My 40 years with Star Wars.

My first real contact with Star Wars was the Marvel comic book. It was 1976 and there were so many comics to choose from, I thought I’ll just stick to Science Fiction comics, that should be manageable. I was buying stuff like The Eternals by Jack Kirby. Then one day I saw Star Wars #1. I wasn’t thinking, Oh it’s an adaptation of the movie that will change my life. I was thinking, Oh look, it’s a #1 of a new Science Fiction comic.

In the meantime I was an avid reader of Starlin magazine. Starlog was the place to get your SF movie and TV news in the dark ages before the internet. Starlog wasn’t always easy to find, and was a little expensive at $1.00 an issue. I remember having to explain spending a dollar on a magazine at the drug store when the first issue came out. Starlog #1 had a painting of Kirk and Spock on the cover and proclaimed itself as being a Star Trek special edition. There was no way I was not buying this thing of beauty.

This magazine told me about Space:1999, the Six Million Dollar Man and even had some snippets about a project called The Star Wars. I will never forget seeing issue #7 on the newsstand beckoning to me with a dynamic photo of a TIE fighter firing at an X Wing fighter. This must be something amazing. I gobbled the information contained within and then did again for weeks and weeks.

May 1977 rolled around and I was trying to figure out a way to see this movie. I knew all the new movies came to the Ridge Cinema, which was in west Richmond. This was past the due of the earth according to the maps and was not anywhere my Mom or grandparents were likely to take me. I ended up going to see it with my friends who had more adventurous parents than I did. I don’t remember too many details of that screening, but it was love at first sight. I had seen movies more than once before, because SF movies were rare and so I would sit through them for two showings if I could get away with it; movies like Logan’s Run and Damnation Alley. Over the course of 1977, I saw that movie as many times as I could arrange. I remember talking my Dad into seeing it with me even though he said, Haven’t you already seen that?

Over the past 40 years, I’ve lost track of exactly how many times I watched Star Wars. Not Episode 4, not A New Hope. I watched it in the theater, I watched with a fox. I watched them on a box. I saw a private showing at my Uncle Luis’ club in São Paulo Brazil. I rented it on VHS. I owned it on VHS. I owned the special editions on VHS. I owned it on DVD. I own it on Laserdisk. I now own them on Blu Ray. And my favorite lately is the digital copy that nerds with more patience than me edited to look like it did in 1977, but in better quality than we could have dreamed of 40 years ago.

It’s hard to believe that at age 13 I found my favorite movie of all time. I keep watching and waiting for something to knock it of its perch. It may never happen, because frankly it would take a lot for a movie to overwhelm me as an adult the way it did to 13 year old Mike Fonseca.

Collector’s Attic has a booth at Collectible’s Expo this weekend!

Collector’s Attic is setting up at the Collectible’s Expo this Saturday and Sunday, April 22nd and 23rd. Check out our assortment of Comics, Posters, Non-Sport Cards, Books, DVDs, NASCAR items and Autographed Books. We are bringing a little bit of everything, so join us at the Chesterfield Fairgrounds this weekend.

You can get tickets at:

The Collectible’s Expo Tickets

Favorite Movies vs Best Movies

People are always making lists. One I see all the time is a list of the best movies of all time. This is great, but I find I have two lists: Best Movies and Favorite Movies. There is a difference. The Best movies are technically good, but not necessarily fun movies. Some you watch because you know they won an Oscar or because all the critics say its good. Sometimes you watch them, because its like eating your vegetables. They are “good” for you. These are the “Best” movies.

Then there are the movies you just like. You don’t have to have good reasons. Some are fun or action packed. Some are because of the fondness you had for it in childhood. Some are because they are just so dumb you find them funny.

Sometimes the movies on your lists are on both lists. Unfortunately this is rare. That is why I have two lists. Here they are:

My 10 Favorite American movies of all time (in no particular order):

Star Wars
Risky Business
Citizen Kane
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Casablanca
Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan
Usual Suspects
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Pulp Fiction
Clerks

My 10 Best American movies of all time (also in no particular order):

Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Gone with the Wind
Schindler’s List
Wizard of Oz
Sunset Boulevard
Psycho
Star Wars
The African Queen
The Godfather
It’s a Wonderful Life

You see, some movies are on both lists, but only a couple. I would say that everything on the 10 Best list would be on my longer list of Favorite movies, but barely any movies on my Favorite list would be on any list of Best movies.

These are my lists. I will go in to more detail on these movies in future blogs. What are your favorites? What do you consider to be the best? Please share your lists with me in the comments or by email and I’ll share them.

Mike