Well Remembered Movies

By David Macpherson

As kids, Mikey and Danny went to the movies. They loved the movies. The crazier, the better. They saw so many movies back in the 1980s, it is hard to remember them all.

Now, Dan visits Mike on his deathbed. They sit and try to remember the movies they saw way back when. Maybe they don't remember them correctly. Maybe they are making up these movies as they sit and talk. Maybe the movies they are creating are better than the ones they actually saw.

Well Remembered Movies is a story of friendship, loss and, most especially, the joy of going to the flicks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Macpherson
• Release date: Mar 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386260134

Book preview

The Introduction to the List

A list? Don’t tell me you made a bucket list. You saw Kiss in concert last year, do you need anything on the list other than that?

Well it would’ve been great if it was the original line-up, but they ain’t going to ever bring Ace Frehley back, but yeah, that was pretty perfect. They sounded really good. They called out to me. Beth got in touch with them and they dedicated Detroit Rock City to me. That was. Yeah.

Silence

I made a list of movies we saw.

What movies?

The movies we went to. That’s what we did right? We went to movies. All through school. But I remember before we got cars, we were crazed on going to them all the time.

Yeah. We would take the mini bus to Nanuet and went to the Cinema Five. They had the movies you loved. Exploitation crap.

They weren’t crap. They were movies to get lost in. It wasn’t art. It was dirty and fun. Who doesn’t want gore and nudity?

Well we can say that without the wife here. She’s outside? Right?

She’s here. I mean out there.

We saw some group of movies you and I, Dan.

You decided what movies to see, which one to see first, which movie to jump into for the double feature. I was your look out.

Some look out, we got caught twice. Thrown out of the theater.

Because we sucked at being inconspicuous. We should have just had signs saying, hey, two fifteen year old boys sneaking into a second movie.

I don’t know about you, but I was slick. Still am, Dan. So I was thinking about it all. I saw you yesterday and I was thinking about all the movies we seen. I had my daughter bring pen and paper over here. You met my daughter?

Yeah Mikey, Jolene. Sweet kid. I saw her last when she was six months old. Now she’s what? Fifteen? Amazing, and such a sweet girl. We didn’t talk. I figured she’s had enough of your old fart friends coming by visiting you, and she doesn’t need any more strangers giving sympathy.

Fuck yeah. That’s right. She’s doesn’t need weirdos like you bothering her. Well played. He smiled. Thought of laughing, but instead depressed the button and the drugs ironed out the creases and made everything smell farm fresh.

Silence.  

And when Jo brought the pen and paper over and she told me she was ready I had her write down the list of all the movies you and I saw. I ain’t the mental giant I used to be, but right then, I remembered all of them. The ones we paid for. The ones we took. Every one. She wrote them down. She said she did. And she left it by the book the nurses use to sign in and out. Can you find that list, Dan?

I think this is it. Your girl has nice handwriting. I can read every word, better than if you did it. But are you sure these are the movies we saw?

I knew every movie and I guess I needed to make sure they were written down.

But these are the movies? I don’t remember all of these movies.

No, these are the movies. I remember the titles, but not the films so much. I hope you can help me with that. Maybe you can write that down. What the movies were. What they meant to us. You know?

We are going to remember what the movies were by going down the list you had your daughter jot down?

Yeah. That’s what we are going to do.

Let me go get a notebook from the car. I won’t be long. Do you need me to get Beth in here?

And what? Watch me lie here. I will be here when you get back. Or I won’t. I’m like that.

Silence.

Okay Mikey. Where do we start?

"At the top. It’s not the first movie we saw together, I don’t think. But let’s go as easy possible. Start at the first one Jo wrote down.

Breakdance Ninja

Grand Master Shuriken and Little Rock Upper Thrust are the best breakdancers in the city. When they throw down their cardboard, the world stops and they do their toprocks, their downrocks, their freezes, their spins. No one in the city can beat them in breakin’ competitions. They are also powerful Ninjas, sworn to protect God, America and Hip Hop from the evil Communist swine. Their handler interrupts their latest break dancing throw down to send them on a mission to sunny L.A. where they must stop Communist ballet dancers from blowing up the Hollywood sign. They meet up with a female ninja who teaches them ballet moves so they can infiltrate the enemy and bring them down. They show off their funky fresh moves and all the classical dancers are jealous. The lead Russian dancers are evil agents with mad sword skills. Many innocent bystanders get killed in the fights between the Breakin’ Ninjas and the Russian Ballet Baddies. Then it turns out the female ninja who is helping them is possessed by an evil demon. That doesn’t do much to change the course of the movie, but there is cool demon makeup that the girl gets to wear and she also goes naked when full demon, so who cares if it does nothing for the plot? The final fight is a breakdance competition with KRS-One music and daggers. The Breakin’ Ninjas win, the Russians are killed, and the Demon is exorcised from the girl and she kisses Grand Master Shuriken passionately.

I can do that, Mikey says.

What, Danny asks, kiss a guy?

Shut up. No. I mean I can break. I can do moves.

Please, Mikey. Just be quiet, they have a victory dance to do and I think they’re going to do the robot in it.

Drinks at the Comet

It has something to do with a bar where lovable gangsters hang out. There is a badly done kidnapping of the governor’s wife and they also are bootlegging wine with aphrodisiac powers in the basement of the bar. The wine is Comet Red and it gets them out of being arrested at the end, though the cops are now in love with them. The governor’s wife winds up with the bartender, so it is all happy in the end.  That’s all Mikey and Danny notice. They spend most of the running time watching the couple in front of them make-out.