Thursday, October 29, 2009
When I was a kid, I had the tendency to get really attached to certain movies. I watched The Goonies so many times that my sister threw my copy away and told me the VCR ate it, and I continued watching The Monster Squad several times a week even after it started giving me nightmares.
Watching movies helped fuel my imagination and sense of adventure, and after watching I would often go outside and reenact them with myself in the lead role.
The Neverending Story was one of these movies. I always found myself identifying with the warrior Atreyu. I would jump around in excitement as he rode the luckdragon through the skies of Fantasia, sit tense and frightened as he fought Gmork, the evil wolf, and cry when his beloved horse drowned in the Swamp of Sadness.
So last year when I saw that The Neverending Story was showing at Liberty Hall for Midnight Movie Madness, I got more than a little excited. I hadn’t seen it in more than 10 years, and I was interested to see if I would still love the film the way did as a child.
Though I didn’t have the privacy of my parents’ living room to run and jump around during Atreyu’s action scenes, the hilarious banter from the crowd — especially during the now-creepy dialogue between Atreyu and the luckdragon — made watching the movie just as enjoyable as it was back then.
As an adult, I was able to understand the more mature themes in the film, such as the dangers of apathy and the loss of imagination. And, to my surprise, I still remembered a lot of the dialogue. Sure, the special effects looked really cheesy and Atreyu came off as a melodramatic teenager, but I appreciated the fact that as a child these things didn’t matter to me.
Read Jake’s story on page 4 about how Midnight Movie Madness got its start at Liberty Hall, and how it offers a movie-watching experience that can’t be found at many other venues.
Even if the event can’t give you the chance to revisit part of your childhood, it’s still an opportunity to take in great cult films in a way you couldn’t otherwise.
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