In the beginning there was indeed light. It was the beginning of the first and greatest obsession of my life. The light was that of a film projector, I was sitting in a big room with other people. My Dad was next to me, we shared the most amazing snack I had ever tasted in a bucket of popcorn, and we sat there and watched Star Wars: The Return of The Jedi in 1983. I was five years old. And the po culture nerd/geek in me awoke.

I was always slightly different than others kids growing up. Not serial killer different, but I was put together a little differently than the other little germ factories running around in the 1980s. I had undiagnosed anxiety depression, possible ADD, and anger management issues. I was a terrible kid. I was the kind of child that could drive an adult to drink.

While my parents put me into various sporting clubs, and I played a lot of sports, I never understood playing with other kids like this. Especially since I was only an average athlete, and looked down on from the star players and the over bearing helicopter parents. Cliques are everywhere. And I didn’t want any part of that. Even in high school. But that was a guarantee that I would be in one that was always on the lower end of the popularity totem pole.

But what did grab my attention in those formative years was film. While I did love TV shows and cartoons too, and I watched my fare share, it was sitting down and watching movies that completely mesmerised me. I became obsessed with the different stories and strange worlds these magic lantern shows could take me. I was in love with it all. If some parents used the television as a babysitter while they pottered around the house, I needed a stack of movies on VHS’, the remote control, and the portal of other dimensions, the television, to stay in one spot for hours on end.

I’d watch anything and everything. Any rating, any genre, from what ever year. If I hadn’t seen it, bring it on. If I had seen it, I’d watch it again to see what I missed. I fell in love with cinema in those formative years and my first love has never left me. I’m still obsessed with it to this day, many decades later. To the later detriment to my bank account.

After watching Big Trouble in Little China when I was nine years old, it became one of my all-time favourite movies, John Carpenter, as I search out more of this work, became my favourite director and Kurt Russell, my favourite actor. And this has never changed. Many of the movie I discovered in this time (Blade Runner, Ladyhawk, The Goonies, Near Dark, Animal House, The Hitcher and of course the Star Wars and Star Trek movies), have become pop culture icons and great places to rest my attention and imagination when I need a cinematic blanket to shield me from the cold indifference of the outside world.

As I get older, being in my early 40s now, I find I have a very hard time trying to remember, not just my childhood, but my past in general. I don’t really think its anything like early onset dementia, but a combination of excess alcohol consumption in my 20s, miss-prescribed medication after my Anxiety/Depression diagnosis, and the narrow focus of my attention (living in the moment) on whatever I’m working on at the time.

A lot of my experiences seem to be lost to me. They all live inside my head, but I just can’t seem to access those files. That is until I watch a movie I’ve seen before. Then, while I am sitting there and letting the story flash across my eyes, memories of not just the first time, but all the time I have watched that flick. Cinema, apart from entertaining, educating, and fascinating my mind, it helped my rediscover who I was, what I was missing, people I forgot, and also helped me discovered who I am today.

What I want to do with this series of articles, or rants, or tumbling down the hill at the top of memory lane, is to explore some of these films that have helped me remember what it is to be a human being and see where they could take me now. They will not follow any kind of linear progression and they will not be overly analytical. But will be like a fun and oddball kind of road trip.  If you want to come with me, let’s turn on the projector, grab the popcorn and take a journey with me in my Cinematic Amnesia.

But that is only one part of this personal pop culture experiment. The other is a treasure hunt of sorts. Films that I missed when I was younger that I know I would have loved. Films by writers and directors they I loved that I overlooked at the time or films that just weren’t available to me at the time. Likewise with certain genre titles and exploitation films that NOW are easier to find. So, to that end I will detail how I found these films, why I needed to watch them like my life depended on it, first impressions after watching these weird little gems, as well as a run down and brief analysis of the films themselves. So, let’s call these articles the Cinematic Mystery. Mainly because I think it sounds good and not because it makes any logical sense. This is me we’re talking about here. Much of what I do rarely makes sense.

So, buckle up, sit back and enjoy. And don’t forget to take notes. Some of you will want to watch these things. And if you don’t like them, don’t shoot the messenger. But it you like them, as I do, you’re welcome. Now read on, fellow worshippers of the silver screen.