Every summer when my children were younger, we spent countless nights at our local drive-in theater. Sadly, it closed halfway through the summer last year, and isn’t slated to open this summer either, due to renovation plans. I hope it does reopen, but I’m not optimistic.
There’s nothing like sitting outside on a blanket on the tailgate of a pickup or under a blanket on a folding chair with a huge screen before you and the sounds of the movie coming from speakers all around you. Add to that a giant tub of popcorn and some cold drinks and you have the perfect way to spend an evening. To make things better, most of the time there were two movies, so it made for a long, yet pleasant, evening. By the time we’d pack things up, it would be well past one a.m., and I’d usually have to transfer the sleeping kids to the car.
I miss those nights.
Movies, especially when watched at a drive-in theater or in a really nice cinema, are magical. It’s sad that the theaters I once loved are now gone or abandoned and falling apart.
The Granada theater in Norfolk was probably my first experience with a theater that I remember. To my child’s mind, it was massive, but it would probably pale in comparison to some of the behemoth theaters that exist now. With age, I do appreciate the size and the reclining aspect of today’s theater seats, but I have a nostalgia for the old flip-down padded seats.
I wish I could remember the first movie I ever went to in a theater, but I don’t. I do remember going to the drive-in theater in Norfolk back when there still was one, and I recall watching “The Thing,” starring Kurt Russell, there and being extremely frightened while watching it. That’s because it was on that big screen which intensifies everything it projects — or because I’m just a big fraidy cat when it comes to horror movies.
While I appreciate the ease in which cable and Netflix bring movies into my home, I bemoan the decline of movies and their theaters that accompanied the surge in popularity of streaming services — that decline was then compounded by the Covid restrictions. Fortunately, I’ve been noticing an uptick in quality movie premieres as well as people going to the movies — just look at what’s happening with “Top Gun: Maverick” right now.
I even saw a newer drive-in theater near Bennington called Quasar Drive-in Theater, and a look at its website shows that they show new and older movies. Might be worth a drive to take in one of the shows this summer.
Pairing my love of movies with my love of writing, I composed this poem about my life using only movie titles to do so. I call it “My ‘Reel’ Life.” Get it? I hope so. I haven’t seen all the movies whose titles I used, but I have seen many of them. I’ve added a few titles to the poem since the original composition, and I expect I’ll add more down the road to reflect additional twists to my life.
Here’s the poem:
My “Reel” Life We Are Marshall One Day in September Friday the 13th Happy Birthday to Me Tammy Eat Pray Love How to Swim We Need to Talk About Kevin I Want a Dog Big Bully Adventures in Babysitting 1984 Sixteen Candles Crush and Blush Rules of Dating Back By Midnight Riding in Vans with Boys The Girl on a Motorcycle A Beautiful Mind An Education The Assignment Easy A Student Bodies College Road Trip Twenty-One Bar Hopping 35 Shots of Rum The Hangover Dazed and Confused A Few Good Men 50 First Dates Two Lovers Falling in Love The Cowboy The Roommate The Proposal License to Wed A Wedding From Here to Eternity After the Wedding Married Life The Art of Getting By Hard Times Used Cars Nine to Five Life Reality Bites Follow That Dream Just Write Center Stage Leave ‘Em Laughing Funny Ha Ha The Absent-Minded Professor The Reader Due Date The Perfect Son Dream House Blink Busy Day Motherhood Because I Said So Dinner Time Early to Bed Birthday Girl I am Sam You Are My Sunshine My Best Friend Sylvia The Mexican This is 40 The Man Who Wasn’t There Useless Beyond Borders Anywhere But Here The Ocean The Real Cancun Swimming A Day at the Beach Under the Tuscan Sun Roman Holiday I Can Hear the Sea Barcelona Why Did I Get Married? Between Love and Hate The Wrong Guy The Ape Man Intolerable Cruelty Rocky The Jerk Big Fat Liar Misery The Awful Truth The Ugly Truth Rumor Has It . . . Another Woman All Hell Broke Loose Enough Loser The Moment of Truth People Will Talk The Divorcee Home Alone How to Deal A Better Life My Brilliant Career The Writer The Words The Rewrite The English Teacher Author! Author! The New Guy Kim Date Night Being There Let the Right One In Stand By Me True Romance On the Road Why We Ride The Motorcycle Diaries Nebraska Road Trip Vacation Easy Rider Don’t Look Back Just Imagine Hereafter It’s a Wonderful Life
Many people who have read my books tell me that they would make great movies and that they can “see” the stories as they read them as though they were movies playing in their heads. I always love hearing that, and I’d really love to have one or more of my books become movies someday.
Most of the time, though, in my opinion, the movie is either so very different from the book or it is done so poorly that it angers those who loved the book; however, every now and then the movie turns out to be so much better than the book or original story.
I’m going to share my favorite movies-from-books. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one. If you are, read on.
Thanks.
Tammy Marshall
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