sauce07

Ep.1 was the first time I bought tickets for a movie over the phone, got them for the 7 pm showing, opening night at the Uptown theater in DC for my family and best friend. The Uptown was a special theater for us, it's where we went for big event movies. It's an old single screen theater, huge marquee, balcony, people line up for hours to get in.First time I went was for Jurassic Park, the large curved screen blew my mind. I was a sophomore in high school, we skipped the second half of the day, got on the metro to get close to the front of the line. When we arrived, there was two people ahead of us. Coming out of the movie I was pumped, Star Wars was back, the final lightsaber duel was amazing. Over the next year (and dozen viewings), it started to sink in that it wasn't a good movie, but I have a ton of happy memories about the buildup to its release.

Mabuse

Crocker Jarmen

My Phantom Menace story is embarrassing on a couple of levels.

I was 21, and days away from moving far away. I asked a girl I really liked to go to see the movie, figuring since I was going away, she'd understand this was her last chance to bang me. Everything was looking good, until an hour before the movie, when she phoned to ask if I minded if she brought a date along. I still wanted to see the movie, so I said fine. Her date was this real alpha looking guy, much more handsome, and taller, and rugged looking than I. I remember a lot of hand stuff going on between them during the movie. I also remember not understanding Palpatine was the Emperor until way later, after someone else explained it to me.

Mabuse

bunkaroo

I remember taking the 19th of May off so I could go to the midnight showing of TPM and not have to get up early. Got home at 3:30am, was so wired I got back up at 8:30am and caught a 9am showing. Then a friend of mine wanted to see it and I went again at 4:30pm. So three times in about 19 hours. By the end of the weekend I was up to 5. I think my final count was 10. It was kind of insane, but even with the movie not being great, there was still something magical about being in a theater watching a new Star Wars movie.

TomOpus

I hope he gave her herpes.

GoldenJCJ

joe_b

Same. Even the way the female pilot said "Yes, sir" felt strange to me. Then Nute Gunray popped up with his terrible asian accent and the battle droids started saying "Uh-oh"... the movie just sets an odd tone from the start. I still saw it 16 times that year because I was 12 and Star Wars was my jam. Much like mediocre pizza, a mediocre Star Wars film still hit the spot for my sci-fi loving pre-teen self.

It was the first movie I ever purchased advanced tickets for. I remember calling our local Cinemark a couple of weeks before release to ask it they'd be showing the movie. The guy I spoke with told me they definitely would not (which was a lie). I called another Cinemark across town and the manager was giving me the date and time when tickets would go on sale. At that moment, my older brother picked up the phone in another room and started dialing one of his friends. I yelled at him to cut it out because I was on the phone, but he told me to fuck off. I was so embarrassed that I apologized to the manager and immediately ran up the stairs to confront my bro for being a douche. Long story short, he shoved me down the stairs and I received a three-inch gash in the front of my scalp from hitting the sharp corner of the banister on the way down. So I attended opening day of The Phantom Menace with giant sutures in my head. I'm lucky I didn't lose an eye, but I still have a permanent scar just above the hairline over my left eye as a reminder... and my brother is still a douche.

The theater experience was horrible. I had to wait for my dad to get in from work (don't remember where my mom was that day) at 5 PM and then we rushed across town for a 5:30 PM showtime. We made it with five minutes to spare, but couldn't sit together due to the lack of available seats. My dad was in the back row on the left and I was somewhere in the middle wedged between a middle-aged woman and some obnoxious obese guy who smelled terrible. I assume he'd been watching the movie continuously since the midnight screening because he kept making dumb quips throughout the whole thing like it was his own personal MST3K recording session. I still seethe when I think about it.

coli

See, I had the opposite reaction to the first 10-15 minutes (until Jar Jar comes on screen). I thought the movie starts out great as it felt sort of eerie that we are seeing Jedi in their Prime, as this was something new and interesting. The music was cool, the effects looked good, and it felt sort of ominous so I was totally on board. Then Jar Jar comes on screen and the movie makes this hard right turn to slapstick comedy for the next 45 minutes as he fumbles and bumbles around and I was at a lost for words. It still amazes me that NOBODY in editing picked up how much Jar Jar was overshadowing the first half of the movie, as it really showed that nobody was going to question Lucas (except maybe Ben Burtt in the DVD Documentary).

All in all, I still enjoyed TPM the first time I saw it (I never went in with expectations that it would equal the OT). Some of my friends who saw it that night went in with lofty expectations and they were literally crushed when we walked out of the theater to the point of dismay. I still think TPM is the one PT movie that captures the spirit of the OT in terms of the tone and fun factor, but Lucas just missed the mark with Jar Jar and Little Ani.

wishbone

I probably saw a midnight screening -- I remember that more for Attack of the Clones -- and magic did seem to be there at first like you said. Seeing the Jedi moving quickly and Qui-Gon's lightsaber through the blast door indicated that this would be a different kind of Star Wars but then the movie progressed with the Trade Federation stuff and my interest waned. It seemed a far cry from the teaser trailer the previous year. When I saw The Phantom Menace the second time in the theater it was just to see the lightsaber battle at the end and it was a long wait to get there.

sauce07

Looks like I missed one the other day

May 18, 1999
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

May 21, 1999
The Love Letter


Ghost Dog was a huge shock to me, everything about it seemed stupid and shouldn't work. Boy was I wrong. I remember watching about half of The Love Letter and shutting it off, just wasn't my thing. It's the last movie Kate Capshaw starred in.

Nick Danger

I never saw Phantom Menace in the theater. I didn't want to deal with the crowds of the first couple weekends. After the first weekend, people who had seen it had a weird combination of enthusiasm and covert disappointment. There was a lot of "yeah but" feelings about the movie. I lost interest.

I watched it for the first time years later when a friend showed us the prequel trilogy on DVD. By then everyone knew that the movies were disappointing and I was watching them out of curiosity.

Mabuse

printerati

I too saw The Phantom Menace on opening night with my brother, which was the first and last time I let myself get caught up in the hype for any film (despite losing interest in the original trilogy after the age of 9) and wait hours in line for tickets. I haven't seen it or any subsequent Star Wars films in their entirety (if at all) since.

I recall hating A Midsummer Night's Dream as well, but aside from knowing Ally McBeal is in it, I couldn't tell you a thing about it 20 years later.

tanman

So...what happened to her? Do you still keep in touch facebook stalk? Are you BFF with alph male now? Did you know they changed what the original emperor looked like? What were they doing with their hands? Do you like the fact Palpatine is back for Rise of Skywalker? How did the move go?

sauce07

May 28, 1999
Notting Hill
The Thirteenth Floor

Notting Hill is a classic romance (comedy?). No complaints, really launched Richard Curtis as the go to guy for that genre. I still remember the change of seasons shot, nice visual.
The Thirteenth Floor unfortunately came on the heals of The Matrix and it wasn't that good. Completely forgettable.

Mabuse

coli

I saw it on that opening Friday night, and my theater was 1/2 empty. They booked so many shows at my multiplex (overbooked) that we bought tickets right at the window and didn't have to wait in line (this was before reserved seats). I knew something was up when it was too easy to get tickets, and the theater wasn't even full. AOTC and ROTS had alot less shows on their opening weekend, as the theaters learned their lesson in my area from TPM.

printerati

I agree that the timing was unfortunate, but I thought even back then that it handled some of the "simulation" aspects better than The Matrix did...just not in a way that was as quotable or visually spectacular.

PhantomStranger

The Thirteenth Floor was one of those sleepy movies that ends up underrated. It's really not an action movie like The Matrix.

Crocker Jarmen

She disappeared around 2000. I'd like to think she packed up and moved away to a new province where she took a new last name making her impossible to find on Google/Facebook, but anytime I run into old high school friends and mention her name, no one knows anything about where she is now. I truly hope it isn't the case, but I sometimes wonder if she is among the many missing women here in Canada.

tanman

Why are there so many missing women in Canada?

Crocker Jarmen

From Wikipedia: "The exact number of Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or have been murdered in Canada since the 1970s is uncertain, with estimates ranging from approximately 1,000 to nearly 4,000.[12] In response to activists, the Canadian government funded data collection on missing and murdered women, ending in 2010; the Native Women's Association of Canada has documented 582 cases since the 1960s, with 39% occurring after 2000. But advocacy groups say that many more women have been missing, with the highest number of cases in British Columbia. Some notable cases have included 19 women killed in the Highway of Tears murders, and up to 49 women from the Vancouver area, many of whom were indigenous, murdered by Robert Pickton."

Decker

Wow, this 1999 movie thread got dark all of a sudden.

sauce07

People are setting the tone for an in depth chat about The General's Daughter