Movies | KTP

Earth After Death

Posted on February 7 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“We’re not sorry that we tricked you”

We had a TV in the large, ground floor family room our suburban house offered before my parents converted it to a studio apartment for rent when they couldn’t make ends meet on my mother’s sole consistent income and my father’s sporadic, dysfunctional alcoholic income. This conversion happened so early in my life that I only have a few memories of spending time in the family room; these memories are happy and cherished. Memories of playing with my Skeletor and Cobra Commander. Memories of Christmas morning’s Nintendo Entertainment System set up– reveling in the disbelief that my parent’s actually got me one; reveling in the newness of the experience. Playing Duck Hunt (1985) at the advised six-foot distance from the television, measured with precision, probably for the only time. Probably the only time playing Gyromite (1985) as intended while watching ROB the Robot interact with the television in what felt like the future unraveling right then and there in our ground floor family room.

My dad and I would hang out in the family room on lazy weekend afternoons, where he’d watch TV and presumably drink– I was blissfully unaware at the time– and I’d be on the floor playing with my action figures and wooden blocks as he’d be flipping channels with his large, wired, cable TV remote. Every time he’d land on something that had the 20th Century Fox fanfare, I’d hope it was Star Wars. It never was, and I don’t know how I knew the 20th Century Fox fanfare may indicate an impending showing of Star Wars or if I just wished every movie that came on were Star Wars, but I know I never got my wish. My dad usually insisted on watching Star Trek (1966-1969) or M*A*S*H (1972-1983).

KnightFall (1993)

Posted on January 23 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“…and the dead lay in pools of maroon below”

My mother and I would come to spend our Saturdays together. We would go out in the early afternoon to different stores or the mall, or to a park, or the beach during the summer. We’d go to a restaurant for dinner, maybe Friendly’s, and we’d be home before network television’s prime time lineup. My mother would usually fall asleep sometime during Empty Nest (1988-1995) or Golden Girls (1985-1992), and I’d be up laughing by myself. She was my best friend– if she didn’t have me, she’d have been alone.

We would come home to find my father passed out– if you didn’t know better, you’d think he was dead. The remnants of the dinner he made for himself would be on the stove. He liked salisbury steak. My mother would use these Saturdays as a reprieve from the brutality of her week. My father would use them to drink. He existed separately from us. He was alone.

Night Trap (1992)

Posted on June 28, 2024 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Somehow, you set the wheels in motion, now haunts our memories…”

Although I couldn’t verbalize it at the time, I felt a sense of confusion and betrayal as I left the shopping mall multiplex on a summer afternoon with my father in 1989– my only lasting memory of the day. We had just seen Ghostbusters II (1989).

Ghostbusters II is the first movie sequel I remember anticipating. Ghostbusters (1984) was the very first movie we watched as a family– my father, my mother and me– after my dad brought home our brand new, front loading VCR. Even if the VCR was mostly bought to watch pornography in a comfortable setting, he was also excited to watch big Hollywood blockbusters months before they hit HBO. He was a movie guy.

Touching the Face of God

Posted on June 17, 2023 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Sometimes the only thing we counted on when no one else was there”

Crying at the end of Fraggle Rock (1983) is one of my three earliest memories. I would watch in my parents bedroom. It was on at night. I loved feeling ensconced in the Fraggles’ world; I wanted to get lost in their winding caves. For an only child going to a school outside of the neighborhood, weekday afternoon friends were non-existent; The Fraggles are what felt real to me. At the end of every episode, I wouldn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to leave the Fraggles. I knew I would fall asleep contemplating the death of my parents. It was a long time from now, they would tell me. They were right. While the latter was always subsequent to the former, these events seemed unrelated. Maybe I didn’t understand the pacing and structure of proper story telling; that a television show had a beginning, middle, and end; that the escapism of fantasy isn’t meant to last.

As a child these events seemed unrelated but now they feel inseparable. Telling one story must involve telling the other.

Suburbia

Posted on January 13, 2019 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Whatever happened to all this season’s losers of the year? Every time I got to thinking, where’d they disappear?”

There is no place I’d rather be than walking beside a well-groomed front lawn on a suburban street in mid-August. Late afternoon, when the sun is just beginning to set- tired from a long day’s work- making its march toward the kind of warm hue that feels like a soft blanket enveloping your soul. The sound of distant lawn-mowers and the scent of cut grass- really, to properly maintain the admiration and respect of your neighbors, twice per week is ideal for lawn-care. American flags next to empty mailboxes. Dogs barking beside hamburgers on propane grills.

When you’re in eighth grade, suburbia is your canvas. You burn things in the woods and throw eggs at houses. Hop fences and explore backyards. Stand atop a hill overlooking the town below and throw-up a double middle-finger. You let the girls hang out with you and act like it’s this big deal and if they’re not cool enough they’ll have to go home. You probably could have seen their tits had you been more socially adept. You’d be stargazing had there been stars to see.

Forgiving Your Father and “Return of the Jedi” (1983)

Posted on August 12, 2017 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside. It’s hard, but it’s harder to ignore it.”

Re-watching Return of the Jedi (1983) as an adult makes the scene where Luke burns the body of his father stand out as the true climax of the original trilogy- the culmination of Luke’s journey. While it may seem tragic that sister Leia wasn’t there beside him, this was something Luke had to do alone. After all, it was only Luke who saw the human face of his father and bore witness to his humanity- only Luke would have been able to understand his father. Luke delivering his father’s funeral was his final rite of passage into manhood, and the true return of the Jedi.

Every man will have to bury his father, but will every man have understood his father when the time comes? The evolution of a man’s relationship with his father mirrors Luke’s struggle with Darth Vader throughout the course of the Star Wars saga- from not truly knowing him through the inevitable conflict of a young man’s transition to adulthood. If you’re lucky you’ll have a moment where the pieces come together and you see your father as a part of yourself- but not everyone gets there… and, unlike a Hollywood movie, the story may end first.

Heartbreak and “Big” (1988)

Posted on September 4, 2016 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Who wants honey? As long as there’s some money. Who wants that honey?”

In a flash Amy was able to transform our hetero-normative experience back into something she was more comfortable with, her own safe space of gender neutrality, with the magic words: “get this shit off me.” Tossing her the tissue box, I chastised her for breaking the narrative, something usually reserved for slightly longer than fifteen seconds after sex. Amy may have rolled her eyes, but the fact of the matter remains: sex is the narrative of attraction.

Authenticity and “The Cable Guy” (1996)

Posted on June 9, 2016 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“I’d rather be anywhere, doing anything…”

There was a gleam in her eye when Ghostbusters (2016) came up in the group’s discussion. She corrected the speaker, a male, who didn’t make an elaborate point to reference the movie’s notorious gender component- “the new Ghostbusters” he offhandedly called it, but this was “girl Ghostbusters,” she said with pride. After all, she was a high school Science teacher and this was a victory with which she could attach herself.

This attachment was the point, existing independently of the movie. She may not see it, nor should she have to- her attachment to “girl Ghostbusters” had served to bolster her identity. The actual film is an afterthought- a big budget talking point. Beyond all the fuss, Ghostbusters is a pile of crap with regurgitated jokes, so who really cares?