media: films

I used to believe…

When I was 5, my parents inadvertantly took me to the drive-in to see Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". They didn't know about his films and didn't know a film called "The Birds" wouldn't be OK for kids. My uncle and Grandmother lived with us at the time. My uncle told me that if my Dad didn't brick up the fireplace, the birds would come in and peck me to death (as in the film). I was scared to death for weeks, and had to sleep in my Grandmother's room for protection.

I used to believe…

When I was young my father told me that it was his job to pull the MGM Lion's tail and make him roar. I believed that for years and even bragged to my friends about it.

I used to believe…

when i was little, i used to think that when you watched a movie, the actors had to act it out again. i also thought that when i was watching a movie, and someone else started watching it, they couldn't see it because the actors couldn't act it out twice at the same time

I used to believe…

At the movie theater, they had 'Show Tunes' so music was playing in the theaters while you waited for the commercials/previews to start, I used to think there were people behind the screen playing the music.

I used to believe…

When I was about 3, I watched this movie where a woman got bewitched and became very old. Then she turned back to normal, her face got younger and younger looking, and I thought they had used different aged women to go in and out of the room to shoot that scene. I was so proud to have figured it all out!

I was (and still am) a big fan of Mary Poppins it was truly magical and eveything seemed to be real. I honestly thought that you could fit anything in a carpet bag,fly up chimneys and float when you laugh but out of all of them i thought you could jump into chalk pictures. As i was out with my mum when i was little, we walked past an artist drawing chalk pictures and i stood by one. I did the little rhyme by Bert in the film and jumped onto the picture. I opened my eyes only to find an angry artist staring at me. Before he could do anything my mum apologised and quickly dragged me away. I was so disappointed that it didn't work.

I used to believe…

My Nephew Stephen used to always ask if he could watch on VHS the Movie Prince Of Pizza. This was actually The Prince Of Egypt and when He got older he would get annoyed at us when we kept asking him to repeat it, because he thought we were making fun of him.

I used to believe…

When a movie covered a large number of years, I believed that a portion was filmed, then several years passed for the actors to grow older before finishing the movie. How else could the people grow old?

I used to believe…

WHEN I WAS 5 OR 6 AFTER THE FIRST TIME I EVER SAW THE WIZARD OF OZ I THOUGHT THAT IF YOU STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF A DUST DEVIL YOU WOULD GET SWEPT UP AND TAKEN TO OZ. NOT JUST ANY ONE OF THEM I THOUGHT THEIR WAS THE "MAGIC ONE" AND THAT AFTER DEDICATEDLY STANDING IN THE CENTER OF EACH ONE I WAS BOUND TO FIND THE RIGHT ONE. WHEN MY BROTHER FIGURED OUT WHAT I WAS DOING AND TOLD ME HOW STUPID I WAS FOR IT, I WAS ALMOST AS CRUSHED AS WHEN I FOUND OUT THERE WAS NO SANTA.

I used to believe…

This is my daughter's. She's seven now.

We took her to her first movie in a theater when she was three. She did really well and loved the show. Then at the end, when the lights came up, she ran down to the front of the theater and started looking around on the wall under the screen.

We were about 7 or 8 rows back and called up to her to see what she was doing. She said, "Where's the tape?"

At home it is her job to put the video tape away after we watch a movie so she was up there looking for the slot that the tape would come out of now that the show was over.

I always wondered as a child how people went to the loo when ating in a long film (not relasing that films are recorded in parts then put together) I though they must have loos hidden on chairs and during filming they could go and sit on a chair and sectetly go with out any one knowing...

I used to believe…

When I was little I loved the movie Mary Poppins. I thought if I took my pink umbrella outside and the wind picked up just right I could fly like her. Fortunately I didn't do anything crazy like jump off the roof of the house.

I used to believe…

when i was little and when i go to the theaters i always think that there's someone on top of us acting and shooting the scine on the white board. I always wanted to go to the room to see the actors.

I used to believe…

Whenever I saw a movie based on a true story, I used to believe that there were cameras following the "real" person around and I would wonder how they knew that a good story was going to happen to that particular person. And if someone killed someone I wondered why that person was stupid enough to do it in front of a camera.

I used to believe…

After seeing the movie nuclear war movie, "The Day After" when I was about ten years old, it scared me so bad that every single time a news update commercial came on television, I thought it would be announcing that the bombs were on their way from Russia. That movie messed me up bad!

I used to believe…

when i was about 8 years old. my father and i sat down to watch a movie. i was terrified when he told me we were watching Monty Python. i envisioned an entire movie about a gigantic, talking python. i was embarassed when it turned out to be the holy grail. silly little boy.

I used to believe…

The first time I saw the movie "San Francisco" from 1936 with Clark Gable and Spener Tracy I was in early grade school. I believed for a long time that Gable started the 1906 earthquake because it begins right after his character tosses his loving cup filled with gold coins to the stage.

I used to believe up until the age of ten that when you wached a movie, it was live-acted. A little signal would be sent to some studio somewhere, where all the actors were, and they would start acting the movie you were watching. If you paused it they all had to stand still and wait till you hit Play again. I always wondered how if two people were watching different movies with the same actor in it, how the actor could act two movies at once and appear to only be doing one at a time. I also wondered why they never messed up a line or forgot to do something.