May 18, 1993. A date that will live in infamy...at least to me. On that day, Janet Jackson released her janet. album, intensifying my growing passion for her and her music. In the weeks leading up to the CD's arrival, I began counting down the days until I could purchase my own copy. Not surprising, right? Particularly since countdowns and I have history and fit together so well. Still, you may find my anticipation and excitement not all that noteworthy, until you take into consideration the rest of my classmates were preoccupied with how many days of school were left until summer vacation. I could not be bothered by that. Clearly, the new Janet Jackson CD proved far more important than the last day of sophomore year for 16-year-old Chris.
"That's the Way Love Goes," the album's lead single, introduced the world to a different, more mature Janet. The song's laid-back, sensual mood deviated from the more dance-driven, Minneapolis sound featured on her Rhythm Nation and Control albums. On the new CD, Jackson traded social consciousness for sexual exploration and individual assertiveness, most overtly showcased on the sizzling "Any Time, Any Place" and "Throb." Her infamous semi-nude Rolling Stone cover symbolized the singer's maturation and announced the arrival of the new Janet, not only on the magazine but on posters, too. My infatuation dictated I had to have that poster, and my friends often share their memories of seeing it in my room. Though none of them has admitted as much, they probably asked themselves why a gay guy would have a picture of a woman whose breasts were bare save the cupping hands of a man otherwise unseen. The easy answer to that question is: Because Janet Jackson, of course! Have I not mentioned I was (and still am) obsessed? It wasn't the only poster of the singer that adorned my walls, either. I wanted everyone who came to my room, both at home and at college, to know how much I loved her, so I snatched up any poster I could find and proudly displayed each one. (Update: I no longer own any of those posters, not that Bryce would let me hang them anywhere in our house. I lost them in the apartment fire my roommate, Maggie, and I experienced in the fall of 2000.) Once janet. hit stores, I rushed to obtain a copy and proceeded to listen to the entire CD on repeat until I knew it by heart. Thinking back to the days of Chris's Top 40, the album's impact on my life was evident. Each one of the songs eventually made its way onto my countdown regardless of whether or not Jackson released them to radio. Many of them found their way #1, including "That's the Way Love Goes," "If," "You Want This," "Because of Love," "Again," "This Time," and "Where Are You Now." One of the standout tracks from the album, "If," quickly catapulted to the top of my favorite Jackson songs, earning it the #2 position on my Hot 101. The song also spent more weeks on Chris's Top 40 than any other, hanging around on the chart from the summer of 1993 until I discontinued the weekly ranked list at the end of 1995. And as much as I loved Rhythm Nation and thought Jackson would never be able to outdo herself, janet. proved that assumption wrong. In just about every way, the CD defined my high school experience and served as my soundtrack to 1993, 1994, and 1995. Few other albums can boast such longevity and prevalence in their impact on my life.
0 Comments
Fun fact: R.E.M. released their masterwork album, Out of Time, on my birthday in 1991, something I learned just today. I am almost positive that is merely coincidently, though I took the news as a nice surprise this morning. I think my recent discovery only makes the CD's inclusion in my Countdown to 40 all the more fitting.
"Losing My Religion," arguably the band's greatest song, initially lured me into giving Out of Time a chance. Though the song certainly served as fodder for Top 40 radio, R.E.M. represented a divergence of sorts from my favorite typical artists, and their music defied the genre I listened to most in the early 1990s. As you may have gleaned from my earlier posts about Janet Jackson, Deee-Lite, and Michael Jackson, my general taste in late 1980s/early 1990s music skewed toward more dance-pop than pop-rock and alternative. R.E.M. changed all that with Out of Time. I thoroughly enjoyed each of the album's eleven songs, and "Radio Song," "Low," "Shiny Happy People," and "Country Feedback" are a few standouts I gravitate towards in addition to "Losing My Religion." My appreciation for Out of Time took a while to develop. Several years and a number of listens passed before I recognized just how great the CD was. Today, one attribute I find most appealing about Out of Time is that the album has aged extremely well. In fact, I'd go so far as to say R.E.M.'s 1991 work has improved over time and with each repeated listen. My deepening respect and love for Out of Time also converted me to a die-hard R.E.M. fan (I'm still mourning their retirement), though all of their subsequent works pale in comparison. I will admit that their follow-up album, Automatic for the People, is great, too, and I can understand anyone's argument favoring that album over Out of Time. After all, some of the band's most beloved and notable repertoire hail from Automatic for the People, like "Everybody Hurts," "Nightswimming," and "Man on the Moon." On the whole, though, Out of Time and its impeccable track listing bests Automatic for the People every time. The genius of "Losing My Religion" certainly helps, and the song has also stood the test of time, earning it the #3 position in my 101 most favorite songs of all-time. Speaking of "Losing My Religion," Fun Fact #2: For a hot minute in the early 2000s, I considered using "Losing My Religion" as my coming out song. I even started creating a PowerPoint presentation using the song's lyrics as substitutions for me actually having to say to anyone three little words, "I am gay." In the end I scrapped that idea entirely and chose the traditional route, a decision I am glad I made. In honor of today's Breath of the Wild release, I present you with Nintendo's incomparable The Legend of Zelda, which, as far as I am concerned, represents the best video game series. Ever.
I originally became entranced by The Legend of Zelda series when the first iteration arrived for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the late 1980s. (Remember the gold cartridge? Ah, the good old days.) It didn't take long for the game to grab my attention and stimulate my imagination. I remember sneaking out of my bedroom late at night, after everyone else was asleep, to solve just one more puzzle, find just one more secret lair, or play through just one more dungeon. Then came The Adventure of Link for the NES and A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo (SNES), and I eagerly returned to saving Hyrule from the evil Ganondorf. While those early games turned me into a series fan pretty quickly, Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64 (N64) changed everything and converted me to a true Zelda superfan. The new adventure retained all of the familiar characters and story arcs I grew to enjoy and expect from earlier games while perfectly utilizing the 3-D capabilities offered by the N64 to fully immerse players in the land of Hyrule. (I could even ride a horse!) The puzzles, quests, dungeons, and bosses of Ocarina of Time kept me challenged and engaged by offering the perfect balance between difficulty and solve-ability. By the time I maneuvered through the final dungeons and defeated Ganon at the game's end, I knew I had experienced something special, and from that point on, no matter where Zelda console games went, I was sure to follow. Considering my already-professed love for the fantasy genre (see Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time), I suspect my declaration in support of Zelda throughout this entry is not all that surprising. That assumption may, however, relate more to the order in which I wrote my Countdown to 40 posts than the order in which those featured items impacted my life. In reality, The Legend of Zelda serves as one of the biggest and most important influences to nurture my growing interest in the vast and magical worlds of fantasy film, literature, and video games. And if you are trying to get a hold of me this weekend and don't get a response, know that I'm probably puzzling my way through Breath of the Wild. I love Pixar movies. The end.
In all seriousness, I could probably and justifiably start and end this post with only those two sentences to accompany the graphic above, but that would do little justice to the pantheon of Pixar features I adore so much. Stopping there would also fail to provide an explanation for why the post covers a collection of films rather than a single stand-out. When Toy Story debuted in theaters during the fall of 1995, I was still adjusting to my freshman year experience. Moving away from home and finding my way through those first few months at college helped nudge me further along my path of self discovery. While continually expanding my knowledge of the world around me and discovering more about myself, I also retained several core tenets of my identity that developed over the preceding 18 years. One of those essential attributes was my love for Disney movies, a truth I established early in posts about Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Lion King. So, because previews for Toy Story advertised the film as a joint venture with Disney, I was initially excited, even if Pixar was a relatively unknown studio at the time. As Disney released more information about Toy Story, I will confess one thing had me a bit worried--Pixar's well-publicized breaking with the Disney Renaissance film convention of characters breaking into song, a convention I had grown accustomed to and loved dearly. I need not have worried. Pixar's groundbreaking first computer-animated film exceeded all expectations. Toy Story proved winsome, heartwarming, and beyond infinitely entertaining. (See what I did there?) With a single film, the studio's creative team effectively changed the landscape of animated motion pictures and established the medium as worthy of well-developed stories that appeal to adults on multiple levels and every bit as much as they engross children. With the subsequent releases of A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3, Pixar delivered a string of near-perfect and brilliant movies, raising the bar for live-action and animated films alike and setting ridiculously high expectations for themselves (perhaps unfairly). In fact, prior to the release of Cars 2 in 2011, each new contribution to Pixar's oeuvre either improved upon the achievements of its predecessors or further solidified the studio's foundation with pure and honest emotion, poignancy, imaginative storytelling, and beautiful animation. Originally, I planned on writing today's post strictly about my favorite Pixar film, Finding Nemo. But then I got to thinking, if I only focus on Finding Nemo, what happens to Toy Story 3? I decided, okay, I'll write about that instead. But wait. What about Up? Maybe I should pick Up. No--that leaves out A Bug's Life, and I can't leave out A Bug's Life! I'd be fired, courtesy of Tuck & Roll. I mustn't forget Inside Out, though, either. I loved that movie. And Wall-E. How could I write about a Pixar movie and not include Wall-E? Or Ratatouille? Or The Incredibles? My gosh, I almost forgot about The Incredibles! Not to mention Monsters Inc and Cars. Jeez. What was I thinking, picking just one of Pixar's films? Clearly, then, when I say Finding Nemo is my favorite, I mean that very loosely, and primarily only make the distinction because the summer when Brave came out, Bryce and I challenged each other to rank all of the Pixar films released at that time. Afterwards, we compared our lists. Turns out the exercise proved more difficult than it seemed at the outset. We both agreed on which two movies rounded out the bottom of the list--Cars 2 and Brave--but the remaining 11 movies were practically interchangeable, with mere minutiae separating them. And that was before Pixar added Inside Out and Finding Dory to their arsenal. Which, at the end of the day, is why I couldn't settle on just one of their outstanding offerings for today's post. When people ask what my favorite television show is, I do not hesitate to answer--it's The Wonder Years. It has been ever since I first started watching the show when it originally aired on TV in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
For those unfamiliar, The Wonder Years follows the coming-of-age story of Kevin Arnold as he maneuvers adolescence between 1968 and 1973, some of the most tumultuous and socially turbulent years in American history. Told through one long flashback, the adult Kevin narrates his memories of growing up during those years, recalling the most important events and feelings of his formative years. Throughout the process, Kevin falls in and out of love with his neighbor, Winnie Cooper, while relying on the support and of his best friend, Paul Pfeiffer. He struggles to establish his identity and assert himself within the framework of his post-war, suburban family life, often butting heads with his dad, Jack, and older brother, Wayne. His older sister, Karen, represented much of the social upheaval occurring at the time as she fell in with the hippie crowd, protested the Vietnam War, and generally challenged the constraints of the patriarchal society. I connected with the show on multiple levels. The Wonder Years spoke to my burgeoning interest in 20th century American history while also reflecting my own stage of development--I was approximately the same age as adolescent Kevin and aged right along with him. Despite the twenty year difference, many of my own coming-of-age experiences mirrored those he faced, and I wanted to be Kevin Arnold--I even had a little prepubescent crush on Winnie Cooper for a while. I often found gym class awkward and degrading, much the same as Kevin, and I knew how it felt to skirt the edges of junior and senior high school cliques, never really fitting into a certain one but not entirely outcast from any but the jocks. I also understood needing best friends to help navigate the awkwardness and tricky situations that define what it means to be a teenager. It's a funny thing, growing up and going through high school. I always considered those years as the most challenging, not really fitting in anywhere or knowing myself until I graduated and moved on to college. While much of that remains true and though I would not like to go back and relive my teenage years, I realize now more than ever (largely because of this Countdown to 40 project) so much of my sense of self formed during those years. And perhaps that's another reason why The Wonder Years has stuck with me all this time, for as the final lines of the series finale perfectly convey: "Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses. A yard like a lot of other yards. On a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back... with wonder." I declared my feelings for Disney movies earlier this month when ruminating over the live action-animated crossover musical, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and if you asked me to describe those feelings in a single word, I would choose enamored. My process of discerning which of the studio's movies would earn full blog posts therefore proved difficult, especially considering Disney films accounted for approximately a dozen finalists for my Countdown to 40. While it pained me to cut many of them, Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame above all, four ultimately made their way onto the list, and of those four, I was most obsessed with The Lion King.
When I saw it in theaters for the first time, The Lion King amazed me like no other animated film had before. With its breath-taking animation (the opening sequence anyone?), heart-warming cast of characters, tragic death of Mufasa, triumphant return of Simba, hilarious one-liners, and unparalleled music, the 1994 African savanna fantasia epitomized everything I loved most about Disney movies. These qualities cemented what many consider the ultimate Disney Renaissance Film as not only one of my all-time favorites but as one of the greatest films ever made. Period. I was and am not alone in my adoration of the film. I mean, you've seen it and probably love it, just like other people of all ages who flocked to theaters to experience the magic of The Lion King. In fact, according to Box Office Mojo, it held the title as highest-grossing animated film for nearly an entire decade before Shrek 2 outsold it. More importantly, one of my best friends in high school, Debbie, was just as obsessed with The Lion King as I was. We saw the film repeatedly in the theater and countless additional times on VHS after purchasing our copies the day they went on sale (probably at Target), watching it so many times we knew the whole script by heart. (My friends in college teased me for how well I knew the film, noting how I would even sigh when the characters sighed.) We listened to the soundtrack incessantly, memorizing every song. We collected The Lion King trading cards, piecing together full sets of both series one and series two. We acquired stationary products, toys, and ornaments. We accumulated tie-in coloring books, too, and spent many a summer afternoon perfecting the right combination of Crayola crayons in our efforts to perfectly recreate the colors we saw on screen. We were all too happy and eager to spend the summer leading up to our senior year almost totally immersed in the world of The Lion King. And when something pervades so much of your life and becomes such an important part of a friendship, it truly helps to define an era and therefore my 17 year-old sense of identity. If I am being totally honest with you, Will & Grace almost didn't make my Countdown to 40 list. I initially thought it would be all too cliché to pick a show that very clearly spotlights members of the gay community, living in New York City no less. I figured people would read the post and think to themselves, "well, that was an obvious and easy choice." Except, settling on Will & Grace proved anything but obvious and easy for me, and until today, this post was set to focus on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
As my good friend Erin can attest to, I waffled on which of the two television shows to write about as late as this afternoon and struggled to explain why The Mary Tyler Moore Show and not Will & Grace should be today's feature item. Yes, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was groundbreaking for centering on a single woman establishing a career as well as an identity independent of men, marriage, and children. Mary Tyler Moore's character of Mary Richards confronted several tricky topics in addition to gender roles, like abortion, sex, divorce, and homosexuality...during the 1970s. In so doing, the show truly challenged many of the social norms of the time and helped change the definition of what it meant to be a woman, all while setting a gold standard for television sitcoms. Quite revolutionary, if you ask me. When you think about it, Will & Grace followed much the same revolutionary trail blazed by The Mary Tyler Moore Show. At a time when more and more people were confronting and struggling with the reality of homosexuality, either their own or that of gay family and friends around them, Will & Grace featured two out men, one as a title character. This groundbreaking concept was made all the more groundbreaking by the show's portrayal of Will as a normal, down-to-earth, guy-next-door type. Through the complicated but entirely relatable (and often times hilarious) relationships between Will, his straight BFF Grace, his gay BFF Jack, and his drunk BFF Karen, the show helped to normalize homosexuality and gay people, thereby challenging society's stereotypes of what it meant to be gay. Neither Will nor Jack were creepy, perverted guys who lived on the fringes of society, mired in drugs and sex. Instead, they lived rather mundane lives, just like everyone else around them, trying to find the perfect balance between work, life, and relationships, with one another as well as their significant others. As a young man coming out, I very much needed Will & Grace and its humorous brand of normalizing the lives of gay people, for I felt alone during the early stages of accepting my own homosexuality. Of all the people in my life at that time, I knew no other members of the GLBTQ community and therefore had no one in my inner circles who really understood what I was going through or what was in store for me. I had my friends and family, of course, who surrounded me with nothing but love and acceptance, and I will be eternally thankful for that. (We all know the heart-breaking and horrible realities many people of all ages face after sharing the most beautiful and honest truth about themselves.) What Will & Grace helped offer me to supplement the love and support of family and friends was permission to accept my homosexuality as simply a part of who I was but not solely who I was. After all, I was still the same son. The same brother. The same friend. The same uncle. The same cousin. The same nephew. The same grandson. The same college graduate. The same Janet Jackson fan. The same lover of Christmas and snow. The same connoisseur of popcorn. The same Chris. Actually, acknowledging and accepting my homosexuality as just another part of myself made me a better, truer, stronger Chris. So, at the end of the day, my own life experiences and path of self-discovery connected more with Will & Grace than with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, no matter how much I love them both. There seem to be two different kinds of people in this world, Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. I always thought that demarcation quite silly and considered myself an equal opportunity supporter of both franchises. I anxiously await the release of new Star Wars and Star Trek films and have fond memories of both. I've thoroughly enjoyed sporadically joining Bryce throughout his years-long journey to experience all of the Star Trek films and television series, from the original 1960s series all the way up through Enterprise and the J. J. Abrams cinematic reboots. (Fun fact: While The Next Generation remains my favorite iteration of the Star Trek canon, Deep Space Nine proves a close second.) As I sat down to work on my Countdown to 40, though, I finally faced the actual (rather than alternative) fact: as much as I try to convince myself I fall definitively into the Star Trek camp every bit as much as I fall into the Star Wars camp, it's just not true. I connect more with the latter than the former, an admission I'm sure Bryce would argue was obvious from day one.
Now, I mean no disrespect towards Star Trek and the fans who adore it, Star Wars simply signifies so much more for me. As a child, A New Hope was the first movie I ever saw with my dad. Whether he realized it or not and whether I accepted or not, I often sought things over which the two of us could bond. I never was much of a sports guy, and though I wouldn't consider my dad a sports fanatic, he could usually be found taking in the weekly Vikings game with my mom and brother on Sunday afternoons. The older I got, the more I gravitated towards the arts and longed to connect with my dad through them. I knew very little about his taste in movies and music, however, since we rarely talked about what he liked. One thing I did learn over the years: my dad liked the original Star Wars films. I therefore took advantage of and loved every opportunity I had to experience them with him. That alone is reason enough to justify the inclusion of Star Wars on my Countdown to 40, but that would cut short the story of the saga's ongoing relationship to my life. In the late 1990s, George Lucas re-released all three films to theaters in anticipation for the debut of a new addition to the series, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I learned then how a good friend of mine in college idolized Star Wars, and his enthusiasm for the sci-fi epic rejuvenated my own enthusiasm for A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi. We made sure to catch each one in the theater on opening weekend, discussing in depth the lore surrounding the Star Wars universe afterwards and hazarding guesses as to where Lucas would be taking us with the forthcoming Episodes I, II, and III. By the time The Phantom Menace debuted in May of 1999, my rejuvenated enthusiasm had transformed into genuine excitement. As with any heightened sense of anticipation, I wanted to share my delight in the new films and could think of no one better to accomplish that than with than my niece, Brittani, and nephew, Jordan, who were 9 and 6 at the time. When the chance came to treat the two of them to seeing the film in the theater, I snapped it up. They both seemed to love the film, especially Jordan, and I happily spoiled them with repeated viewings of Episode I as well as the original trilogy. (Confession: The character of Jar-Jar Binks never bothered me as much as he did other people.) Today the Star Wars universe continues to expand, adding on three more episodes to the original series and tacking on several stand-alone films that focus on backstories and fill in the holes exhibited by the nine episodic movies. I will no doubt see them all, remembering all of the happiness, contentment, and fulfillment that accompany the rest of the Star Wars anthology. I jumped aboard the Sex and the City bandwagon late, only ever watching it on DVD after the final season aired on HBO. I knew the show's stellar reputation, as it frequently appeared on year-end best lists and garnered numerous awards throughout its six-season run. Not subscribing to HBO, though, meant I had no easy access to the show and therefore could not watch it. And before ever seeing a single episode, I simply could not understand the hysteria surrounding Sex and the City, at least not initially. It was well before streaming movies and television series was a thing, after all. Still, the critical hype piqued my interest, increased all the more when one of my good friends, Carrie, highly recommended the show to me.
The question then became, how does one gain access to a premium-channel show without the premium channel or an option to stream? Through DVD, of course. The early 2000s saw the rise of entire seasons of television shows on DVD and even if Netflix has now become synonymous with binge-watching, the modern phenomenon truly started with TV on DVD. So, one year I asked my parents for Sex and the City on DVD for Christmas, ultimately receiving the first two seasons as a gift. That same year I felt a little under the weather at Christmastime, not thinking much of it, especially considering I seemed to feel better within a couple of days. Fast forward a week to New Year's Eve, however, and suddenly it became clear that whatever illness I contracted was not done with me. Before long I felt the sickest I remember ever feeling in my life. What started as a sniffle turned into the worst possible sinus infection one could imagine. I spent New Year's Eve lying in bed, scared to move for fear of throwing up. Even rolling to one side while in bed caused severe nausea. The only way I could manage the dizziness and prevent vomiting was by lying perfectly still, and provided I did so, I actually felt fine. I could eat. I could drink. I could read. I could watch TV. I could play video games. The problem arose when I readjusted my position or needed to use the bathroom, and even sitting up in bed made me ill. I survived the bout of intensely debilitating sickness, clearly, but not without the help of some very generous people. My parents suggested I try eating a banana and drinking some gatorade as a way to restore my potassium balance, replenish my electrolytes, and rehydrate my body, all of which they thought could be culprits. My roommate at the time, Kara, and her new beau, Bailey, made sure I was okay and brought me some bananas and gatorade to try, though I felt as if they were suspicious of my illness--primarily because it was just so strange. After a full day in bed and feeling no better, another of my good friends, Allison, responded to my call for help and drove me to urgent care. Imagine, if you will, being so off-kilter that rolling over in bed caused so much dizziness that the only way your body knew how to react was by throwing up. Then imagine having to get into a car. Allison, my brave friend, managed to get me to urgent care, albeit with my arms wrapped around a bucket for the entire ride to and from the doctor's visit. Luckily enough, I had been so sick over the past 24 hours nothing was left in my digestive system to empty. Turns out I had contracted a very nasty sinus infection, most likely a hold out from the cold I had the week before. My orders were to lay low so as not to upset my equilibrium much, drink lots of water to cure my severe dehydration, take prescription-strength dramamine to help ease the nausea, and let my body take care of the rest. Over my days of recovery, I longed for something to keep my mind off of being sick. My good friends Kara, Bailey, Allison, and Dianna, another life-long friend made during my time at the University of Minnesota Duluth, helped with that by dropping by, hanging out, and checking in on me. With more free time on my hands than my friends had to give, I turned to my newly-acquired Sex and the City DVDs. It did not take long for me to see why the show had earned so many kudos, and soon Kara and I were hooked. Together, we binge-watched the entire series, instantly drawn to the comedy, romance, and drama of it all while also connecting to the power of great friendships as portrayed by the show's main characters, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. We zipped through the first two seasons with lightning speed, and yearning for more, I purchased the remaining seasons on DVD so we could finish what we started. By the very last episode of season six, I knew I had discovered another all-time favorite television show. Filled with humor, romance, drama, and heartbreak, Sex and the City proved immediately engrossing and infinitely watchable. Over the subsequent years, the show quickly became my most-watched, having seen it in its entirety several times. Even now I return to the show every summer, for like the good friends who took care of me while I was at my most sick, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha never let me down. Generally regarded as the very first summer blockbuster, Steven Spielberg's Jaws enticed audiences with state-of-the art special effects and a signature blend of suspense, humor, thrills, action, and adventure when it hit theaters in June of 1975. Often imitated but rarely duplicated, Jaws set the standard for what would become the formula for aptly nicknamed popcorn flicks. Not surprising, then, that it would take Spielberg to outdo himself and perfect his own recipe with 1993's movie of the summer, Jurassic Park.
When I saw Jurassic Park for the first time in theaters during the summer of 1993, it blew me away. Like most kids, I always found dinosaurs and their disappearance fascinating. The fact that real-live monsters once roamed the earth expanded the boundaries of my imagination. Jurassic Park took that imagination and ran with it. While I enjoyed the ride with Doctors Grant, Sattler, and Malcom as they struggled to make it out of John Hammond's theme park alive, it was the dinosaurs I could not get enough of. The t-rex, velociraptors, gallimimuses, triceratops, brontosauruses, and dilophosaurus seemed so real. Sure, other movies and television shows featured dinosaurs before, but none of them succeeded quite like Jurassic Park, thanks to Spielberg and his team who spared no expense. I obsessively loved the movie so much that I saw it in the theater a record-at-the-time seven times. Yes, you read that right--seven times. I even dreamed of owning a Jurassic Park-themed Ford Explorer as seen in the film. Beyond compelling me see the it seven times in the multiplex, Jurassic Park helped intensify my overall love for movies as well as books, in its own way. When Spielberg's dino-romp left theaters later that summer, I felt an unexpected sense of loss. I badly needed to revisit Jurassic Park, so I picked up a copy of Michael Crichton's original novel and tore through it. Twice. Reading the book only made me love the movie all the more, if that was even possible. The sequels had the some effect. Though I anxiously anticipated each one, they never lived up to the originality, entertainment value, and sheer perfection of the original, and to this day, a desire to watch Jurassic Park resurfaces at least once every summer. Slightly tangential observation: Like 1990 (and 1998 to a lesser degree), 1993 represents another one of those magic years because of the numerous CDs, songs, and movies from that year that stick out as favorites, Jurassic Park included. |
AUTHOR
I am a self-proclaimed pop culture geek and list enthusiast who is celebrating the big four-zero by counting down the most important, influential, and favorite music, movies, television shows, books, and video games of my life so far. Categories
All
Archives |