By Billy Murphy

Laugh Lines

“Herbie the Love Bug” saved my life. I was 15 and going through the typical teenage angst of depression, self-loathing and acne the size of moth balls. Good thing we didn't have Marilyn Manson in those days.

I was rather impressionable. Yet, luckily, back then I fell in with an unruly pizza-eating gang called a church youth group. I was invited cold turkey by a friend and I discovered the movies, and the way they were supposed to be, in a theater in the dark and not outside with a 7-pound speaker hanging on your car window and a mosquito coil burning on the dash. The fantasy and hope of the movies was born in me that day. If a lowly 6-volt Volkswagen could win the Grand Prix, I could survive puberty.

That is how I feel about Cinemark Movies 10 in Fayetteville, It's “Batman and Joker” colors and tall ceilings have always given me that feeling I had the first time I walked into that first movie house to see the Walt Disney movie about the little car that could. To some people, seeing a movie is just about the actual film. Not to me. It is the experience; the pleasantries of smiling at the ticket taker, alive with the hope that today's show will share the meaning of life, or at least who that masked man was.

I want to note that Cinemark in Banks Station is the place to go to start making these type of movie-watching memories. It's a dollar theater and in addition to this wonderful fact, it will be offering “50-cent Tuesdays” all this summer. All movies on Tuesday will be half a dollar all day and night and they will be giving away prizes, no less!

I recently went with a great friend of mine to see “Star Wars Episode 1: The Overhyped Menace.” The thing is, he brought along his adult daughter who he also had taken before to see an earlier Star Wars picture (taking her out of school, even). I sat in the movie thinking how great that was, for them to have shared two such insignificant, unimportant events together. More fathers, sons, mothers and daughters should try it. Frank Capra would say that is why movies were invented. Well, he would if he wasn't dead.

Actually, I think movies are good for all sorts of physical ailments too. Got a fear of heights? Watch “Vertigo.” Fear of drowning? “Titanic.” Got sinus pressure? “Silence of the Lambs.” Nauseous? “Alien.” If you just need a little pep, try “The Natural.” If you need to lose weight: Any Chris Farley or John Candy movie.

As I look back and compare, I don't know today if I could find such quality cinematic fare as “Herbie, The Love Bug,” but I don't think back then I could get into the movie theater for just 50 cents either. All things being equal, it balances out.

So, if you have been racking your brain for an inexpensive way to start making memories with your family. Or, if you just want a cool dark place to dream and hope alone, try Cinemark Movies 10 soon. And besides, where else can you find all this and dump your trash on the floor too?

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