26th Birthday for Sam!! 26 Movie Memories for Sam!!
Well today is my 26th birthday!!! Thank you to anyone who has sent me well wishes or reached out to me. I always love the time around my birthday and having the opportunity to celebrate with others. Today I am going to share 25 great birthday memories that I have. Why 25 you ask? Because it’s my blog, I can do what I would like, and because I’ve only been 26 for a day at this point. Hopefully this will make its way back to some of my loved ones and they can remember some of these good times as well. Anyway! Off we go! 25 movies memories!!
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The first movie I ever saw three times in theaters was Monster’s Inc. I honestly do not remember anything about the first two times I saw it, but the third time I went was with my brother Bobby and my Uncle Ed. Somehow my uncle managed to slide his camera through the little glass semi-circle to the movie theater attendant who took a picture of us all together. Great documentation of that trip!
When I was about eight years old, there was rumors that the last Star Wars prequel (Revenge of the Sith) would be PG-13 (for good reason we would find out later). Little me walked up to my Dad who was reading the paper. I told him if I could still see the movie if it was PG-13. He didn’t even look up from his paper to say yes. Testing the boundaries, I asked if I could still see it if it was rated R. He paused for a second, thought about it, said yes again, and went back to his reading. Thank you, Dad!
Fast forward a little more than a year from the last memory. My family was trying to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (the second one), but it was sold out in the theater. So we got tickets to see Superman Returns instead (criminally underrated by the way). Before the last son of Krypton’s movie began, we got a teaser trailer for Spider-Man 3, which showed off the iconic symbiote suit. The end of the trailer displayed a release date of May 4, 2007. Without anything I just blurted out in excitement “May 4th!” The theater erupted in laughter at my excitement, and one other attendant yelled, “May 5th!” And one last attendee shouted, “May 6th.” I wonder to this day if they had any idea they were teasing a 9-year-old.
Not much of a memory as nothing unique happened, but when I was in sixth grade I attended a children’s Bible quiz meet in San Diego. I had a great showing and didn’t get a single question wrong. As a reward (although I think he would have taken me anyway), my Dad and I went to the theater and saw the first Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. Little did I know that was a beginning of a franchise that would be dominant at the box office my entire adult life.
One more from my Dad. When I was 14 my Dad and I went to see X-Men: First Class. While the movie itself for many reasons, it also has the best cameo of the last 15 years (maybe ever) with a 30-second appearance from Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. After hearing Wolverine’s vulgar insult, I remember stifling my laughter as I was with my Dad, who at the time I assumed didn’t think swearing was funny. But I felt instant relief as he let out a little chuckle at the line.
The first midnight premiere I went to was for The Hunger Games in 2012. My poor mother went with me at stayed up until 3 am. I have no idea how she functioned the next day. I barely did. I do remember meandering around the theater before midnight, walking into an auditorium, and seeing the scene in 21 Jumpstreet where the bad guy shoots his penis off.
When I first saw Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, I had a vast emotional response to the song “On My Own.” It was my favorite song from the soundtracks I had listened too, and the performance from Samantha Barks was top-notch. However near the beginning of the song a homeless person can be seen sitting in the rain in the unfocused background of the scene. Turning to my brother, I said, “Bobby, look. Random hobo.” We both almost cried from stifling our laughter. Then I almost cried when the words and melody of the song hit me.
Not 6 months later I found myself crying in Star Trek Into Darkness. Why you might ask? Because I found Kirk’s death scene to be very moving. Literally every time I have seen the movie since then I thought it was some of the worst over-acting in the movie. And this is the same movie where Benedict Cumberbatch tried to be as cool as Ricardo Mantalban.
During a basketball game when I was 17 I was hit in the face by an opponent and my face started to bleed. It took a very large bandage and me not moving my face for several hours for the bleeding to stop. But that night The Lego Movie had just come out and I was going to see it one way or another. So I walked into Harkins Theaters covered in sweat, bandage on my face, and basketball jersey still on; and I bought myself a ticket for The Lego Movie…and then I bought a slushie.
When I was 17 Frozen came out, and the world was plagued with “Let It Go.” Somehow I managed to avoid spoilers about the movie and actually seeing it for something like 6 months. But while my family was traveling in California my sister had watched it a couple of times on our drive, and my curiosity finally peaked. So when everyone fell asleep, I grabbed my sister’s iPad and started watching Frozen. The movie was fine, and I could see the appeal. Then when the twist comes near the end where Hans almost kisses Anna and reveals he is a villain, I about threw the iPad across the room. I was so shocked by the twist. That darn Hans!
It’s not a long memory, but my old manager from Chick-Fil-A paid for me to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it came out in 2015. Shout out to Eric! You were a cool boss.
Right around then Deadpool came out as well. I wanted to go with friends of mine in college but none of them wanted to pay. So I ended up paying for like five people to go see it. And three of those people became my junior and senior year roommates, Austin, Kevin, and Zach.
In 2017 there was a little kerfuffle in the movie fan world when Darren Aronofsky put his movie mother! Some people were calling it the worst film of all time. The previous weekend It had come out, and I wanted to see something else in theaters. My old friend Jake told that he wanted to know if it really was the worst movie ever. I told him I hadn’t gotten paid yet and couldn’t go. So he venmoed me $7 to see it. And it was not the worst movie ever, but it was one of the most bizarre ever made.
Also in 2017, Pixar put out the amazing flick Coco (which we will come back to later). Before the movie there was a TWENTY-MINUTE short about Olaf searching for the meaning of Christmas or something. It was annoying, stupid, and made me regret buying a ticket. I went to the theater with my best friend James. Two minutes into the short James stood up, told me “I’ll be back when it’s over,” and walked out. After fifteen minutes, James came back in. However to his misfortune the Frozen short was still going. So when the credits finally rolled for the short he threw his empty water bottle at the screen. I am thankful he did that.
When Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out I saw it in a dinner theater with my uncle and cousins Emily and Eva. During the throne room fight scene, Kylo Ren kills a guard by catching Luke Skywalker’s old lightsbaer and igniting it for a second to stab the guard in the head. I do not know why but it made me laugh so hard that Emily looked at me and whispered through gritted teeth, “Sam, shut the f*** up.”
On my first date with Jane, we saw Coco in theaters. Even though she repeatedly maxes fun of me and says the date went too long, we’re still here so I must have done something well. The song “Remember Me” became a special song to us as we spent much of our relationship and them engagement apart.
Also Jane and I decided to see Avengers: Infinity War twice on opening night. I don’t know how I came up with that idea but it was an awesome experience to be able to experience it again right afterward so I could appreciate it again. Also Jane was a trooper to do that with me.
I interned for GEICO in the summer of 2018, and I spent a lot of days after work and on weekends seeing movies. Hereditary had been getting a lot of critical acclaim, and I wanted to see it. However, because I am scaredy-cat I wanted a pallet cleanser for afterward. So I got tickets for Kyrie Irving’s Uncle Drew movie, which will go down as one of the most underseen and bizarre sports movies ever.
Another fun showing I saw that summer was a rowdy showing of The Room at a local arthouse theater. Fans were encourage to yell at the screen, throw things, and just generally have a good time. I hope they will do another showing of it again soon. It was a once in a lifetime experience.
We brought back the Avengers: Infinity War tradition when Avengers: Endgame came out, and Jane and I saw it twice opening night. She insisted that I make no jokes or comments during our first viewing as she just wanted to enjoy it. I kept my word, and I even held back from making jokes the second time (for the most part).
The very same arthouse that showed off a viewing of The Room was also where I first saw Parasite. I had been sick that day at work and coughing my lungs out. So when I went up to the ticket booth I sounded like a 30-year smoker. I coughed nastily multiple times during the movie, but this was pre-pandemic and didn’t get any dirty looks (that I remember).
Also in late 2019 I saw a very late screening of The Rise of Skywalker at around 10 pm. I went home afterward and saw Cats the next morning at 9:30 am. All in all that was a disappointing movie weekend. But I have enjoyed the discourse around both those movies.
March 15, 2020 was one of the last days many movie theaters were opened before the pandemic shut them down. And of course I still saw a movie. I went and saw Ben Affleck in The Way Back. For protection I brought a sleeve of wet wipes with me and wiped down my seat before I sat down and watched the movie. It probably did not help, but I did my best.
Conversely, I was at the first screening of Tenet in July of 2020 and as soon as the attendant walked out of theater after announcing it and thanking us for coming back, EVERYONE took their masks off. Just right away they were all gone. People did not care, and it made me sad. (Just like how Christopher Nolan didn’t care if we could hear the dialogue in that movie.)
In 2021 I was trying to support movie theaters (which were still struggling then), so I went to Black Widow. However, a little more than 20 minutes into it I got a call from the groomer’s where my dog was and he needed to come be picked up. I did not want to leave him fortow long as he has pretty bad anxiety. So I got him, brought him home, and decided to just pre-order access to Scar Jo’s new flick on Disney +. So thanks to my dog, Jack, Disney got $40 out of me to see that movie.
Thanks for reading, guys! I’ll see you next week when I get back to regular reviews.