What Happens Next?

I love movies - I always have.  The first movie I ever saw was "Star Wars" - I was eight.  We had a movie theater less than a mile away so as soon as I could, I would walk down there and spend my allowance money.  I was one of those kids who would see the same movie over and over again.  I think I saw E.T. three or four times in the summer of '82.

Here's the catch - every time I saw E.T. it was like seeing it for the first time.  You see, I have what my sister and I like to call "Movie Amnesia" (she suffers from it, too).

Let me preface this by saying that I'm one of those people with whom you may not want to see a movie, especially if it's a suspense or thriller genre.  I have to constantly ask, "Okay, now who's that, again?", and things like, "Wait - I thought he died in the beginning!", etc.  So I suppose it would stand to reason that because I'm trying to hard to follow along, I may forget key plot points along the way.

Probably the best example of my movie amnesia came with the 1990 movie "Presumed Innocent".  If you haven't seen it, Harrison Ford plays a prosescutor who is accused of murdering a woman with whom he is having an affair.  I must've seen this movie five times before I remembered who reallly murdered the woman (I won't give it away, in case you haven't seen this 20 year-old movie and you'd like to).  In this way, it's kind of fun being inflicted with this disorder - it's a new movie every time!   Another, more recent movie that affects me the same way is "The Departed" - and we OWN that one!  You'd think that I would kind of know what happens in a movie that we own.  But nope, same problem.

Unfortunately, my amnesia sometimes stretches into TV shows as well.  Just a year or two ago, "The Office" started running in syndication.  Now, I've been watching this show from the very first episode.  Religiously.  Never missed an episode.  But when I see the promos and teasers for the reruns, I always have to ask Brian, "Okay, which one is THIS?".  And he always knows.  Because Brian has the exact opposite of my amnesia - the man has total recall for every movie/TV show he's ever seen.  It's incredible.  I'm in awe.  And he's awfully handy to have around that way (one of the thousand reasons he's like the most awesome person EVER).

So if you're the very unfortunate person that's sitting by me in the theater, I apologize in advance.  I should probably take this opportunity to apologize to Brian too, as well as anyone else who has been annoyed by my odd afflliction.  Next time, I'll take notes.  :D