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The Oscars are coming in March. Who’s writing movie reviews?
Although I love to watch the Oscars, when recently prompted to write a movie review, I sat paralyzed, in a puddle of inadequacy, in a spotlight of being found out.
Sure, I used to go every Saturday to the Tower Theater when I was maybe nine or ten, and that’s what it cost for the Saturday matinee, ten cents. The show included three cartoons, a newsreel, and a full length movie — often a Superman feature film.
But what I most remember was the nougat candy, long and slim, the black-wrapped Big Hunk, a chewy quarter-inch-thick bar loaded with peanuts you had to catch with your lips as you bit your way through. And it only cost a nickel. The movie and the candy fit into my 25 cents a week allowance.
The Necco wafers were okay but never seemed to have enough chocolate and licorice in the roll, and the Jujifruits made a nice change once in a while, so chewy. They came in every color and looked like bright little gumdrops.
The movie I best recall was the episode where Superman was born on that other planet and he had to be sent to earth in some kind of interstellar capsule. Then we learned that the only thing that made him weak was kryptonite, which I shuddered in horror at.
In general though, I’m a movie-deprived kind of person, very much behind on what I should have seen. Occasionally I punch through Netflix’s tedious search box of letters and catch a classic like Lillies of the Field when recommended by a teacher or a friend.
But I never can remember the titles of movies, so it’s hard to talk about them or write about them. I mean if a writing prompt were given with the directions to watch a specific movie and right after watching it, to write a review, I’d love to. But movie titles are dotted sparsely inside my brain, and as I sit here I cannot recall any well enough to start to write a review.
It’s kind of like sermons. I like them, even love them when I’m in the experience, flooded with responses to the ideas, actions, words and sound I’m bathed in, but yet after they are over, they disappear like…
