30th Anniversary

This movie opened in theaters on Friday, June 27, 1986, and last month had its 30th anniversary. I know I'm three weeks late on that, but I saw it in our local theater, the Cinema 4 in Rock Hill, SC, on Thursday, July 17, 1986. I was 18 and had just graduated from high school and would be going off to begin college in a little over a month. My mother, sister, and I drove over to Rock Hill to see it that day, and early the following August I would take a driving course and get my driver's lisence. So this movie has the distinction of being the last one I would see in a theater that I could not drive myself to. It also has the distinction of being the one I saw in a theater when it was the hottest outside. The summer of 1986 would set a record as the hottest in the Carolinas. We went to the 1:00 showing, and we got out around 3:00 that afternoon, and as we were driving down Cherry Road in Rock Hill we passed a digital thermometer that read 100 degrees, which we commented on.

I did not particularly like the movie and never saw it again until this past weekend, but rented it out from netflix last week because I wanted to see it again for this anniversary, and watched it on Saturday afternoon, July 16, on the dvd player in my apartment, almost exactly 30 years to the day of when I first saw it. As I said I had not seen it again since then, and the only thing I remembered from it was the scene where Judge Rienhold's character picks the daddy longlegs up with a book, puts it outside and closes the door, then reopens the door and stomps on it, while telling his wife they need to start being more ruthless. And that scene was exactly as I do remember it. Still, I did want to acknowledge its 30th anniversary, and the two distinctions it has for me.

"I happen to be a vegetarian". Lex, from Jurrasic Park