In August 1994 I went to see True Lies at the cinema.  I think I was living in Rotherham at the time, which means I would have seen it with Jack, Phil and Chris.  However, it’s also possible I had just moved to Teesside in which case it may have been Charles and Ness.  I changed jobs in August of that year but I can’t remember when.  I have a very strong feeling it was Rotherham, in the multi-screen complex in the Meadowhall Shopping Centre.  Note: frankly, I can’t remember who I went to see it with, for which I am eternally ashamed, in my defence I claim complete and utter memory crappyness.  I really did like you, and I enjoyed your company, whoever you were.  I swear.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know it almost appears to be a serious spy movie at the start, and then as it progresses it becomes clear it’s not as it seems, and the comedy begins to ramp up.  It remains an action flick, but definitely changes in in tone.  Well, we were happily watching True Lies, and had just gotten to the part where Harry starts chasing a bad guy with Harry being on horseback, and chasing him into a hotel of some kind.

At that point, the fire alarms went off (we weren’t sure what it was at first) and we had to evacuate.  We were a bit incredulous, but we did as we were asked.  The cinema gave us replacement tickets, and we went back at a later date and watched the movie again.  The weird thing was, having seen the first bit, the tone of the movie changes almost at the flick of a switch moments after the scene we saw before we left.  Up until then it had been at least semi-serious, but the scene we didn’t see was Harry attempting to jump across from the roof of one building to another on his horse, and the horse baulking with a silly face.

Totally comic moment.

It just sticks in my mind because the interruption of a few days meant we all went back expecting the serious tone to continue and were jarred when it didn’t.  My lasting memory of that movie is expecting fire alarms to go off whenever Harry’s horse goes into the cinema.  The more I think about this film the more I have an image of going up some narrow escalators surrounded by a food court of some kind, so I’m growing increasingly convinced it was Meadowhall shopping centre.

I really enjoy the movie, have seen it a bunch of times now on video and DVD, and although some parts make me cringe in general I think it’s a pretty solid action comedy worth your time.  Just don’t smoke.

When I was young (I’m not sure of my exact age, my memory for that kind of thing is terrible but this was before 1984 so under 13 years old) the Royal British Legion club, which was situated in our local ‘shopping centre’ (which we called The Top Shops) played films.  I think it was at weekends.  I recall them playing onto a screen with some kind of projector.  My memory isn’t good enough to tell you why we were there (I was with at least my cousin Chris, that much I do remember), if it was just to see the films or for another reason, but I vividly remember seeing one film in particular.

Tarka the Otter.

I strongly remember not really being interested in the story of an otter, no matter how cute it might first appear to be.  I was probably sulking, I was a really sulky kid.  I know you find that hard to believe now when I’m unnaturally happy at all times, but it’s true! I sulked!

I remember seeing other films there, at the Royal British Legion, but I can’t for the life of me remember any of them except Tarka the Otter. I remember the smoke in the air and the stale smell of beer, the red vinyl covered seats with rips and foam showing through.  This was the age of supermarkets that were the same size as todays news agents who charged for carrier bags and still labelled food products with 1/2p stickers, hardware stores that smelled of metal and wood and sold 3amp fuse wire next to spare broom handles, local grocers and butchers who sold far better quality products than those supermarkets but couldn’t compete on price, and real Stotties (from Greggs!) filled with bacon and peas pudding.

I don’t recall if the RBL was showing the movies at the same time as their cinema release somehow, or if they were playing videos on some kind of projector (which seems more likely) and if they had or needed a license of any kind.  It’s just an odd memory of an odd time when places other than cinemas seemed to show films.

Films for me are more than just an immediate enjoyment, they’re experiences which link me to certain periods in my life or certain times or particular events.  I thought I’d have a shot at writing a series of posts relating memories I have surrounding particular films (let’s say, weekly).  These may be memories of when I first watched them, or some other aspect of their existence.  First up, RoboCop.

I’m not sure when I first saw RoboCop, but I remember when I saw it most.  During the second year of my university course in Sheffield, in a house I shared with Charles, Neil, Steve and Steve (~1990).  We had a cheap television, a cheap video recorder and a bunch of videos of which one was RoboCop.  And we got our money’s worth by watching them over, and over, and over again.  We loved RoboCop, we loved it to bits and we knew it inside out.  Watching it was more than just seeing it on-screen, it was a shared experience, a house event.  We sat in the lounge, with it’s broken green furniture ((the sofa springs were so knackered you were essentially sitting on the floor)) and it’s terrible carpet and we lived that movie every time we watched it.

Having seen it so many times, it was inevitable that certain phrases made it into our speech at the time, and if you knew me at university you probably heard me saying ‘I’d buy that for a dollar’ far more than you wanted to.  Eighteen years later I’m still asking Bobby if he can fly, and he’s still telling Clarence he can’t.  Oddly, the more I watched it, the more I came to dislike the scene where Murphy gets shot to hell, prior to his transformation into RoboCop.  Knowing what was coming just made it worse for me and I have strong memories of leaving the room or avoiding watching that scene entirely.  I used to know the name of the huge gun and the name of the fancy car Clarence owned, but that memory has gone now.

So when I see RoboCop these days, I don’t just remember the bits of the movie I enjoy, I remember the year I lived in that shared house in Sheffield, and the good times that involved.

Here’s to RoboCop, put down your weapons, or there will be, trouble.