Thursday, April 04, 2013

A life of film

Today Roger Ebert died, and I was trying to figure out why it bummed me out so. I mean, I'm usually sad when anyone dies, but this felt a little different. Then I noticed that he's always reminded me of my Grandma Maki, even though they don't look alike or anything.

Aaaah. Movies. I always watched movies with my Grandma. She was very cool. She figured out how to set her VCR to tape things, and had me borrow tapes with movies she loved and knew I should watch. That's how I saw Educating Rita. My Grandma even appreciated Die Hard and Terminator 2-- that's how cool she was. She took my sister and I to see E.T. when it came out, and we each had little, leather E.T. dolls with us. She took me to see The Muppet Movie. On one awkward evening, we rented Children of a Lesser God from the library, thinking that it couldn't possibly contain anything worth being Rated R. I don't recommend watching sex scenes with your grandma.

One of the last times we went out together was to see A Beautiful Mind followed by Applebee's. I was tired and crabby and criticized the movie, even though she loved it. I hate remembering that day. On a funnier note, when I bought Monsoon Wedding, I had her borrow it because I thought she'd like it. She must have been having quite a confused day because she later reported that she threw it out because she couldn't understand anything and why had I brought her a porno?!

She always subscribed to People Magazine, so that's how I first read Entertainment Weekly, which is truly a big part of my life. She also introduced me to Ebert & Siskel and the whole world of movie reviews. Oh, she loved it. It was one of the shows she watched and I loved watching it with her. (Did you know that I wrote a couple film reviews in college? Matt and I dabbled with a rating system from -5 to +5, with 0 being "It was a movie.")

So I guess that by Ebert dying, I feel like another little part of my Grandma is gone. One less thing that I didn't even realize reminded me of her.
photo credit: Articulate MediaWorks via photopin cc