Movie Picks

Well, since nothing particularly zany has happened to me in the last few days, I suppose I'll be forced to revisit a story from my childhood. So, I figured I'd tell everyone about the movie that scared me the most as a child - "The Neverending Story." That's right, I was most terrified by "The Neverending Story." Nothing about the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz" got to me. I was cool with the Big Bad Wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood." Not even the title to "Nightmare on Elm Street" bothered me. (I say the title, because, obviously as a four-year-old I didn't see "Nightmare on Elm Street." But, I did know it existed, and I grew up on Elm Street. Kind of freaky, isn't it?) "The Neverending Story" was the big baddie of my nightmares. When I was little, I really liked going to see "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" at the movie theater in the mall closest to our house. In fact, I liked "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" so much, I saw it in the theater four times. So, you can imagine the pain my father felt one Saturday afternoon when he asked me what I wanted to do for the day, and I answered, "Watch 'The Smurfs and the Magic Flute!'" On go number five, my father finally put his foot down. He had had enough of the those little blue creatures, so he made me pick another movie, and, since G-rated movies are hard to come by, we had to settle on "The Neverending Story." (Well, truth be told, I stook to my guns. There wasn't really any "settling" involved. I wanted to see my smurfs, and I wanted to see them tout de suite, if you know what I mean. This whole "other movie thing" was really a tyrannical parent choice.) We went down to the theater, and settled in for the show. But, unfortunately, we didn't really make it past the first half hour. As soon as Atreyu lost his horse Atrax to the Swamps of Sadness, I was done. (How could anyone be punished for crying with death? I don't think it's difficult to understand why such dire circumstances for tears would terrify a small girl.) As soon as the horsey was gone, I started to cry. (And, of course, considering what I had just watched, this only elevated the level of upset, leading to - you guessed it - more tears.) I was crying in a way that meant my father had to escort me out of the theater. In the hallway, I calmed down. My unsuspecting father took this to me that we could go back to watching the movie, but he was very wrong. I refused to re-enter the theater. I was having none else of that movie. (As a small aside, my father does not like to waste money, so you can imagine how strong my objections must have been for us to leave right then and there without him seeing the rest of the film.) And, truth be told, I have never seen the end of "The Neverending Story" since walking out of that theater over twenty years ago. (Is there irony in that?) I avoid it in the video store. I switch the channel when it's on TV. It freaked me out once, and I'm not willing to give it another shot. (If only I would remember to apply this same rule to my dating life...) But, more importantly, do you know what the moral to this story is? When I want to watch some German-based cartoons fight evil, it's best to let me have what I want.