Bad Raptor
Agent
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2021
- Messages
- 27
- Real Name
- Brian Watt
I’ve been monitoring this web forum for a couple of years now and enjoying the discussions. My love of films started when my brothers and I would spend hot, smoggy summer afternoons in the only theater in Glendora in the early 60s. For those unfamiliar with Southern California, Glendora at that time was a small, Norman Rockwell-type of enclave tucked up against the San Gabriel Mountains where the smog from Los Angeles would linger in the summer months. In the 1960s its July 4th and Labor Day festivities were reminiscent of what was depicted in the film Picnic with William Holden and Kim Novak except on a smaller scale. Glendora is bigger now having sprawled as most towns have and has lost a bit of that Main Street, America charm but the air is much cleaner. No really.
Disneyland had opened a few years before and my family would make the occasional pilgrimage to the Magic Kingdom. The movie tickets were free and could be had if one just visited Bock’s, the local toy store, perusing the shelves and maybe even buying a toy, a Revell model of a hot rod or PT-109, or a Lincoln Log set, what have you. We would watch two or three movies a day in that air-conditioned theater (much to our mom’s relief) watching anything from just released war pictures to sci-fi to pirate pictures and re-releases of Prince Valiant, War of the Worlds, or a Universal Frankenstein or Wolfman film.
Over the years, I’ve moved often and all over California and taken in movies in towns that I was just passing through on my way to conduct business somewhere or enjoy time in the Sierras. Those memories are etched in my brain, like the afternoon I took in Peter Weir’s The Last Wave in Placerville while a torrential downpour could be heard outside. A perfect complement to that film.
As many of you here, I have an extensive collection of films on DVD, Blu-ray, and a growing number of 4k UHD discs. I have a pretty decent home theater set up in my living room that takes advantage of the acoustics of the high ceiling. As for my tastes in film, I’m not a big fan of horror – particularly slasher films but instead like anything from filmmakers such as Hitch, David Lean, Powell & Pressburger, Herzog, Capra, W.S. Van Dyke, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang, Merchant/Ivory, Peter Weir, and most of what Ridley Scott has made (we can talk about Prometheus someday).
I’ve written about films, screenwriters, actors, and directors on other web sites over the years and I hope to write more about them here, if you’ll indulge me. I look forward to your comments and happy to be here.
Disneyland had opened a few years before and my family would make the occasional pilgrimage to the Magic Kingdom. The movie tickets were free and could be had if one just visited Bock’s, the local toy store, perusing the shelves and maybe even buying a toy, a Revell model of a hot rod or PT-109, or a Lincoln Log set, what have you. We would watch two or three movies a day in that air-conditioned theater (much to our mom’s relief) watching anything from just released war pictures to sci-fi to pirate pictures and re-releases of Prince Valiant, War of the Worlds, or a Universal Frankenstein or Wolfman film.
Over the years, I’ve moved often and all over California and taken in movies in towns that I was just passing through on my way to conduct business somewhere or enjoy time in the Sierras. Those memories are etched in my brain, like the afternoon I took in Peter Weir’s The Last Wave in Placerville while a torrential downpour could be heard outside. A perfect complement to that film.
As many of you here, I have an extensive collection of films on DVD, Blu-ray, and a growing number of 4k UHD discs. I have a pretty decent home theater set up in my living room that takes advantage of the acoustics of the high ceiling. As for my tastes in film, I’m not a big fan of horror – particularly slasher films but instead like anything from filmmakers such as Hitch, David Lean, Powell & Pressburger, Herzog, Capra, W.S. Van Dyke, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang, Merchant/Ivory, Peter Weir, and most of what Ridley Scott has made (we can talk about Prometheus someday).
I’ve written about films, screenwriters, actors, and directors on other web sites over the years and I hope to write more about them here, if you’ll indulge me. I look forward to your comments and happy to be here.
