The Old Knoxville...Theater Stlye

My friend Phil has inspired me with his blog to write about some of Knoxville's places of the past. So here are some random thoughts about former movie theaters in the Knoxville area.

When I was a kid one of the places that I would occasionally visit was the theater at West Town Mall. Now I'm not talking about the nice theater that's in the mall now, I'm talking about the one that was out in the parking lot on Kingston Pike. It was kind of a round building with two screens. When you walked in you either went to the left or the right depending on the movie you were watching. I remember going here as a kid and watching Star Wars! It was awesome and molded my life in ways that I could have never imagined.

The Powell Cinema was another place that I went as a child. This theater opened up in the late 70s or early 80s. I remember going to the 10am movies that they would show for kids there during the summer. They stopped showing movies for a while here in the late 80s. Then it went through a revitalization and showed movies in the early 90s. It was finally destroyed in the late 90s/early 00s and replace with a KARM store. The last movie that I saw there was Basic Instinct. Yes that is correct, Basic Instinct.

Another theatrical relic of the past was the Kingston 4 down on Kingston Pike (how original). It was actually pretty close to the Downtown West theater. This is another one of those places that showed the 10am summer movies for kids. The first movie that I ever saw was here when I saw Gulliver's Travels. One of my favorite horror movies (more like a comedy though) was viewed in this facility - Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. When I was in high school we had one of our mom's drop us off here to watch that movie on the last day of school. We all loved the one liners in the movie, and continually repeated them. Now this theater is a flat piece of concrete.

Out at East Town there use to be a theater in the Home Depot shopping center. Its hey day was in the late 90s. I remember waiting in line there to watch the Star Wars Special Editions. It was awesome. One day Jared and I went to ANH, ESB, and ROTJ in the same day. However, we had to go to Downtown West for ESB because one theater couldn't have them all. This theater was closed in the early 00s and was destroyed.

The Commons Six on North Peters was another theater that no longer exists. I was surprised when this theater was destroyed in the early 00s. It was really nice in a good spot. Although, the Wynnsong was on the horizon. The Commons Six location has a nice Dick's Sporting Goods in its place.

Finally, there was the Drive-In/regular theater over on Clinton Highway. I can't remember the name of it, but I remember going there. I remember going to movies with daycare during the summer. The most noteable movies were Red Dawn and The Last Starfighter. These were shown in the conventional theater. I saw one movie in its entirety at the Drive-In, and it was John Candy's Summer Rental. A classic tale of the vacation from hell. One other interesting memory of the place was them showing XXX movies. I remember as a kid we would drive by going to a friend's house and you could catch a glimpse of the screen driving by. This was my first experience with movie nudity. Of course when you're 6 or 7 years old, you don't know what the heck you're looking at on the screen. Later in life I figured it out though ;-) This theater is now a Wal-Mart shopping center.

Many theaters have gone away over the years in the Knoxville area, but if you want to relive the nostalgia, take a day trip to Campbell County and go to the theater up there. No digital sound, no surround sound, no stadium seating, and no high prices for first run movies. Ahhh....the good old days....

Do You "Fit In?"

Last night at Pre-Teens, Jesse had a special message for the kids. Originally, he was going to talk about Halloween - history, the evils of, etc.; however, the Lord laid it on his heart to talk about the kids fitting in at school. Basically, it centered around kids making fun of other kids, using bad language or other acts that weren't Christlike at school. Essentially, do the kids stand up for Christ or just "fit in?" He went on to discuss how he had "fit in" at school, and then ultimately made sacrafices to make a stand for Jesus.

So when you are at work do you try to "fit in" or do you take a stand for Christ? For the longest time I just tried to "fit in." I would cut up and carry on with people at work using bad language and the like, but then something changed. At the end of 2003 I lost my job, and started a search for something new. Well, about a year after I started looking, there was a job opening at Christian Academy of Knoxville (CAK). When I was filling out the application, there was this question: What does it mean to be a Christian? After some thought I felt like I needed some inspiration so I watched The Passion of the Christ. This movie absolutely broke me into tiny little pieces. It was at that moment that I realized that I didn't deserve the salvation that had been given to me and that it was the ultimate gift. In addition, it made me see that I needed to change my behavior at work when I found a job.

After getting a temp job at US Cellular for a few months, I ended up at IJ Company a little over two years ago. It was here that I have taken a stand. Have I been perfect? No. However, I have been more intentional in my actions. I've made an effort not to use coarse language at work which has had an interesting effect on my co-workers. Once they figured out that I wasn't going to say bad words, some of them curtailed their usage around me. Others have apologized for using bad language around me. I've dined on many occasions with several different employees. I work with a lot of women, and went out with several of them recently for lunch. It was quite fascinating when one of them asked me to pray. It was interesting because I would usually instigate the prayer. It is almost if I had trained them. Now, I know some of them are believers, but a lot of believers don't pray before their meals. It was cool to rub off on them like that. But in the business world, I think that praying before a meal is uncommon and in some areas taboo.

With all this said I do make mistakes from time to time, but I really make an effort to avoid them at work. So I challenge you to take a stand at work and don't "fit in."

Round 2

I survived my first blogging experience yesterday, so I'm back for more. With Christmas coming I suppose that it's time to rant about the Christmas versus Happy Holidays garbage. The political correctness that has taken over our society during the past 10 or 15 years is rather overbearing. Companies like Target are afraid to acknowledge Christmas because they don't want to offend anyone. Give me a break!! This is the dumbest thing ever. Think about this: Christmas is the entire reason that half the retailers survive in the first place. Generally speaking, people don't go out and buy gifts for Thanksgiving or New Years. Now there is HanawhateveryouwanttocallitmightstartwithaCornot, but what percentage of our nation are these Jewish people. Not to mention they aren't the ones that seem to get offended over the use of Christmas. So how about we take a look at where all this started. Of course this is just my opinion/fiction, but I'm sure that it will make sense when I'm done.

Some godless soul out there who has nothing to live for because he is such a mental midget that he can't grasp the concept of faith is all angry at the world. We'll call this guy Scrooge. So Scrooge decides that if he can't be happy around Christmas that no one can be happy; therefore, he goes to his local Target and complains about the Christmas signs that are hanging up. Well, he gets blown off and Target laughs all the way to the bank. Well, one of Scrooge's buddies comes in and complains as well. Target all of a sudden sees this as a trend, so they change everything to Happy Holidays because it doesn't leave anyone out. It could be anything, but most everyone, Christian or not realizes the real Reason for the season.

I'm tired of all these people trying to act like the birth of Christ never happened. Not to mention that Christmas is recognized as a FEDERAL holiday. So technically, it is ok for schools or whatever to call it Christmas break like it use to be when I was in school. But now the commie libs have basically squeeled and squawked so much that it is now "winter break" or "winter holidays". This insanity is just one more blatant attempt to remove God from society. Of course people don't want to follow Christ or believe in God because they don't want to be accountable for their actions. Well, what they don't know is that they will be held accountable for them when they die anyway.

The only way we can get the "happy holidays" taken care of is to complain to these companies, boycott them (I confess I can't do that with Target - Star Wars addiction), and just tell the people working there Merry Christmas. I guarantee that some of the people there will slip up and say Merry Christmas back.

In the beginning...

Brian created his first blog...oh wait I was talking in third person. I guess, I'd better not let my sister find out about that or I'll get chastised. Last night my wife, Jessica, and I had some friends over for a football game (YES, the Cowboys put down the Vikings 24-14) and a movie. Well, we (all the guys) decided to watch Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez. The movie starts off with a "Prevue" of a movie entitled Machete, starring Danny Trejo. Now the guys in the room were roaring with laughter at the over-the-top action. This spurred some discussion on what a great movie this would make. One of those movies that's so ridiculus that it is hilarious. Come to find out it is being made into a movie coming out in 2008. YEAH!!

After the preview the feature presentation started. I'll be the first to tell you that I hate going to the movies and watching something that has been out in the theater a few weeks or longer, unless it is presented in DLP. I totally despise the video flaws that show up in film that's been run through the projector a billion times. A few years ago when the Pinnacle opened at Turkey Creek, a group of us saw Fellowship of the Ring. Hands down it was the worst quality film (not the movie itself) that I have seen in years. However, with that said, I really liked the cinematograhy that was used in Planet Terror. A film grain was added to the movie that made it look like a mid-80s horror flick that had been show a zillion times. It had scratches, pops, clicks, burnouts, and other defects. These flaws gave a nostalgic feel to a fresh new movie. At one point the film burns out during a love scene and a message pops on the screen stating that a reel is missing and sorry for the inconvenience. Then the movie starts back up with the building in flames and all of the prior characters in the film reunited in that building. It was quite clever without killing the story. Anyway, I thought the FX on the film looked cool. So if you are ever up for a good zombie flick that's a little different, you should try out Planet Terror. However, it is not for the little tykes. It has some pretty strong language, scary images, sensuality, and some nudity.

Next time I'll talk about, well I have no idea what I'll talk about. I guess you'll just have to check back.