just upgraded their sound system to THX), simultaneously thrilled to finally see one of my favourite movies on the big screen, and frustrated 'cause it was going to be dubbed in Spanish! Halfway through the movie I realised my brain was automatically replaying all the original dialogue in my head and I wasn't really hearing the dubbed dialogue at all! Nope I was hearing the real voices of Luke, Leia and Han! All the while identifying and counting every single teeny-tiny detail that had been modified! Which I then spent a long time discussing (during an very expensive call to the States) on the phone with my sister in DC... :p

Nope, still can't choose! Too many memories (walking out of Braveheart speaking with a Scottish accent, seeing The Lion King five times in the cinema despite not having been all that interested in it to start with, the intensity of La Reine Margot or Schindler's List, laughing at my sister's grasping my arm in fear during Jurassic Park even though she had already seen it... twice!, seeing the huge grin on my dad's face when we walked out of Mamma Mia! even though I kind of had to use some "emotional blackmail" to get him to go see it with me... and so on, and so forth), and am looking forward to those that are yet to be made! :o)