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If you look at the top of the movies page, you’ll notice Chris
(our techie) has a thing up there saying “OVER 995 films in our
database.” That means that now’s the time to do an anniversary
celebratory article. Sometime this week, we’ve passed the official
1000 review mark.
Not only that, I first had an article up here ten years ago,
and I still haven’t gotten paid, oh well, we can always hope.
I don’t remember the first film I ever saw. It was probably on
television sometime in the late 1950s. My first full-fledged movie
experience was Disney’s Mary Poppins way back in 1964. The
endeavor was a complete failure. The line around Radio city Music
Hall was three deep around the block and we waited at least an
hour before Mom said “to hell with it” and took us out of the line
and over to Shraft’s for ice cream. I didn’t actually see it for
another couple of years.
In 1965, we moved from Manhattan to Westchester, where we would
go to the movies every other week or so. That is until the movie
theater went out of business, I don’t remember exactly when, but I
remember “Zardoz” and “Zabrinsky Point,” were family
jokes for decades.
In 1967, we were in San Francisco. My dad had a summer gig at
UC Berkeley, and we got a taste of the hippie scene in that
seminal year [I was ten and didn’t know what was actually going
on], and something even more important. The whole family would go
to one of the repertory theaters in Berkeley and see their WC
Fields festival. This was my true introduction to the art if the
cinema. Him and the Marx brothers were my heroes.
Chuck McCann was important too.
However, these were a different experience entirely from what
might be called my first adult film experience. In the early
summer of 1968, I was visiting my friend Steve in the City,
together we went to see Kubrick’s “2001” the way it was meant to
be seen: in full Cinerama at the Loews Astor Plaza. This was a
mind blower. My Uncle Dick managed to get me some publicity
posters. This was a mind-blower.
I remember going to the great films of the ‘70s, but not
exactly where or when. I remember the stuff at the Circle Theater
in DC and all those old and foreign films during the first round
of college, and the Thalia in uptown NYC in the early ‘80s. Seeing
“Rocky Horror” in the middle of the afternoon before anyone had
the idea to dress up. “Greaser’s Palace” by Robert Downey, Sr.
There was also “Deep Throat” and “The Devil in Miss Jones.” Hell,
I was in my early 20s. Porn had to have real plots back then.
Yeah, there was Jaws, Star Wars, and Superman I.
I saw everything. What’s strange is that I don’t remember seeing
Star Wars for the first time.
I first decided to become a critic just after my first book came
out. But I hadn’t a clue as to go about it. All I remember is that
I tried to do a review of Bernard Rose’s “Paperhouse” It
never got sold. As a professional cartoonist, I was able to get
some articles in Animation magazines, and here my first reviews
were printed. I actually got into my first press screening back in
1992. I was on my way, but not very fast.
However, I did manage to get into the Warner Bros. movie club,
and saw about a year’s free movies, and I managed to get into
quite a few what are called “consumer” screenings.
I covered Disney’s Pocahontas jamboree in central park
for a defunct paper called the Manhattan Mirror in 1995,
and the following year started doing reviews for a thing called
Animato!, now also extinct. This was about the time I met
Howie Fliescher, who was then selling comic books on the street on
the corner of Greenwich and Sixth.
The next year, he and a guy named Rich Schiff started up a
webzine called “the Greenwich Village Gazette, I did some
articles for them, and used their stationary to get myself on the
press list for the big Hercules celebration they were
having in New York, which included a parade and everything. The
review I did of the movie was the first published here.
So it’s been nine years and a thousand reviews. That’s
approximately 110 a year. What I’ve learned is that there’s a
whole lot of crap out there, and since the average cost of my
going to each film was about a buck or less (usually the cost of a
phone call plus subway fare), and for the most part it was worth
it.
Seeing all these movies grinds one down, and there was indeed
fatigue in points. I am one of the few original web critics still
there, and I first started an occasional blog back in 1999, when
the term hadn’t even been invented yet. It’s been a long strange
trip.
Aside from special effects, movies are neither better nor worse
since 1997. People will bitch about how much better stuff was way
back when, but the simple fact is, is that there’s always lots of
crap out there and kvetching is a bigger sport than football.
It’s been a trip, and I’m good to go for another thousand
reviews.
Eric Lurio
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