Missed the zeitgeist by that much
The Houston Chronicle runs its 1977 review by Jeff Millar of the original Star Wars. I don't know what explains the sloppy grammar and punctuation -- surely that's not how it was originally published? They probably got some intern to type it up fast.
But the phrase in the review -- "They were lined up all the way past the Galleria skating rink" brought to mind the day I was there.
No, I was not on line at the first day of the original Star Wars. I was there the day before -- when the film was sneak-previewed.
It was a hot Thursday in June. I was spending the summer in Austin, but I had gone back to Houston to take my erstwhile girlfriend to get an abortion. We agreed that while she was in there, I could go see a movie or something, so I went over the Galleria to see Robert Altman's 3 Women, which I had already seen probably three times. But when I got to the mall, the theater that was supposed to be showing 3 Women was instead showing a sneak preview of some space movie I'd never heard of. Star Wars -- what the fuck was that? And there was, as the review said, a line stretching through the mall past the skating rink.
I remember being a little ticked off that I couldn't see my precious art film -- that shows you how self-involved I was, that while my girlfriend was off getting an abortion I was mad because I couldn't see a movie for the fourth time -- and I had no desire to get in a line full of twelve-year-olds to see some movie I'd never heard of. I can't remember how I spent the time before I went to pick up my girlfriend, but I remember she was waiting for me when I got back to the clinic.
A few weeks later when I finally saw Star Wars I was like, Oh, so that's what that was.
No comments:
Post a Comment