Where did all the good movies go?--Part 1

"Here's five dollars," my mom would say on a Saturday morning before going to work in the hospital's housekeeping department, "you and Linda go to the movies."

Amazing. Five dollars! For that amount, a kid could get an admission ticket, a frosty Coke, a box of Junior Mints, and a small buttered popcorn. Of course, this was in "the horse and buggy days," as my kids say (i.e., the early to mid-1970s), so I'm showing my age. But you'd hurry down Bergenline Avenue with your best friend to get to Union City's Cinema in time. You'd find a good seat in that cozy, air-conditioned theater and try not to eat all your popcorn before the coming attractions had run their course.

And then...there it was: The reason that would keep you in that theater for the next 90 minutes. You and your friend would only whisper to each other occasionally, and those words were usually along the lines of, "Oh, my God!", "Now that's hilarious!", "My sister does that all the time", and the traditional, "No, no--don't go in there!" You couldn't talk too much or leave even briefly, because you didn't want to miss a second of what was transpiring on that screen.

Sometimes the movie wasn't as good as you'd hoped it would be. Regardless, it would still be entertaining, one of those "so bad, it's good" movies. Sometimes it was as good as your other friends had told you it would be, ending with the advice, "You GOTTA go see it." Sometimes it was great.

And once in a while, it was unforgettable, awesome, magical, and every other adjective that basically meant you'd always remember the first time you saw that particular film.

Just from the 70s alone, in no particular order, here is a list of the movies that I either saw in the movie theater, which I loved as much as the bookstore and the library as a kid, or later on when it played on television:

Love Story
Jaws
The Exorcist
American Graffiti
Grease
Manhattan
Kramer Vs. Kramer
Cabaret
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Rocky
Saturday Night Fever
Superman
A Moment in Time
Manhattan
Carrie
The Shining
Sybil
Revenge of the Pink Panther
The Amityville Horror
A Star is Born
The Cross and the Switchblade (a Christian film based on Pastor David Wilkerson's book)
Distant Thunder (also a Christian film)

and last but not least, a really creepy thing aptly named

The Hills Have Eyes (which my mom and I watched together and realized it was a terrible B movie, but it still managed to make us laugh and cringe, and more on this later. This movie was not anywhere near on the same level as The Exorcist, but it actually ended up being a cult classic--and it sparked a remake in 2006)

But wait! There were also the old vintage films which I would catch on TV, those black-and-white antiques from the 1940s and 1950s, and the silly-but-fun films of the 1960s.

Those would include:

It's a Wonderful Life
Casablanca
The Mummy
Frankenstein
Dracula
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (B movie GOLD, I tell you!)
Hans Christian Anderson
Mildred Pierce
Some Like it Hot
On the Waterfront
A Streetcar Named Desire
Million Dollar Mermaid
Psycho
West Side Story
Cinderella
A Christmas Carol (1951)
Fantasia
Alice in Wonderland
Miracle on 34th Street
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
To Sir With Love
The Birds

There were many more, too many wonderful--and some not-so-wonderful, but yet they were fun to watch in some way, shape or form--to list.

To be continued...

I Love Intuitive Eating

Cute thing that happened today at work: I bumped into a friend and coworker who works in a different department, who interrupted her chat with someone else to tell me, "Ooooh! You lost weight--you look so skinny and curvy!"

Vicky is the fourth person in the space of a month to notice I've dropped a little weight over the past month, dropping from 136 to 129. (In actuality, though, I fluctuate between 129 and 131, depending on if there's cheesecake around. Just teasing! More on that in a second.) What is most amazing to me is that I haven't done anything in particular for that to happen. I'm exercising, yes, because exercise is part of my life. It's something I enjoy and don't have to force myself to do--but I'm not doing it obsessively. Neither am I counting points, carbs, or calories and swearing off favorite foods.

That said, the way I look at food and eating HAS changed...and it's all due to Intuitive Eating.

Let me back up. I've been practicing IE longer than I've been blogging about it, bringing me to almost two years since I first discovered the book and subsequently waved goodbye to dieting. In that time, I've watched friends drop weight on diets, then regain it, then return to that diet or a different method of losing weight. My own weight has fluctuated, and at one time it went as high as 138 (at the beginning of my journey), with my weight slowly beginning to drop and hover around 129 and 131 for, literally, weeks. I have been maintaining that weight effortlessly, and I can't take the credit when it goes directly to IE.

Where am I now on this journey? Well, there are better benchmarks than what the scale has to say, for one thing. I no longer measure myself by what digital numbers show up in that little square. For one thing, I and my family are eating less processed food, less fast food, and less eating out in general. We're enjoying more the fruits (and vegetables!) from our garden and local farmer's market. If it's not delicious, I don't have time for it. I do indulge in what is referred to in Intuitive Eating as "play foods" (chips, ice cream, Snickers and such, usually a Friday or Saturday treat), but I no longer feel the urge to go overboard. My portions are smaller than they used to be. I don't need a diet to tell me how much I can put on my plate. If anything, I am satisfied with less naturally, by just honoring my natural hunger and fullness.

Interestingly, though I'm no longer dieting, I still stock my fridge with yogurt and I still ask the young lady on the other side of the counter at Subways for a little extra lettuce on my sandwich. Jeans that I haven't worn in a long time are fitting me perfectly again, and if I'm lost in a book my Kindle is reading to me, I can stay on the treadmill for an extra 15 minutes and not even notice!

Because of IE, I've discovered that I'm a foodie. I never would have admitted that to myself when I was dieting because, according to diets, there are Good Foods and Bad Foods. When you're a foodie, you acknowledge that grilled cheeses made with Gruyere cheese are even sexier than those made with American cheese!

And also because of IE, I've sort of become my own nutritionist. I had a professor in college who once told us, "I make it my business to know all there is about cars so that I know what the mechanic is talking about." (Don't ask me why she was going on and on about cars; the class was Children's Literature! Heh!) To paraphrase her, I've made it my business to know all I can about nutrition, so that I know my family and I are getting the best nutrition we can."

Besides, there's something about eating homemade creamy tomato soup that you can't quite get in a can. It's especially delicious after an invigorating walk out in the fresh air, under God's blue sky and a brilliant sun!

Are you an intuitive eater? How has your journey been? Feel free to share them!