A CMBA Honor

 

 

 

 

The Classic Movie Blog Association recently honored me with an admission to that elite club of bloggers. Here, a few months later, I was privileged to be highlighted in the blog (sort of a long introduction to my blog and blogging tastes and habits, as you will see...)

Most of what follows is my answers to questions that were posed. But the questions themselves are definitely the property of CMBA. The answers are my own, however. So, since I'm not sure about copyright issues, I firstly want to credit the text of this post to the CMBA.  The original post, should you want to see it, is here.

 

** Meet new CMBA member James Brymer, also known as Quiggy, the man behind the blog The Midnite Drive-In. Quiggy took the time to share more about himself and his passion for movies through the following Q&A.

 

 

Tell us a bit more about your site, The Midnite Drive-In, and what led you to start blogging. 

 

I have always had a love of movies. Years ago (2009) I started a general interest blog which was basically just random thoughts on any subject that came to mind. During the run of that blog, I had a weekly piece I titled "Quiggy's Saturday Night at the Movies." I gradually lost interest in keeping the blog going, however, and so the weekly movie session went with it.

 

Sometime in 2015, I no longer remember how I found it, I came across my first "blogathon." It was "The Universal Pictures Blogathon," hosted by Silver Scenes, and on impulse I joined it. I created The Midnite Drive-In, then, as an outlet so I could join a blogathon. The drive-in movie theater had always had an attraction to me, as well as a writer, Joe Bob Briggs, who had written a drive-in movie review column for a newspaper I delivered in my younger days.

 

Of course, because I was an avid blogathon addict I would review other genres of movies, but my main theme was the type of movies that usually found their following at drive-in movie theaters. The Midnite Drive-In serves one main purpose: To direct people to a style of film that might not be on the average person's mind and thus give the reader a chance to experience a whole new world of film-making (I hope).  

Besides horror and sci-fi, what are some of your other favorite film genres?

 

One of the genres that crop up often on The Midnite Drive-In is film noir. Interestingly enough, I never even really knew that the film noir genre existed until I saw Steve Martin's homage/parody to film noir, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. But as a result of seeing that movie, I actively began to seek out the films from which he used clips during the story. That gravitated me towards seeking out other movies in the same vein.

 

Additionally, I am a huge John Wayne fan. Mostly for his westerns, of course, but there are a couple of his non-westerns that figure prominently among my favorites. North to Alaska and Sands of Iwo Jima are two of his better films in the latter category.

 

A third category that frequently makes my movie night list is comedies. And the comedies can be from any era. My early adulthood stretches from 1980, so the early 80's comedies are among the top movies, but I also appreciate such classics as Arsenic and Old Lace and Duck Soup.

You write about both film and television at your site. What are your five favorite classic era series?

 

Oh, great! You want me to narrow down my favorite TV series to just five?

 

Well, to top the list I would have to include The Twilight Zone. I was either not even born yet or only a baby during the years of its initial run, but growing up in the 70's it was usually on in reruns and whenever it was I would try to watch it. The ironic twists at the end of the episodes always appealed to me and irony has influenced a lot of both my movie watching and reading ever since.

 

Growing up in the 70's my favorite (then current) TV shows were detective and crime shows. So naturally Columbo would be on that list. Columbo appealed to me not only because of the twist of having the audience know who the criminal was at the very outset, but watching the phenomenal Peter Falk as the title character in action.

 

At an early age I developed an interest in the phenomenon of UFOs, aliens, cryptozoological oddities like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and other such paranormal things, so another of my favorite shows was In Search Of, which investigated, weekly, such things that the average public dismissed as the fantasies of a fringe society. Being a member of said fringe society was an honor, not an embarrassment, for me.

 

I loved the campiness of the original Adam West Burt Ward Batman. Some of that show was so over the top it was ridiculous, but I think many of those guest star villains enjoyed the chance to play it up for laughs. Besides Caesar Romero's Joker, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, Frank Gorshin's Riddler and Julie Newmar's Catwoman (the Fearsome Foursome), my favorite villain was Vincent Price as Egghead. Price had such a feel for the comedic side of horror movies in his movie career and that translated well into the camp Batman series.

 

To round out this list, I am going to do a cheat. Many of the 70's TV shows I liked when I was a kid ended up only lasting only one, or sometimes two, seasons. Planet of the Apes and the original Battlestar:Galactica both had short runs. Also Project:UFO, which ran on the heels of the release of the files from the Project Blue Book government investigation of UFO sightings appealed to me.    

Why should people care about old films today?

 

Without a background as to how we got here, we can't really understand the present as well, in my opinion. This is the history major in me talking. You can't appreciate such movies as 28 Days Later without delving into its origins with Night of the Living Dead, or even before that with the way zombies had been presented in such classics as White Zombie. That's why often in my blog I point out some of the history leading up to the film I am reviewing.

Which three classic era films that you love do you think more people need to watch?

 

To get to the essence of the whole drive-in experience you would have to watch a film in each of what I refer to as the essential drive-in movie themes: beasts, bikes and babes.

 

As far as "beasts," you could go any number of directions, but one of my fondest memories of childhood was when my father took the family to the drive-in to see Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Although Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures may seem quaint to the modern CGI-influenced viewer, the movie still holds up.

 

For the "bikes" category, it might seem a foregone conclusion to pick Easy Rider, but may I suggest a predecessor to that classic, The Wild Angels? This one also features Peter Fonda, as the leader of a motorcycle gang on the hunt for who stole fellow biker Bruce Dern's motorcycle, with all the mayhem that situation implies.

 

"Babes" could imply one of two different types of films when it comes to drive-in movies. One is of a theme that, in retrospect, is not entirely PC: movies that objectify women. But there is another category that is still appealing today, one in which the female lead is a kick butt fighter. Pam Grier made her early career playing such characters and Coffy is one of the best.

What is something that most people don’t know about you that you would like to share?

 

I have a sentimental side that I try to hide from the general public. I often say I don't cry at movies, but that's because I typically avoid movies that might have the potential to make the dam burst behind my eyes. Yes, I did cry at the end of Old Yeller.