I’ve Been Memed

The Alphabet Meme begun by Fletch over at Blog Cabins has been making its way around the Internet and I’ve been tagged to play along by Paul Clark of Silly Hats Only, Screengrab and Muriels fame. The deal is I’m supposed to pick my favorite film for each letter of the alphabet.

Since this meme is already a couple of weeks old and because I never like to do what I’m told, I’m going to do it a little differently. Clearly the eight movies shown above couldn’t be my favorites…could they?

Here are the Rules:

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter “A” and the word “The” do not count as the beginning of a film’s title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don’t know of any films with those titles.

3. Return of the Jedi belongs under “R,” not “S” as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with “S.” Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under “R,” not “I” as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under “L” and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under “C,” as that’s what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number’s word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under “T.”

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type “alphabet meme” into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.

6. If you’re selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

Sounds easy enough. Read on for the how and why of my modifications…

It all begins back in the early ’80s when my family got our first VCR. I still remember shopping for one at Sears with my parents. Those RCA VideoDiscs they were also selling sure looked cool, but my parents were set on a Sony Betamax because my uncle had bought one. I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t get the RCA though looking back the Betamax didn’t last too long either. Yeah, here’s a special “Screw you!” to all of you dopes who fell for VHS marketing. Thanks a million, assholes!

Anyway, the top-loading machine cost like $800. It was huge and noisy and the remote control had a cord that plugged into the front, but it all seemed so high tech. You could watch movies on tapes in your own home! You could record Miami Vice and watch it later! Good times.

At first we rented videos at the now-defunct Pay ‘n Save. The first movie I ever rented was Star Wars and I wore that thing out watching the special effects and explosions in slow motion — I figured out other more interesting uses for the slow motion button soon after, but that’s another story.

Before long, we graduated to the seemingly endless selection of titles at a video store down by the mall. The name of the store escapes me, but this was before Blockbuster and the other big national chains. Every weekend and sometimes during the week I’d go down with my parents and we’d rent a pile of movies and over the years, certain titles and box covers were burned into my mind. Some of the movies I saw and some of them I never rented, but they stuck anyway.

Now fast forward to about an hour ago. When I was sitting down to think of an alphabet of movies, I went right to the X because I figured it would be hardest. The first movie that popped into my head? A cheesy sci-fi horror movie called Xtro. I’m not sure I ever actually saw the movie, but I saw the box cover somewhere in the neighborhood of 73 million times and sadly I’ll never forget it.

And here now finally is my point: instead of a list of my favorite movies, I’m doing a list of video box covers that continue to haunt me for one reason or another. Based on the mostly sci-fi, horror, sexploitation theme, you can probably guess where my head was at 14 and 15.

Enough jibber jabber. On with the list. Many of these were stream of consciousness picks. They were literally the first titles that muscled their way to the front of my consciousness. Others I had to think about a little longer:

• …All the Marbles (1981)
• Butterfly (1981)
• Chatterbox (1976) - A girl with a talking vagina. No, I’m serious.
• Damnation Alley (1977)
• Emily (1976)
• Fade to Black (1980)
• Gator Bait (1976) - The tousle-haired young barefooted lass in cutoffs with a knife and an unbuttoned denim vest says it all.
• The Harrad Experiment (1973)
• I Spit on Your Grave (1977)
• Joe (1970)
• Krull (1983)
• Laserblast (1978) - The guy on the front looked like an evil Luke Skywalker.
• Mad Max (1979)
• Nighthawks (1981)
• Out of Control (1985)
• Personal Best (1982)
• Q (1982)
• Road Games (1981)
• Squeeze Play (1981)
• Tuff Turf (1985) - Hey, is that the girl from Escape to Witch Mountain lookin’ all grown up and hot?
• Used Cars (1980)
• Videodrome (1982)
• The Warriors (1979)
• Xtro (1983)
• Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)
• Zardoz (1973)

Thanks for helping me revisit my teen years. Now I tag Chuck Bowen, Hedwig Van Driel, Christian Divine, Dorothy Porker and Jeff McMahon.

Of course, you can just do your favorite movies instead of video box covers, but either way you’re it.

Filed under: Lists

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