The year was 1982, I was 6 , my brother was 4, sister was 1 and we lived on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. The sleepy hollow of Palmwoods wasn’t exactly a hive of activity. My days were filled with playing on the homemade swing out the back and listening to my Choose 82 Record. When one afternoon my dad told me he was going to take my brother and I to the movies. This was a first for me, the very first time I would ever lay my eyes on the magic of the big screen , a day that literally changed my life forever.
I had no idea what to expect, and to be honest I probably didnt really know what a movie was. We had an old Krysler TV, so Sunday Night Disney was about my extent of knowledge when it came to showbiz type expereicne.
Dad gave me a choice of two flicks. We could see ET, some movie about an alien, or SuperMan 2. Now I had no idea who or what ET was, but I was a big fan of Superman in general. The choice was excrutiatingly hard. Little did I know at the time that the first movie I ever chose to see would or could impact my life forever. Not knowing the ramifications I chose ET, and have breathed that sigh of relief ever since.
Not only was I blown away by the magic of movies in general, but ET turned out to be an all time classic. It was also the first time I met Dew Barrymore ( even if it was on a large screen, and have remained a fan ever since) and we all know the fate of Superman 2, not some of Christopher Reeve’s finest work.
I was hooked, and have had a love of movies ever since. A love of escpaing from reality, letting my imagination run wild and expereicning a world where good does always win and romance is how you wished it would be. The boy does gets the girl, while beating the bad guy, and saves the planet , becomes extrememly rich and lives happily ever after.
Skip forward a few years and I scored my first job in media as a Movie Reviewer for The Sunshine Coast Daily, doing weekly movie reviews in my own column. After switching to radio for the past almost 2 decades, Movies still play a big part of what I now do, talking about them, critiquing them and enjoying how far they’ve come. I’ve seen plenty, my weekends in my youth would be spent seeing the latest flick, and since I started reviewing for the paper in 1992, I’ve at least seen a movie a week, every week with out fail.
FYI, although ET celebrates its 30th year in 2012, my all time fave is “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” starring John Candy and Steve Martin. Cause nothing says laugh out loud on screen moments than 2 men having to share the same bed waking up to ask
Where are your hands
Between two pillow
They’re not pillows.
They don’t make em like that anymore
