Watch the video before you read on!

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My power is more powerful than your power.

My funny is funnier.

I’m Scrunchy Von Scrunch Scrunch

My whoa is better than your whoa.

L-I-V-I-N!

My manly is more manly than your manly.

My talent is funnsmartandgreat.

I’m already my prepping my next reality show.

My TV show is more confusing.

I’m hotter.

I’m more annoying.

Your Oscar speech isn’t very good.

My batshit crazy is crazier than your batshit crazy.

Your cleavage owes my cleavage $20 bucks.

My jiggy smells like baby wipes.

Baby wipes?

My better.

My better.

Is better than your better.

My better is better than your better.

Thank you very much for coming.

TheJay.com SPARQ Training.

Just Bangarang It!

NOTE: I wrote this last year to celebrate the Bearded Master’s big time 60th, and am reposting it on it’s own with some fun updates to honor his 61st. To check out the original post, CLICK HERE

Birthday wishes go out to Steven Spielberg, my all-time favorite director, who celebrates his 61st birthday today. He may not always make the coolest movies, or even the smartest movies, but his movies are always exceedingly watchable, expertly made and laced with the type of magic seldom seen on-screen. In other words, he makes the best movies.

There isn’t a person in this country who doesn’t love at least one of his flicks, be it Jaws, Raiders, E.T., Jurassic Park, or one of the other twenty-one. His films touch our hearts, excite our minds and dazzle our eyes. He is responsible for millions of kids wanting to be film directors; and the conductor of an even higher number of childhood playtime fantasies (who didn’t run around their cul-de-sac looking for little gold idols and demeaning a tiny Chinese boy, like Indiana Jones?). He was my first inspiration as a writer and budding director, and he remains my favorite creator of movie magic. Even when he makes a movie I don’t like (like The Terminal) I still find great things in it, like the amazing airport set, which I got to walk through when I worked as an extra on the film (which means I might just love it because I’m visible in two shots of the movie).

One of my favorite recent Spielberg trends is his tendency to give himself one and then immediately give us one better as an apology. For every lame-ass Zorro sequel he produces, he gives you the superb Munich, where we got to see Bana, Blonde Bond and Captain Barbossa get their Warrior Jew on and blow up some evil doers (with some choice T&A throw in for good measure). He encourages the employment of Paul Haggis by letting him write the two Clint Eastwood war movies nobody could give a shit about, and then double backs on you with a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick of awesomeness by unleashing Michael Bay and his big mfing robots spectacular (which was actually pretty good!). And even when he gives the geek world a collective cardiac episode by bringing in the Labeouf and dumping Sean Connery on Indy 4, we quickly forgive him when he slicks us up with the “Here Comes Karen Allen” reacharound. At this point I don’t even worry about liking or not liking his next project because I know he’ll always have something coming down the pike that is sure to pwn me harder than Summer Roberts dressed as Wonder Woman.

(I’ve got a feeling that even though the entire blogosphere is walking on eggshells, Indy 4 is gonna rock hard tasty abs 24/7 washerboard-style. And who isn’t at least intrigued by his Lincoln biopic? I love that he always casts Liam Neeson when he wants to free some slaves on-screen. Good ole Qui-Gon is his go to Freedom Fighter; this country could do worse, lemme tell you…).

I’ve mancrushed more on other directors (holla, QT!), tried to Single White Female my share of indie darlings (Wes Anderson, you will be mine) and eyebrow waggled at some flash in the pans (bite my ass, PTA, making a Daniel Day-Lewis flick doesn’t make up for Magnolia. NOTHING WILL!), but I’ve never strayed too long from my love of little Stevie. He’ll always be the one I come back to. The one whose work means the most to me. The one who started it all.

He’s the Joey to my Pacey (Dawson can go screw). The Turner to my Hooch. The Bleeker to my Juno. The edgy stubble to my beleaguered Jack Shepherd. The Hiro to my Ando. The KY to my roughshod pornstar before a tricky desert sand sex scene. The Gwen to my No Doubt. The cheeto to my Britney. The snark to my Josh Schwartz teen drama. The pouring rain to my John Cusack medium shot of dramatic longing. The Keanu to my whoa.

The one who can do no wrong. (No, not even the last 15 minutes of A.I.)

To honor the bearded great one on his day of days, here are ten Spielberg Movie Moments that completely wreck me:

• The over the shoulder pull back to reveal the government base at Devil’s Mountain, in Close Encounters. The first use of what is now known as “The Spielberg Shot”. Often imitated, never topped, it is still the best way to do a reveal on film.

• The trailer over the cliff sequence in The Lost World. So well-choreographed and executed, it comes off like a Gene Kelly dance, as interpreted by Wes Craven. I love the look on Julianne Moore’s face when she realizes what’s about to happen. “Oh shit” never looked cooler on a girl.

• Two moments stand out for me from Jaws: 1. The entire USS Indianapolis speech (“..thing about a shark. He’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes…”). 2. When the shark drags the first barrel underwater and Hooper loses him in a chase; I love the quiet moment when Quint stands on the end of the starboard walk ramp, holding his rifle and shaking his head, while the sun sets beautifully around him. It was a look that spoke volumes. We’re gonna need a bigger boat, indeed.

• The climax in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Indy is hanging off the ledge, desperately trying to reach the grail cup, while Henry tries to pull him to safety. Henry can’t get Indy’s attention, and their grip is starting to falter. Indy’s got mad glory in his eyes, but Henry realizes what’s truly important and gives Indy the lesson our intrepid archeologist has been looking for since we saw him run from the boulder in Raiders.

Henry: Indiana. Indiana, let it go.

That line gets me more than any other moment in the series. A perfect encapsulation of the life these men lead. Man alive, can Spielberg make a movie!

• The scenes of kids trick-or-treating in E.T. As a boy who grew up in The Valley, watching a movie about a young boy and his alien best friend who lived, essentially, around the corner from me (I used to play in the same park as Elliot), brought me countless fever dreams and daytime pretend adventures. The moon shot is still a stunning image, and easily makes for the best production company logo EVER.

• The epic 20 minute storming the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan, specifically the extended sequences done in silence as Tom, slightly deafened from a blast, takes in the violence happening all around him. Arguably the most realistic depiction of war ever committed to celluloid. And the fact that this film lost to a Gwyneth Paltrow romantic comedy makes me sick at both ends.

• The opening credits of Catch Me If You Can, with the Pink Panther-like animation and the John Williams jazz riff. It was a signal that we were not about to see a typical Steven Spielberg fantasy, but instead something far more playful and sophisticated. And it is easily my favorite Spielberg movie of the last ten years.

• The spider sequence in Minority Report. The creepy mechanical crawlers search the entire building looking for Tom Cruise’s John Anderton (the last time The Cruiser was effortlessly cool on-screen). They can’t detect Cruise because he’s lying motionless in an ice cold bathtub. The last spider is walking away when Cruise lets one tiny air bubble slip out of his mouth. And the spider hears it. The delicate double take of the CGI creature is so smooth, so graceful as to be almost unnoticeable. But let there be no mistake, it is a sly stroke of genius. And serves as yet another reminder why Spielberg uses CGI better than anyone else on the planet. Michael Bay better learn himself an education by next summer. Bumblebee taking a wiz on The Jesus does not a classic flick make.

• “Oh, there you are, Peter!”

• The first dinosaur reveal in Jurassic Park. Maybe the single best reveal shot of the last half decade. Ellie is going on and on about some indigenous wildlife and Grant turns her head to see what he was looking at and all we see are her eyes go wide. Ellie rises out of the jeep and then BAM, we cut to the most perfectly realized depiction of a prehistoric animal ever put on film. I can still see my Dad shaking in the theater, awestruck by what he was seeing. That’s the type of reaction Spielberg elicits in audiences. He leaves them awestruck; my favorite emotion to have while watching a movie. And I thank him for giving that to me so many times.

Mr. Spielberg… Happy Birthday, sir. We honor you here at TheJay.com. May you continue to create wonder on the silver screen for many more years to come. And you may you manwhore he she bitch slap all the naysayers and deliver the old-ass Indiana Jones sequel of our dreams (with only minor goofy detractions into LaBeouf Land).

For an absolutely fantastic retrospective of Steven Spielberg’s career, CLICK HERE.

Bangarang!

I took one for the team on Friday and took a date to see Enchanted. And while I had no real problem with the movie other than the fact that it was for six year-old girls and not twenty-six year-old guys, the one thing I could NOT stomach was the trailer for P.S I Love You that preceded the movie. I was so traumatized by watching King Leonidas pussify it up and woo Steve Sanders’ ex-girlfriend that I couldn’t even concentrate on the royal pompous awesomeness of The Patrick Dempsey Pompous Coiffure of Awesome Pomposity (tm The Jay), the note-perfect tongue in cheek performance of James Marsden or the coming out party for Amy Adams, a.k.a. the New Queen Of The Awesomely Hot Redhead Actresses Club (it’s her, Kate Walsh, Isla Fisher, Christina Hendricks, Marg Helgenberger, Gillian Anderson from Playing By Heart and the long-distant memory of Mean Girls-era Lindsay Lohan).

Even AWESOM-O couldn’t come up with a shittier idea for a romantic dramedy. Hilary Swank plays a girl (red flag #1) dating kinda dumpy, schmoopy jazz man Gerard Butler (red flag #2 – Butler should only play ripped badasses who have no time for music, only growing beards and killing Persians) – which, by the way, like he’d ever stoop to schtupping her when he could be nailing girls who don’t look like they had Julia Roberts-sized chiclet veneers put in instead of teeth (red flag #3), but when Butler dies she starts receiving beyond-the-grave letters from him that help her to move on with her life (red flag #4). He sets her on a creepy quest to wackily shimmy around singing karaoke, get into fishing hijinks, befriend a cranky Lisa Kudrow and further taint Harry Connick Jr.’s rep by dropping clumsy flirt bombs on him (seriously, tagging Debra Messing wasn’t the low point for him?) (also, red flag’s #5-8). Also, it was written and directed by the guy who brought you Freedom Writers, The Horse Whisperer and The Bridges of Madison County (red flag #infinity). There couldn’t be fewer reasons for men to watch this movie.

Butler could be decked out in full Spartan war gear and kick Swank into a well and I’d still wait for it to come out on video. The movie could be two hours of Swank hitting her neck awkwardly on a stool and getting paralyzed for two hours and I’d probably still skip it until it showed up on TNT. Co-star Gina Gershon could bring back her Bounce character and get down with every hot female extra on set and I STILL would opt to see Alvin and the Chipmunks if given the choice.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t want to see this movie. At all. I’ve seen some pretty shite-y romcom’s in my day (The Wedding Planner comes to mind), and I’ve sat through some weepy love conquers all B.S. in my time (hello, What Dreams May Come), but I’ve never willingly sat through anything this heinous-looking before. And I’m not about to start now.

In fact, here’s a list of all the atrocious things I’d do BEFORE agreeing to see this movie:

• Be the moderator at the “Paul Haggis Fanatics Convention”.

• Sit through Million Dollar Baby every day for a year.

• Run a highly-trafficked Two and a Half Men fansite.

• Stare down the black smoke monster after I’ve just sucker punched a nun and punted a litter of puppies off a bridge like Jack Black in Anchorman.

• Have a kickass superpower and run into Sylar in a dark alley.

• Let Alan Thicke drop a Cleveland Steamer on my chest (his specialty!).

• Walk in on Natalie Portman, Megan Fox, Keri Russell and Rachel McAdams celebrating Emma Watson’s eighteenth birthday by making her a woman, and then getting the nod to enter the game only to find I’m a eunuch.

• Be Horatio Sanz’s official taint cleaner.

• Be a steroid mule for the WWE.

• Bet my life on a coin toss with Anton Chigurth (I’ll even let him call me “Friend-o”).

• Go back in time to when I was nine, watch every Nightmare on Elm Street movie in a row, and then take enough Nyquil to drop a T-Rex in its tracks.

• Have my TiVo changed so that the only thing it will record is reruns of Designing Women and Strong Medicine.

• Stand in for Kyle and suck Cartman’s dry balls.

• Sit next to Reese Witherspoon as she reads every mean thing I’ve ever written about her, than have her turn and give me the devil face from Cruel Intentions until I have a massive stroke like the victims from The Ring.

• Get roofied by Aileen Wurmos, but not the Charlize Theron version.

• Let Brandon Walsh give me a pretentious lecture about being a better man.

• Accidentally knock up Marissa Cooper and get forced by Julie Cooper to make that dipshit psychobag an honest woman.

• Have my face permanently set to Blue Steel.

• Have Steven Spielberg tell me I’m an untalented, worthless writer who will never have the skill to write a movie for him, or even something as low rent as a Baby Geniuses sequel. And mean it.

• Piss off John Lithgow until he swears a blood oath against me (I mean, have you SEEN Ricochet?)

• Be in a horrific car accident where the only chance of survival is a combo-liter transfusion of blood from Tommy Lee and Pete Doherty.

• Attend a Blue Collar Comedy Concert.

• Spend time with Shannon Hamilton in a very uncomfortable place (like the back of a Volkswagon).

• Sit next to Vince Vaughn on an 18-hour flight while he’s hopped up on Speed and in a “talkative mood”.

• Force-feed myself Rachel Green’s Shepherd’s Pie (“It tastes like feet!”)

• Share the same needle with every member of the Celebritard club (and Britney is cooking the drugs).

• Fellashe Kevin Spacey.

• Become a Scientologist.

So yeah, I think I’m gonna go ahead and pass on P.S. I Love You. But call me when Butler gets his balls back from the pawn shop and Hilary Swank goes back to playing ugly people. Until then, you can find me daydreaming about how fantastically NSFW Amy Adams would look in a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, wondering why James Marsden got such a hard shaft in the X-Men movies when he’s so totally ninja, and attempting to add some awesome pomposity to my humble head of hair.

I mean, really!

Bangarang!

Today, I, and the rest of the world, or at least the Hollywood tabloidista, will honor the birth of one of the entertainment industry’s biggest and best coked out, rehab-shucking, talent-eroding, knife-wielding, weight dropping, boytoy banging, crazy as hell Celebritards since the Olsen twins turned eighteen. Yes, that’s right, batten down the hatches, order extra cases of Red Bull and Grey Goose, stay off the streets and hide your children, Lindsay Lohan turns 21 today. And we here at TheJay.com would like to celebrate this momentous occasion by bestowing 21 birthday wishes on our favorite former hottie who inexplicably dropped twenty pounds, took out her implants, died her hair blonde, started doing mass amounts of blow, showed up in a string of shitty movies, alienated the Disney crowd, put her imlants back in, when to rehab, crashed her car, went back into rehab, became tabloid fodder to the point where the paparazzi are bored of her and pretty much ruined any chance of becoming an all-time masturbatory redhead fantasy we all thought she would be, but instead ended up being considered sleazier than Paris Hilton (and Paris Hilton is a fucking convict!).

So on Lindsay Lohan’s (hopefully dry) 21st birthday, TheJay.com wishes…

1. That she switch from blow and vodka to wine. When you drink too much wine they call you sophisticated. When you drink too much hard liquor they call you Tara Reid. That’s a big difference.

2. That she (and let it be known, I’m aware how stupid this sounds) take a cue from Paris Hilton and realize playing dumb isn’t cute anymore. Fact is it was never cute on Lindsay. Or on Paris, not that it matters. The only person that can convincingly pull of “dumb as cute” is Kelly Bundy and she’s fictional.

3. That she agrees to become Jane Fonda’s padwan learner. Sure, the partnership may lead to Lindsay going to Iraq and shilling for Arabs (Fallujah Lohan?), but at least we’ll eventually get a Lindsay Lohan aerobics video out of the deal, which would be totally worth it. There’s comedy, there’s high comedy, and then there’s Lindsay Lohan in a leotard teaching overweight Heartland wives how to jazzercise. Plus, you know, she might also become a well-respected two-time Oscar winner. Which would be nice for her.

4. That someone reminds her Oscars are not won in a club, they’re won on a film set. And we’re not talking about the set of Just My Luck.

5. That she take it from Sean Combs and never let anyone call her La Lohan ever again. It didn’t work for Puff Daddy, it’s not gonna work for Linds. Don’t make Diddy shut down the studio!

6. That a slew of really hot boys tell her over and over again that pale chicks are cool. Nobody likes a blotchy fake tan. And pale became her quite well.

7. That she’d go back to red and stay that way. If it’s good enough for the Pretty Woman, it’s good enough for the Mean Girl.

8. That screen dad Dennis Quaid knocks some sense into her, In Good Company-style. He’s been through drugs, rehab and failed public relationships and he’s as popular now as he was twenty years ago. So take it from The Quaid, Lindsay, he is all-knowing; like that mutant tumor in Total Recall that wanted Arnold to “open [his] mind”.

9. That she at least consider, CONSIDER, marrying a suspicious A-list star who will turn her into a barely believable beard for a decade then release her from her blood oath (read: legally binding contract) so that she can turn into botoxed ice queen who marries a drug addicted musician but is still awesome because she makes crazy kick ass musicals with Renton from Trainspotting and horror flicks where they’re really the ghosts! And hey, I hear Hugh Jackman might be in the market.

10. That she recognizes the fact that no actress who has ever won an Academy Award has ever shown her snatch in public. Other than Helen Mirren, of course. Septuagenarian snizz is the new black.

11. That she take a note from Macaulay Culkin and divorce the hell out her no-good parents (and maybe even consider going on a North-style cross-country search for new ones. I know Brangelina are always on the look out for disadvantaged orphans.).

12. That she try to convince Rachel McAdams to do a Freaky Friday-style career switch, only when it works, she refuses to switch back. This works in everyone’s favor because who isn’t curious what a skanky Rachel McAdams would look like?

13. That Jodie Foster would slap her upside the head. Maybe some of her awesomeness would transfer to Lindsay through osmosis. Plus, there’s a small chance some of Jodie’s closet lesbianism would transfer as well. Holding knives to Vanessa Minnillo’s throat is one thing, but holding knives to her throat while sticking her tongue down the veejay’s throat is a whole other mind-blowing ballgame. Also, it might mean that Gina Gershon would be her friend, and that’s as fantastic a friendship for her as I can possibly imagine.

14. That someone sit her down and makes her watch Clueless again, a reminder that even beloved teen stars who don’t do crazy amounts of blow, bang skeezy C-list boytoys and put knives to boy bander girlfriends can end up without a career. Sure they may get to make an ill-advised romcom with a young Benicio Del Toro first, but eventually (read: 2-3 years) everyone will forget how insanely hot they were bungee-jumping off a bridge in LA and flipping off a cheating Stephen Dorff, and only remember the ten pounds they put on right before Crisco-ing themselves into a be-nippled rubber bat suit and “flirting” with the star of Vertical Limit. The audience goodwill only lasts for so long, is what I’m saying. And Mean Girls is now more than three years old.

15. That she consider going the Heather Graham route and start exclusively doing mediocre comedies (with the occasional erotic titty thriller starring the lesser Fiennes sibling, thrown in). At least Rollergirl has her dignity.

16. That she behead Hayden Panetierre, lest the Heroes-star take over Lindsay’s “hot young starlet with enormous talent potential and even more enormous Celebritard potential” turf. After all, as it goes in their world, there can be only one.

17. That she start sending Steven Spielberg a fruit basket every day until he takes her call, Ma-Sheen in Wall Street-style. And on that note…

18. That she dress up as a Japanese anime school girl and sleep with Quentin Tarantino. Or make Spike Jonze a mixtape. Or learn Spanish to impress Alfonso Cuaron. Or bring Peter Jackson a sandwich. Basically, that she do ANYTHING at all possible to improve the level of directors she’s been working with. I think being told how to emote by Emilio Estevez might have done the trick, but who knows?

19. That Ben Affleck teaches her to embrace the irony of their tenuous celebrity and regain the public love by being in on the joke. And he knows of what he speaks. After all, Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo!

20. That she resurrect The Icecrotch, if only so that she can do epic, mythical battle with Dakota Fanning in an upcoming chapter of “The Stirring Tales of Master Assassin Dakota Fanning” (coming soon on TheJay.com)!

21. That she knows if all else fails, showing your tits never hurt. Just ask Halle Berry. Early career love, mid-career stall, spectacularly bad celebrity divorce, hit a guy with her car, was virtually unhireable, showed her tits, won on Oscar, became a top shelf Bond girl, now beloved by Oprah. Doesn’t that seem like the exact career track of Lindsay Lohan? I can’t wait to see her in ten years walking be-thonged onto a Caribbean beach in “The Spy Who Loved Firecrotch” while a lecherous Daniel Craig flexes his pecs and feigns interest.

Happy Birthday, Lindsay! Try to stay out of trouble.

Bangarang!

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(NOTE: This column was originally written in 2002, to commemorate the release of Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones. In honor of the release of Live Free or Die Hard I am re-publishing it as a tribute to the man who started my love for waiting in line for movies. The man, the myth, the Bruno, Mr. Bruce Willis. I can’t wait to come full circle and stand in line for a Die Hard movie, one more time…)

The date had been embedded in my mind for months: July 4, 1990. On a Wednesday in the middle of an unusually hot summer, Die Hard 2: Die Harder would be released to the public. The first film, Die Hard, had quickly become a family favorite amongst me and my two brothers. We had seen the film countless times, reciting racy lines of dialogue and reenacting brutal violence at an age when we should have been playing baseball, not terrorist and hero cop. When the release date of the film was set, our house went into a collective frenzy. There was no doubt in our minds what we were going to do the night of July 4th. Forget barbeques or baseball games, if it did not entail Bruce Willis fighting terrorists, we were not interested.

The days leading up to the opening night were agonizingly slow. The commercials advertising the film only served to increase my frustration of not having seen the film. The day finally arrived, filled with joy and the feeling of vindication. My patience would finally be rewarded. Little did I know, trouble was brewing. My mother was called into a late evening meeting, we would not make the 7:30 p.m. showing. Ordinarily this would not be a problem since most films have multiple showings on any given night. Die Hard 2, however, was a longer film than most. My local cinema, the only one playing the film, was airing only two screenings, one at 7:30 and the other at 10:45 p.m. My mom arrived home at 8:30, and we commiserated on our misfortune. Being only nine years old, my strict bedtime of 9:30 p.m. would not be wavered, even by the rogue charms of Mr. Willis. I was well aware that the film would be playing in theaters for the duration of the summer and beyond, but my desire to experience the film “right now” was too overwhelming. Clever use of a guilt-trip sullied my mother’s defenses and soon we were off waiting in line for the late show.

It was my first experience seeing a movie that late; my eyes were wide with excitement and energy. The line extended around the back of the theater but no one felt inconvenienced; they all shared my deep rooted love for this film franchise. They let us in at 10:15, and I could barely contain myself. A nine-year old ball of energy, up way past his bedtime, waiting to see Bruce Willis save the world. The lights went down, and I was hooked.

Even at such a young age, I could feel the power of the opening night. At no other time is the energy as high, the audience as passionate, or the experience as genuine. My need to see movies on opening night became an obsession I have been feeding since that fateful Independence Day. My movie-going life was changed, and film’s place in my social life was forever altered. I blame it all on Bruce Willis.

The years passed, and the opening night experiences grew in number. Braveheart, summer of 1995. Watching the movie we all knew what was happening. The first night of the film’s release and we could all sense it. We were watching a Best Picture in the making, and no one else knew. Then, Apollo 13, just a few weeks later. The air-conditioning in the theater turned up so high, I felt as if I was the one trapped in space.

November 1, 1996. Throngs of pre-pubescent and newly adolescent teenagers pack an unsuspecting local movie theater, awaiting the release of the highly anticipated re-imagining of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I was fifteen, anxious, and surrounded by braces and Clearasil as far as the eye could see. The theater had underestimated the film’s appeal, and chose to screen the film in a theater two sizes too small. Teens were turned back at the door, openly crying at the thought of a Leonardo-less Friday night. As the 7:30 p.m. mark moved ever closer, the theater began to hum with the excitement. Six hundred adolescents giddy at the prospect of watching two hours of spastic, tragic Shakespeare. When Leonardo’s face first appeared on-screen relationships ended. Girls openly wept and their dates hid in their seats. This was not a film screening, it was hormonal torture.

On another end of the spectrum was the Friday late show of Michael Mann’s sprawling L.A. crime thriller, Heat. On an atypically scorching December evening, I decided to turn my opening night obsession into a sociological experiment. The Oxy pad crowd of Romeo and Juliet had taught me that certain sects of people would only attend certain movies at specific times. To this end, I decided to forego the usual mid-evening show, and instead see the final show of the night.

Returning to the conversations heard in my Die Hard line roots, I anticipated a crowd of film-loyalists; pretentious movie-lovers spouting home-made philosophies on the merits of Pulp Fiction as a new filmic-religion. What I got, however, was a collection of individuals so contrary to anything I had expected that all my theories immediately went out the window. Entering the densely packed theater, I first noticed a preponderance of leather. Everyone seemed to be wearing it in some form, be it the jacket, shirt or pants variety. They all seemed to be unusually large and bedecked with lengthy beards. It was then that I realized what type of audience I walked into. This was no crowd of kids. I had come to the late night trucker show, with access granted to only those who owned and operated a vehicle that could double for the malicious big-rig in Steven Spielberg’s Duel. The crowd reaction was unnatural: no catty comments thrown Pacino’s way, no standing ovations or audible gasps. The only sound you heard was the rustling of leather. I was a child amongst grizzled grown-ups. Two hours of crime drama could not go fast enough.

I began to examine the crowds that joined me in my opening night excursions, finding just as much joy and pain from who I watched, then what I watched. The unusually high number of people seated legs-crossed, near the back of the theater, for Boogie Nights. The crowd full of blown hankies and teary sobs for Carl Franklin’s One True Thing. And most famously, the crowd of somber adults, turned stone silent by the effect of Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, Schindler’s List.

(more…)