Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Movie Nostalgia part #4

Another batch of rain came through last night and will continue this morning as a cold front gets ushered in, bringing in snow flurries and cold win tonight.  My personal cold is still hanging on, with the drain plug open, making it difficult to get a good nights sleep.

Another Junior High Girls double header tonight at Spencerville, then after a day off, another pair in Celina Thursday....Boys action begins Friday, and I'll stay busy with a JV game Friday and 3 games on Saturday, 2 in the morning and a JV Boys game Saturday night.

The Jeep Wrangler suffered it's 3rd broken windshield in the 8 years I've had it....and the guys from Lima that do the work for Nationwide Insurance, will be over sometime today to replace that...I'm guessing the flat up and down design of that model makes it susceptible to rocks damage, and that's why I've had the problems.

Movie Nostalgia Part #4, the Final Chapter the 1970s___

After I turned 30 in 1979 I found myself going to movies less and less, instead choosing to watch most on VHS or DVD releases....there have been some exceptions, The Harry Potter Stuff, Spiderman, as well as Indiana Jones, but for the most part, we have chosen to catch the vast majority at home.  Up until that time I was a movie junkie catching the good and even some bad flicks, at the walk in theaters in the towns I lived or the bases I was stationed in my four year Air Force stint.  I caught a few hundred at the area drive-in show places as well.

As I mentioned yesterday, the 70s began at Tan Son Nhut Air Base Theater, which was located right next to the 377th Security Police Compound where I lived the first six months of the new decade.... the movie house was a quick 5 minute walk, at most, from my barracks.  I saw a few afternoon shows there(since I was working the 7pm to 5am shift), including "The Undefeated" and "MASH".  Later in 1970 I returned stateside, and was stationed at Griffiss AFB, in Rome, New York, and frankly don't remember a base theater there, although I'm sure we had one.  I watched most of the flicks from the early 1970s in a movie house in nearby Utica.  Usually with my buddies, the late Jack Friedl or George Hundley, and a few others, whose names I have forgotten in the nearly 40 years since.

There I saw the first of Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" offerings, as well as the coming of age classic "Summer of 42".  After moving back to Celina in 1973 I saw some of my favorite movies of all time.  Included in that list was another coming of age flick "American Graffiti", in which the acting and story were only topped by the classic music that flowed throughout the film:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFgTMYEaWlc

 In 1974, on Patricia and my first "real date", we took off on my Kawasaki Motorcycle and after a meal at the local Pizza Hut, we took in "Blazing Saddles" at the Celina Theater.....those great movies were followed by more viewed at the same location.  "Rocky", Star Wars","Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and my all time favorite Eastwood Western, "The Outlaw Josey Wales"...as well as  dozens of others.  I was so impressed with Josey that I named one of my Airedales after the flick....changing the spelling, naming him "Josie Wales".:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvf8r3cX3vo

In late 1977 we moved to Wausau, Wisconsin, where we remained for a couple of years....I remember the night before Anissa was born, February 16, 1979, we took in the hilarious Cheech and Chong in "Up in Smoke"...Anissa was born late the next Afternoon. We finished out the decade of the 1970s in Kokomo, Indiana, and took in the first "Star Trek" movie on the big screen.

There are plenty of great movies that I left off the list..."Rio Bravo", the John Wayne and Dean Martin entry from the 1960s...."House on Haunted Hill" with Vincent Price, from the 50s, and those from the 1980s, like "Airplane", and "Caddyshack", through today.  Of course I saw some trash as well...like the Mega Disaster themes, "Earthquake" and "Towering Inferno", and those God awful Blacksplotation movies "Shaft" and "Superfly",  racist garbage that insults the intelligence of viewers of any and all races.

All in all though most of the movies I have chosen to view, whether on the big screen, or via TV or DVD, have been worth the couple hours spent...many are worth watching many times over.....

back later>>>>

Photos-MASH the Movie, the last flick I saw while stationed in Vietnam.  "Rocky" was a surprise blockbuster from the mid 1970s.  Eastwood was at his best in "Dirty Harry" and as "The Outlaw Josey Wales.  "American Graffiti", "Blazing Saddles". and "Up in Smoke" were among my favorites of the decade.

4 comments:

Debie Elliot said...

I probably like movies that no one else does. Pat here is a bit of trivia for you. "This movie was filmed approximately 2005. It was a story about a woman from Defiance Ohio who was lucky at winning jingle contests. It also had someone play the part of our lady who writes The Spice Rack for the Paulding Progress who was a friend of hers. The movie starred Woody Harrelson and Julianne Moore. The girls from the Progress Newspaper all got passes and got to walk the red carpet. If you guess this movie, I will buy you an ice cream cone. DE

PRH said...

It was simply called "Defiance, Ohio" if I remember....now that's my guess, without looking.

PRH said...

OK...Now I peeked...it was "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio"....I was close, but no cone for me...

Debie Elliot said...

If you should ever decide to take a peek at this movie, it makes you feel pretty close to home. The movie took place in Defiance and the preview was shown in Defiance. At the end there is a picture and information about our reporter who has been writing her Spice Rack for over 50 years. She did the jingles too back in the 50's. She is 90 years old now and writes her column from home, she even runs a computer and is on Facebook. Maybe there is hope for me!

Before February Ends...

The plan is, is to get at least a post a month here for 2024...so here we are in later February so let's do it... It has been, for the m...