#gremlins

Movie of the Day: Gremlins

This is another movie I've always had a close relationship to. Because of my abuse-filled past, I don't have access to a lot of my memories (blocked or eaten away, who knows?), so I tend to remember my autobiography by the pop culture I grew up with--the places where I took solace and was able to escape the life I had.

I was ALL ABOUT Joe Dante's Gremlins in the summer of 1984. I went to see this movie so many times. It kinda scared me (I was 7), but it was also thrilling and funny and genuinely sweet. And like a lot of America, I fell in love right away with Gizmo.

Chris Walas created Gizmo and the other Mogwai, and of course the Gremlins themselves. I mean, of course, here's a movie with puppets and animatronic creatures, so I'm all about it. This was my favorite movie of the summer, and I read everything I could my hands on about how it was made. When the movie was re-released the next summer, I went to see it over and over again. I got so much Gremlins stuff for my birthday in 1984.

My favorite thing was the plastic Gizmo made by LJN.

This is the Gizmo I have now, but not my original Gizmo. I've told this story before, but I'm going to tell it again.

I used to take this Gizmo all over the place with me. I honestly can't believe I don't still have him, but I suspect my mom sold him in that horrible garage sale she had when I was out of town with my dad. This used to happen all the time--and this is the stereotypical lament of guys my age: I would go away for the weekend, and my Mom would tear down posters she didn't like and sell toys she decided I was done playing with. So Gizmo probably exited my life that way, along with my Master of the Universe figures, Star Wars figures, and a stuffed animal I'd had since infancy and dearly wish I still had… (I hope you're having a good life somewhere, Miss Mousey).

Anyway, I wrote about this on my old Blogger blog, where I was friends with adult film star Colleen Brennan, who had found my blog when I mentioned her by name on a post about how Trinity Brown was the first adult movie I'd ever seen when I was... way too young. She was really interesting to talk to, and she read my blog for a while and felt like I'd had a really strong reaction to one of my blog friends finding the LJN Gizmo on eBay. I had told the above story, and she could see something was missing, and so she jumped on eBay, nabbed one for me, and mailed it to me.

It was amazing getting him in the mail and just feeling him in my hand again. I remember so much about taking him around with me everywhere I went for months, even to the zoo and the swimming pool. He was exactly how I remembered him. It's amazing how something like this can make you feel so happy and even a little more complete.

So my conclusion here is that I love Gremlins, it's been one of my favorite movies since it came out, and Colleen Brennan is one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever met--who ALSO was a formative person for me.

Life is amazing. You never know who you'll reach. Thank you, Colleen. You are an angel and I will be grateful my whole life.

Gremlins was released on June 8, 1984. Amazingly, so was Ghostbusters, the other movie that dominated my imagination in the summer of 1984. (Actually, 1984 is an incredible summer for movies: by this time, Star Trek III had come out, and still to come were The Last Starfighter, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The NeverEnding Story, and Buckaroo Banzai.) So that was a busy weekend, because we went to see both movies that weekend.

Gremlins and Ghostbusters. What a time! Creature kids were being spoiled!

En la historia de Hollywood, pocas fechas pueden presumir de haber visto nacer dos franquicias legendarias en un solo día. El 8 de junio de 1984, los cines de todo el mundo recibieron dos películas que, sin saberlo, marcarían la cultura pop para siempre: *Los cazafantasmas* (Ghostbusters) y *Gremlins*. Ambas llegaron el mismo viernes, compitiendo directamente por la atención del público, pero en…