Hollywood Dreams of the Blockbuster
By Mary Beth Gentle
Did you ever have a dream that you wanted so bad you could taste it? Feel it in your soul? Make your head ache just thinking of it? For me that dream was and in many ways still is, Hollywood. It started as something far away and intangible, something that other people went on to do, certainly not something a quiet, shy kid from No-where’s-ville, USA would ever be a part of.
Sometimes I wonder where my dream of a life in Hollywood all began, where and at what moment I was hooked. Maybe it was the Saturday Matinees at the little theatre on our small town’s Main Street, where they would play old Disney movies while we ate our popcorn and slurped our sodas. Maybe it was the Sunday afternoons spent watching old black and white Cary Grant movies with my Grandmother. Or maybe it was the seventh grade field trip to the local TV station where I got to see the cameras and lights close up.
I think all those things helped nurture the dream, but the more I think about it the dream for me was created by the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster. These are the big budget movies that every Studio spends all year prepping, shooting and posting to get on screen for Memorial Weekend through Labor Day Weekend. For me, that was my summer vacation, I had it planned from the moment school let out to the moment it started back up in September. I knew which ones I had to see and which ones I would see over and over again.
And I am still the same way. My summer is not planned out by elaborate vacation plans to some great escape or a tropical get away. It’s planned out by what movie opens on what weekend, how early I am going to buy my tickets and where I am going to see it. And for me this summer is a true flashback to the days of my youth. This is the summer of one of the ultimate blockbusters, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Raiders of the Lost Ark was the movie that really cemented the dream in place for me. The movie opened on June 12, 1981 and I think I saw it five times that summer, if not more. It was the wildest movie ride I had ever been on. It was a movie that had it all; it had non-stop action like we had never seen before, a classic American Hero to root for and truly bad guys to fear. It was and still is everything a blockbuster should be; it is why we go to the movies, buy our popcorn and smile as the rare hush falls over the audience the moment the first frame of action lights up the screen.
I have already watched the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull countless times. I get a little giddy just thinking about it. And I am supposed to be a cool, jaded Hollywood Hipster. Well, I hate to break it to everyone, but when it comes to Indiana Jones, I am simply a movie geek who works in a Hollywood cubicle. And trust me, I am proud of it.
There are other movies out this summer; Wall-E, Prince Caspian, Iron Man, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk to name a few. And I will see them all, but I can already tell you that none of them will compare to Indiana Jones. Because none of them hold the same sense of nostalgia, none of them come close to the level of pop culture status that Indiana Jones has and none of them can be counted as having sparked a far off dream in the mind of a young girl from No-where’s-ville, USA.
So, even when I have weeks like this past one, where I have worked a seventy-hour week and I’m not sure if any of the powers that be care or recognize my efforts, I still smile a little at the thought that I’m actually here, living my dream. And at least for one moment, during one movie this summer, I will be that kid again, standing on a long line waiting to be one of the first to see the ultimate Summer blockbuster, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
