Movie fixations through the years

Tomorrow, the Ringers (also known as Nan and Jim, or Ringer and Noz, take your pick) are running movie night, as they do every Tuesday. When they show things like Troll 2, I politely decline. However, this week's film is The Crow.



I am SO THERE! Somehow I saw The Crow in the theater. I say somehow because the movie came out in 1994, when I was 11 years old, and it was definitely rated R. I get the feeling somebody else's parents took me to see it. I also owned a copy of the VHS tape, which I'm pretty sure was purchased by my friend Erin and, again, not by my parents. However I acquired it, though, I was downright obsessed with the movie. I had a giant poster of Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) on my wall for years, and I wore a necklace featuring a quote from the movie for pretty much all of middle school. The Crow was the first of my many cinematic obsessions, as shown in the following photo. That's me on the right. Fake crow on my shoulder and everything. Halloween 1996. I was 13. Pretty good authenticity, no?



I haven't seen The Crow in at least 10 years, probably more. I'm not sure how it'll look through an adult lens, but I know the grittier subject matter will not fly over my head like it once did. To my pre-teen brain, The Crow was a tragic love story about avenging wrongdoings. Delicious. Now that I'm older, I know it's also pretty graphically violent, to the point that if it were released now I probably wouldn't go see it. This will be interesting.

The Crow was part of a phase I grew out of. It gave way to new movies that shaped my adolescence. My tastes graduated to movies like Empire Records, as mentioned in a prior post. Empire Records gave way to Heavenly Creatures, whose title was usurped by Ghost World, which has been my all-time favorite since 2001. Another favorite movie, another painstakingly authentic Halloween costume. This one is from 2003. Here is a link for comparison.



Pop culture obsession?