Journal
Fumbling Towards Forty: Movies

The first movie I have any memory of watching is the first thing I loved besides Vanna White: Ghostbusters
I used to watch Ghostbusters over and over and over. I’m talking multiple times a day. If my parents had nothing to watch they had no problem letting me watch that same VHS tape again and again. I would sometimes even watch it rewind in the VCR. For those born after the 1990s, there were a few ways to rewind a VCR tape. There was a device you could buy specifically to rewind the tapes fast. You could rewind it in the VCR while not showing anything on screen. That was the most popular way. Then there was me. Hitting the rewind button while Ghostbusters just finished. And watching the movie go backwards. To the beginning. To watch it again.
Fumbling Towards Forty: Prologue
Fumbling Towards Forty: The Internet
Fumbling Towards Forty: Camping
Fumbling Towards Forty: Drugs
Fumbling Towards Forty: Videogames
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part I
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part II
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part III
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part IV
I watched the shit out of Ghostbusters. I can’t remember if we ever owned a proper store version of the movie but we absolutely had a version that was recorded off TV. I remember the channel. WXYZ in Detroit which is an ABC channel. Because I watched this TV version it cut out parts of the movie and also cut the screen (TV wasn’t widescreen, once again this is for the zoomers who wouldn’t know) so years later when I purchased the DVD of Ghostbusters it honestly felt like I watching a new version of the movie. Almost all of the scenes of the Ghostbusters at Columbia University was cut out of the TV version.
After Ghostbusters like most boys my age in North America next came Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had the videogame (the underwater dam level that drove my sister and I to absolute fits) and the movies and watched the cartoon and everything. There’s a photo of me meeting someone dressed as a Ninja Turtle as a used car lot. That’s what we did back then. We would hear about some car salesman trying to drum interest by having someone show up dressed as a Ninja Turtle and we would go find that car dealership just to pose with the random unlicenced Ninja Turtle. The 90s rocked.
I have a faint memory of my oldest sister watching Amnityville Horror and telling me I had to leave the room because it was too scary and then not caring that I didn’t leave the room. I didn’t care for it. Stupid haunted house. This is why I rent.
The Movie Theatre
The only movie I remember seeing aside from Ghostbusters or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was really young was Ernest Scared Stupid. My uncle took me back when the River Rock in Chatham was a movie theatre and only showed two movies. Most of my other theatre experiences were at Cinema 6, which was a Stinson theatre. It had a theme song that’s in my head forever that I haven’t heard for probably 20+ years but it’s still in my head. It goes like this:
I loved that theatre. It had pictures of old Hollywood stars when you walked in, it was blueish, and I went there all the time. So much so it was one of my first jobs. I first worked corn detassling and then I worked at the Cinema 6. I got the job probably because one of my old friends worked there. I had to pop the popcorn and it sucked. One day we had to clean up the theatre after Red Dragon (it made no sense to me that the popcorn poppers had to clean the theatre after when they had unionized cleaning staff?) and I am positive I saw that someone ejaculated all over a seat. We had to clean up a VeggieTales movie theatre after and I refused to even go in. I quit soon after that. Did you know that the movie theatre will throw out fresh popcorn in giant garbage bags and if you take the popcorn home they yell at you?
Some of my best memories at the Cinema 6 include seeing Under Siege with my dad. I was seven years old and in one scene the blonde lady pops out of a cake with her breasts out. I thought that as a seven year old I should cover my eyes. Then I looked at my dad. He didn’t care. So I stopped hiding my eyes from naked breasts.
I also remember seeing Godzilla and it sucked so bad everyone basically started talking and throwing their food at people.
The Cinema 6 is now a microbrew called Sons of Kent and they actually make very good quality beer in Chatham, Ontario. Check them out. I prefer the Lone Wolf Coffee Blonde and the Flywheel Radler.
The Movie Theatre On Wheels
The best day at school was always when the teacher would wheel out one of these beasts.
There’s a joke that teachers would do this because they were hungover and didn’t want to teach class that day. If that’s true then my 10th grade History teacher was always drunk because I don’t actually think we ever had a day of class without watching something on that TV on wheels.
I remember watching so many movies on it. I saw Twister (I saw it in theatre and it was awesome. On VHS? It sucked), I saw The Matrix in 9th grade math class (the teacher even tried to say it was a movie about math to make it make sense), I saw a bunch of Disney movies (and even snuck out of class during Hercules to go do something else) and Casper…
Casper is funny. I think every single girl in my 6th grade class became women that day when Casper turned into Devon Sawa. Like I can still hear the gasp the girls did in the class when he said, “Can I keep you?”
I remember in religion class my teacher would show us Christian music videos like “Jesus Freak” by DC Talk and VeggieTales “My Cheeseburger” which has meant I have a better knowledge of Christian 90s/00s music. I also had a crush on Stacie Orrico when she had that song “Stuck” so that made the music go down easier. My Cheeseburger rocks though. Good shit.
I’ve asked teachers if it’s true they were hungover when they showed movies. Turns out it wasn’t just for hangovers. A lot of times you just don’t have enough stuff to fill in the course so showing a movie is a way to fill the time. That makes sense.
Oh yeah I remember one time two kids tried to ride the TV cart. It didn’t go well.
Donnie Darko
I always wanted to work at Blockbuster as a kid. I thought if I worked at a movie and videogame rental store I would be in heaven. I could watch movies and videogames all the time on company dime. That was the dream. I tried to get a job at Blockbuster multiple times and they never hired me. Now they are out of business. Coincidence? Doubt it.
I remember one time trying to rent Donnie Darko. It got a lot of critical acclaim online from people who liked movies that I liked so I rented it at Blockbuster. I took it home and inside was Donnie Brasco. You know, the gangster movie with Al Pacino and Johnny Depp? I watched it and liked it. But it wasn’t Donnie Darko.
I take it back and tell the guy hey, I was trying to rent Donnie Darko but it only has Donnie Brasco. He goes that’s weird and checks the copies of Donnie Brasco. Nope, they got Donnie Brasco. He then checks the other copy they have of Donnie Darko. You know what was in there?
A copy of Donnie Brasco.
So I have never seen Donnie Darko. Clearly there is a force in this world making sure I never see it.
Stealing DirecTV
It was really popular in the 90s/00s to buy a satellite dish for an American satellite provider and then get these pirate cards to put into it so you could watch all of the stuff for free. My dad got us DirecTV I think in 1998 or 1999. Definitely in 1999 since I remember watching a lot of movies from 1999 on it.
The DirecTV is why I got to enjoy a lot of American TV that a lot of my friends didn’t. I knew MTV stuff better than most Canadians. I even enjoyed the MTV New Years Eve show in 99. But back to the movies.
Fight Club.
I didn’t see Fight Club in theatre, but when it came on DirecTV? I watched it religiously. I would throw it on almost every day. They had multiple channels showing it at different periods so sometimes I would switch between them to get to scenes I liked. Fight Club became my favourite film as a teenager due to that.
I also saw Almost Famous the first time this way, and watched it just as much as I watched Fight Club. Essentially anything that came out between 1999-2002 I was able to watch because of the pirated DirecTV.
Eventually it became too difficult to keep paying for new pirate cards and we either had to buy our own system to create them or give up. We gave up.
Park Street Video
I finally started to build my own collection of movies as a teenager. The first DVD I owned was Nine Inch Nails: And All That Could Have Been. I owned it before we even had a DVD Player. I used to buy movies from Blockbuster on their previously viewed rentals. There was one time one of my mom’s friends let me borrow Das Boot and Blade Runner: Directors Cut. This would be the first time I saw Blade Runner (Das Boot is cool too) and it soon became an obsession for me. It would eventually become my favourite film.
Eventually moving out and living on my own I didn’t have a lot of money so most movies I watched came from either being at someone’s place to watch movie or downloading it online. My pirate days continued.
Eventually I moved onto Park Street and there was a small movie shop there. The people who ran it were definitely movie snobs and made sure to fill it with movies that were critically acclaimed or cult classics. I loved Park Street Video. I rented Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky there. Of course it was great! I saw Reservoir Dogs the first time there, and when I first rented it the widescreen version didn’t work and I had to watch the fullscreen. I told the guy there and he thanked me for letting him know and said they’d get a new copy. He then let me keep the copy because he said the fullscreen version was worthless. I miss little movie stores like that.
Acting!
I did some plays in grade school but didn’t try for anything in high school. Somehow going to college for journalism got me wrapped into doing a few acting performances for university short films. One was called Moving On and the other was What If. I don’t know if I got paid for them but I do still have copies of the movies.
I have also done a bunch of stuff for my buddy Dave and his Trauma Pro Wrestling stuff. I’m honestly embarrassed about 99% of the work in them and it feels like the sort of thing that will one day come to haunt me but it’s also a lot of fun and I love seeing someone put so much time and effort into silly little stories about cumfish and hey, I got to wrestle for a Sword in a Stone.
My best performance? Yeah, it’s gotta be Gary “Motorboat” Tiller. I should get an IMDb page after that performance.
The Best List
So I should probably talk about my favourite films eh?
I mean I mentioned my love of Ghostbusters, Fight Club, Blade Runner, what’s my current favourite film?
It’s funny. I feel like I have to specify that I have a favourite film and the movie I enjoy the most. It’s the same thing usually, but in my brain it isn’t.
The movie I enjoy the most and what I usually call “the best film” is Blade Runner 2049. I saw that on a midnight showing at SilverCity before it closed down (now replaced by Landmark) on a rainy day. I biked to the theatre in the pouring rain and it stopped raining while I was locking my bicycle up. I didn’t get out until like 2 or 3AM.
I went into Blade Runner 2049 with very low expectations. I didn’t expect a sequel to be any good. I did like Ryan Gosling and was happy Harrison Ford was back but I just didn’t have any confidence in it. And then I watched it. And I realized I watched everything I ever wanted to see in a Blade Runner sequel. It was more than that. It was better than Blade Runner.
The film I consider my “favourite” is likely Almost Famous. I can watch it any day, any time, and it’ll make me happy. Everything about it is a point of comfort for me. I can’t watch a clip or two on YouTube because I’ll just get stuck into that experience. I think it had a part in me becoming a journalist a decade later.
If I had to make a list of the movies I love the most I would probably go with:
– Blade Runner 2049 (Blade Runner as well)
– Almost Famous
– The Nice Guys (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as well)
– Big Trouble in Little China (The Thing as well for Kurt Russell/John Carpenter team ups)
– The Raid 2: Berandal (I like the sequel better than The Raid but both are the greatest martial arts action movies ever made)
– Lost In Translation (an extremely important film for me at 18 years old and the reason why going to Japan is still a life goal for me)
– Fight Club (honestly I was at one point a Pro Fincher guy and could list SE7EN, Zodiac, The Social Network, and Gone Girl on a list)
– Michael Clayton
– Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (My type is Mary Elizabeth Winstead)
– Heat (I’ve listened to every Ringer podcast on Heat)
– Less Than Zero (let me explain…)
80s Teen Movies
I have a thing. So in Part III: Music I talked about getting into New Retrowave. Around the same time I got into new retrowave I also got into watching 80s teen movies. The fact that a lot of synthwave songs on YouTube are shown with a music video that’s just clips of 80s teen movies was a big reason for that. Also San Junipero from Black Mirror.
At some point I saw Less Than Zero. I am a big James Spader guy and I think that’s what got me interested in it. I think I had just re-watched some Spader 80s movies after finishing watching Boston Legal and I decided to try Less Than Zero. I knew about its reputation as a terrible adaptation of the book because it turned it into an anti-drug story instead of it being just an escapades of the young and rich film. But watching it? I was hooked.
I completely understand how in the 1980s people felt like the film adaptation of Less Than Zero was them cleaning it up for an anti-drugs message in Reagan America but damn if it isn’t beautifully shot and beautifully acted. One of my favourite 80s movies. https://t.co/DLSJyNWGIv pic.twitter.com/HXn3CaCh7k
— Aaron – GrapPro.com (@AaronWrotkowski) November 9, 2024
It’s got a great performance by Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey Jr. James Franco is at his peak slimy 80s drug dealer. Jami Gertz is fantastic essentially being in the middle of it all. And the movie for pure
a e s t h e t i c
is just amazing. It’s more pure than any 80s pastiche you see. It nails the true colours of the 1980s because it was made in the 1980s. The blues and pinks just hit different in this. The mood, the feeling, the everything. There isn’t a movie I love more for essentially everything except the plot. It would rank high for me as a film even without ever ignoring or excusing the fact the plot doesn’t really work.
But this got me into watching 80s teen movies. I’ve watched so many. Of course the Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire but then you got Adventures in Babysitting, A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon, Can’t Buy Me Love, Diner, Heathers, One Crazy Summer, Rivers Edge, Streets of Fire, The New Kids, The Sure Thing, The Rachel Papers, Tuff Turf, Mannequin, About Last Night, Bright Lights Big City, Jack’s Back, and more I can’t remember.
I have to thank my friend Sara for watching a bunch of them with me. It helped she’s also a James Spader fan.
What do I love about 80s teen movies? Some of these border teens into more young adult movies but it’s all the same to me. There’s a different energy to them. There’s a different spirit. There’s only a few movies I’ve seen since that really grab me the way those movies do. Even thinking to the movies in my teens and early adult life they don’t hit the same way. Superbad did. Scott Pilgrim did in some ways. But the last time I watched say Road Trip or American Pie, it didn’t make me feel the way John Cusack in The Sure Thing or Elisabeth Shue in Adventures in Babysitting did. There’s a sincerity and honesty that just doesn’t exist anymore, or at least I have rarely seen it anymore. Everything is dripped in sarcasm, hyperbole, and insincerity today and I hate it. Even if I contribute to it.
I know the love of 80s movies has always been inside of me since I’ve loved John Cusack movies since I was a teen and one of my girlfriends got me Say Anything for my birthday once.
It’s kinda crazy to think that my movie watching started in the 1980s but it was when I was very young (I was four in 1989) so there’s a part of me that loves to go back to that decade to watch those movies and experience a life I was too young for, but I’m still connected to.
See you in 2025.
Photo of me, Jeff, Adam, Danny, and Chuck seeing Green Lantern in Toronto on Adam’s Bachelor Party weekend in 2011