Episode 128 – Movie Memories with My Mom : Sonic Cinema

Episode 128 – Movie Memories with My Mom

Posted by Brian Skutle Posted on Feb - 23 - 2023 0 Comment

This is an episode that requires a bit more of an introduction than I normally give podcast episodes.

Back in 2021, I wrote about what it was like watching the movies with my mother that she wanted to watch. When I made that post, I didn’t expect to be rushing her into assisted living after a hospital visit a few months later. With her dementia progressing, I knew it was possible, but I couldn’t have imagined what that would look like in executing the process. Shortly after I got her into her current living arrangements, I did a special episode of the Twitch stream where I talked about her, what it was like growing up with her, seeing her act, and even shared some things for the first time. (I’ll embed that below.) One of those things was a clip from a discussion I had with mom about movies and her life in December 2018. Now, after years of being exclusively for Patreon subscribers, it’s time for the podcast to get the whole thing.

At the time of this record, I did not know if it would honestly be usable, but when I started to edit the discussion, it became truly what I wanted it to be- hearing a bit about her acting, and about movies and experiences she loved, as well as her life. If it’s without the meat and bones I really hoped for a lot of times, this was recorded several months after I started to notice her memory starting to slip. If there are abrupt edits, it’s because there wasn’t a cleaner way to get to the next topic. Unfortunately, there’s no real talk on her hard-core crush (up until 2004) on Mel Gibson, how she was obsessed about seeing his films in theatres as much as possible, and how she got to talk to him on the radio during the press tour for “Braveheart”. (Her favorite movie of his was “Tequila Sunrise”, and knowing that, it makes her constant bringing up on Kurt Russell- the other ’80s stud in the film- during this discussion fascinating.) Despite some TV shows mentioned, there’s nothing about our shared love of the Whedonverse shows after a co-worker of hers inspired her to ask me about “Angel”. There are no recollections about being on the sets of “Scream 2” or “Gordy”, the other pig movie from 1995. And there isn’t discussion about “What the Bleep Do We Know!?”, a pseudo-documentary she watched once that “changed her life” at one point. But in making sure this was fit to post, listening to her discuss Cary Grant- whether it’s because of her favorite film of all-time, “North By Northwest”, or “The Philadelphia Story”; what made “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” so formative for her; or being scared during the original “The Blob”, I got enough of my mom’s passion to more than make up for what was missed. I hope you enjoy!