Movies From my Childhood....

The one movie I can remember seeing in the theater as a teenager was Heavy Metal. 1981 (for some reason I had remembered it as coming out earlier). Animated or not, it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen! AND, it had "NEKKID WIMMIN" in it!
"A sweeping story of the battle of good against evil is told through an anthology of short animated films about a glowing green orb (the Loc-Nar) that is the personification of ultimate evil in the universe. Based loosely on the French magazine "Heavy Metal." -Christopher E. Meadows" - per IMDB. It was shown as a double feature (how many of us remember when you could see two movies for the price of one) with another animated movie called American Pop.
"American Pop" is the animated story of a very talented and troubled family starting with 19th century Russia and moving through several generations of musicians. The film covers American music from the pre-jazz age through soul, '50s rock, drug-laden psychadelia, and punk, finally ending with the onset of new wave in the early 1980s.--IMDB says.
I certainly don't remember that much about it, in fact it took me the better part of 25 years for the name of the movie to resurface in my head! (I don't think it had any "Nekkid Wimmin" in it).
Right after that, they closed the movie theater in our town. A town of 3500 people. This was frustrating, because the next closest movie theater was over 12 miles away, in another town. My parents certainly wouldn't allow us to travel to the next town over to see a movie. Now, the TRULY frustrating thing was that they re-opened the theater the next year for a movie that, to this day, I have refused to see based on the greed of that theater owner. He opened the showhouse for 1 week to show the "phenom" movie, E.T. The crowds went 4 blocks down the street! Then, right after, they closed again. I think they eventually sold the place and it was re-opened for a couple of years. Now the building is gone.
Heavy Metal became one of my favorite movies of all time. I was fortunate enough when I went to college to date the gal who was the projectionist for the "student movie night" every week, so when they movie showed up at the college in the winter of 1985, I got to see the show, like 6 times. It was many years before I got to see it again, because of licensing issues and music rights. You can bet that as soon as it became available on VHS, I bought it (that week!). Anyway, all this came about becasue I bought a new movie last week...another one from my youth, Wizards. It came out in 1977, was originally supposed to be called War Wizards, but George Lucas pleaded with Ralph Bakshi to change the name because Star Wars was coming out that same year, and he didn't want to share such similar names. I didn't see Wizards until I got to college in the mid 80's, the same time I discovered the SCA, Elfquest, Monty Python, and Bagels with Cream Cheese on them! It brought back many memories of a day past and a time not forgotten. Yay for yesterday!
Love you all.
Until next time!