Breaking Away

I have fun watching television with my parents. They're interactive but not (usually) to the point that you can't follow the show. We rate the commercials, discuss what we would have done to make it better, sell more cars or computers or get them to Target quicker. We loudly state our opinions about this contestant or when someone is acting like an idiot. We watch too much reality television but we don't care.

I grew up in a time when television changed a lot. When I was little, it was three stations; when I was in grade school, we got a few more thanks to the benefit of being close enough to Detroit and Canada to pull those stations in on a good day. Around that time, cable was starting to sneak into the landscape (26 channels! It was amazing! Although we had to manually flip from "A" to "B" to get all the stations. But 26 whole stations!)

Even harder to believe was that we didn't have the ability to record shows. Think about that. Say you miss an episode of your favorite show: you are out of luck. Maybe you could get a friend to give you a summary (no internet either -- the horror!), but otherwise you have to hope you can figure things out the next week or wait for reruns. Yeah, reruns used to have a bit of a use, back in the olden days.

Movies were even more of a challenge. When a movie you wanted to see was on tv, you had to watch it then, because who knows if or when it might appear again. Maybe because they were a bit of an event, but the movies I remember watching on tv the most were the ones I watched with my dad. Some of them he had seen before and he rewatched them with me. These were movies he felt I really needed to see. He laughed with glee at the poker scene in "The Sting"; he saw the first time I cried at a movie (when Tony dies in "West Side Story.")

We also discovered movies together. I'm not sure why we watched "Carrie" as neither of us were fans of horror movies, but I remember how we both jumped about five feet in the air when the hand reached out of the grave at the end. The one I really remember was "Breaking Away." My dad had heard it was good but I was sceptical. Cyclists in Indiana? Whatever, Dad. But, nothing else was on and it was an excuse to stay up late.

If you haven't seen it, you need to. (And I'm going to spoil it, so if you want to be surprised, stop reading now.) It's not flashy, but the story has all the standards: David-vs-Goliath, Rocky-type sports inspiration, us-vs-them, parent-just-don't-understand, haves-vs-have-not, growing-up-is-hard-to-do, stay-in-school-kids -- it's shocking how many little plots they tie together. In case you want to smile (or check out a young Dennis Quaid, shirtless), here's the trailer:
Breaking Away

When my dad and I watched it, we were completely unspoiled as to what was going to happen. We didn't know if things would work out, the twists of the plot took us by surprise. We were just excited that the cutters were allowed to race in the big race with all the college teams, and when Dave made a good show of it but got injured, we were fine. The cutters would put in a good show but not win, but they would be fine. They were all closer and better for the experience, and that was great. But then they won! The cutters won! We couldn't believe it! It was so exciting! We cheered! What a great movie!

I love technology. I love being able to record shows and watch them when I feel like it. I love being able to look up movies and know what happened, and I love being able to watch pretty much any television show or movie whenever I want. But there are times I miss the surprise of a truly undiscovered movie.