One of my most vivid memories as a child is one that's also very brief. A lot of memories that I can recall are those involving movie theaters I went to as I was growing up. Memories of seeing Protocol with Goldie Hawn, Ghostbusters, the notorious Supergirl, the "classic" Christmas film Santa Claus: The Movie (from Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the producers of Supergirl). Even the original The Muppet Movie, mostly because I remember losing my mind over Kermit going to the electric chair, forcing my parents to take me out of the theater because I was crying and screaming from the sight of one of my favorites being murdered right before my eyes!
But there was one memory that always perplexed me, to the point I thought perhaps it never even happened. It was of seeing Romancing the Stone in Manhattan (1984 was apparently a big movie-going year for me?) with my grandmother, for which I have absolutely no idea why we went to see it. I vaguely remember her implying that it may not have been a good film for then 9-year old me to see, despite its PG rating, but we went anyway (I think it was pouring rain and we needed something to pass the time while it blew through), and the memory really kicks in when a scene occurred, I think in the first third of the film, where a snake showed up that Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner needed to get away from, while in the jungle looking for this coveted "stone," so they chopped it in half with a machete.
Our seats were in the balcony, which was divided into 3 sections: center. left and right. We were sitting in the right balcony, about 8-10 rows up, on the aisle. We had gone shopping earlier so my grandmother had 2-3 shopping bags with her, which I remember her fumbling with a bit once she decided we needed to leave. If only I could figure out if this memory really did happen, and once that was confirmed, what theater it was.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when my friend Joe's long-running, monthly film series The Deuce, at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn sent out an e-mail announcement for their next screening, for George P. Cosmatos' Of Unknown Origin. In the message, as they usually do, they included an image of a newspaper clipping from that time showing where the film was playing on The Deuce during its original run.
I scrolled down, and the movie times presented listed other cinemas in the area, and immediately after seeing the theater name 'Criterion Center' did the remaining details of my memory come flooding back. On top of that, this was the clipping from when Romancing the Stone was screening there in the summer of 1984. This was one of the coolest moments of recollection I can remember happening to me, and it became a bit more surreal when I saw they were also screening Firestarter, as I recall - especially for 9-year old me - the striking image on that poster in the theater lobby of a girl my age with such incredible and destructive powers!
I then promptly visited one of my favorite sites, Cinema Treasures, and after a quick search I found a photo of this very theater, PLUS it's interior, including the seating of the main theater, right balcony and all.
Confirming this memory, and revisiting it in even the smallest way was a very surreal experience, especially when it came out of the pure luck of being on that film series' newsletter. I could probably do a little "research" to find out if the Criterion Center became The Criterion Collection years later, a boutique DVD and Blu-ray label considered to be the best in the business due to their eclectic choices that focus on the most important films, in their view, in the long history of the art form. But honestly, I don't think I want to know. Or at least I'd like to keep this going and just find out by accident, one way or another, because the joy of this memory coming back to life was a beautiful thing to experience.
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