KAPAI: A lifetime's inspiration in the dark of the matinee

Tuesday afternoons are my favourite time of the week when I can turn my mind off and tune my imagination into the wonderful world of the wide screen. Tuesday is half-price movie day and Tuesday afternoon is when I park my car, leave my cellphone and my computer mouse in "please leave a message" mode and head for Hernandez hideaway - or in this case the Rialto theatre up above Kojak's new wharekai (food hall) on lower Devonport Rd.
Going to the "pitchers" as we called them back in the day was always the highlight of the week and I can clearly remember the magic Mount weekends of scoring the odd ninth-grade try on a Saturday morning and scoring sixpence off Mum in the afternoon for the 2 o'clocks at Stan Bryant's Jaffa house.
We used to get so excited sitting in our front row seats that by the time Fred the manager had finished his "no talking or you're walking", be-good-or-else speech in front of the closed curtains, and we all had stood up and saved God from the Queen, that the growling roar of Sam Goldwin's Lion logo was completely drowned out by the din of delighted and expectantly excited, googly-eyed eight year olds. Imagine the view Sam's lion got looking down into the deep dark pitch-black pitcher theatre? Row upon row of white-eyed headlights, flashed up on full beam as they sat stunned into a silence not even a half-sucked Snifter or lost Jaffa rolling down the aisle could break.
For two hours we entered a surreal dreamtime that carried us to a faraway world of winners where the baddies, like the warriors of today, always came second and the goodies rode out of town on Persil-white stallions, setting the scene for next Saturday's 2 o'clock screening.
As soon as The End credits flashed up we were out of there and up the road to Jim Odey's Golden Horizon fish'n'chip shop, where we would pool our leftover lolly money and buy a bag of hot chips to warm our pukus for the long hikoi home.
By the time we had reached the Blake Park hill heading home to Macville Rd, we all knew every part of the pitcher and would take on the lead roles of the heroes, riding our imaginary stallions into Dodge City, claiming the RSA and all of the Central Parade shops in the name of Davey Crockett. Had to feel a bit sorry for the little fat fullas in our gang cos they only got to play the lesser parts of the losers in our matinee re-enactment. Invariably they ended up getting chased through the toetoe bushes behind the sports centre by us Lone Ranger lookalikes, with no Tonto to save them.
I still get the same enjoyment today as I did at the tamariki 2 o'clock movies, then the flirting fives and later, the grown-ups' world of 8 o'clock flicks. I guess we all have our favourite movies like we have our favourite music that fills the vaults of memories and takes us back to a time when life was what we sometimes call "the good old days". For many of us the imaginary world of Hollywood opened up a world of wonderful dreams.
That all came true on a Saturday afternoon at two, and the closing curtain of the brilliant film on Truman Capote now showing at the Rialto said it all in bold black letters: "More tears are shed for dreams that come true - than those that have not."
Movies send our children messages, some good and some bad, but it is not just movies and television that leave us with a mixed message. We don't have to look far back in our archives of adolescence to find common sayings that sent us a message sometimes only the movie world could turn from a negative into a positive. Well, at least for two hours anyway.
Remember this one: "Big Boys don't cry!" Man I shed barrel-loads of boohoo juice when Bright Eyes died in Watership Down and the scene in Once Were Warriors when Jake's daughter hung herself. How about these: "Don't ask questions", "Be a Man!" and "Stop daydreaming boy". Ironically my business card today states my job as "tangata moemoea", which loosely translated means a professional dreamer. It was and still is the dream world of theatre that gave me the green light to dream the big-picture stuff - and it's way too late to stop now. Whenever I need inspiration to write I replay Dead Poets Society in my head and before you can say "seize the day" the creative juices are flowing once more. I wonder what movie inspired Moss "The Butterfly Boss" Burmester to go for gold and get it?
And the Oscar goes to ... the Mount Maunganui Regent Theatre for opening up a whole new world of dreamtime at two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Kia ora Stan, Fred, Milton Roger's mum who made the bestest ice creams, the Scrivener Girls and Lorraine Arndele for shining her torch when we got too scared.
Pai marire
tommy@indigenius.org