Since I was a young'un, movies have been such a personal joie de vivre.

During the late 80s-early 90s, at the company area where we lived in, only several people had access to cable television with channels such as HBO, Star TV, CNN, and the company's own. My father wasn't priviledged enough to such service, so, among others, we usually relied on renting old BETAMAX videos and on programs from the national TV and the Malaysian's TV 3 & TV 5. (Father built our own outdoor fish-strip look alike antenna). When we moved out of the camp area to our own house, we installed a parabole-shapped antenna --like a satellite dish, but much much bigger-- on our spacious backyard. Around this time, the country's private TV networks have been blooming, and thus with the new installed antenna, there were virtually no limit on the amount of channels available to be viewed.

Another way to enjoy movies was to go to the company's own movie theater; the Movie, that's how everyone called it. Almost every Saturdays, one flick was shown at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 PM. Every child in the family had a picture ID, to identify, among others, the child's age. To be given free admittance to the movie, we had to show the said ID, therefore, it was imperative for us to know the category played that week, All Ages, PG 13, or Rated-R.

During my elementary school days, a trip to The Movie involved at least five close friends and enough candy and such to cause severe collywobbles. Not satisfied with watching the movie for only once, we usually went back in for another viewing just hours apart. There were times when we would just stayed inside the theater waiting for the next showtime. This movie deserved a special mention, since we watched it back to back, all 5 showtimes.

In junior and senior high days, I prefered to go alone to the 2 PM shows. The reasons being were that a) there usually only a few people watching and 2) the basketball practice was at 4. The theather was virtually mine. Under the flickering projector, both feet up, it felt like there was no other place on earth I would rather be at.

When this movie was finally played in The Movie, it was inevitably jam-packed. In the scene when the command module with the three astronots were finally arrived safely to earth from the ill-fated unattainable lunar landing, they showed the people in the Apollo control room congratulating each other. I was among the audiences who also exchanged the congratulatory gesture. Definitely one of my fun movie moments.

The Movie's weekly movie showing has been shut down in the late 90s due to the company's budget policy and the ever-convenience way to get the DVD copies of new movies. I'm glad I have this blog to preserve those memories of the good ol' movie watching days.