Let’s talk junior high school, and basketball, and Nicolas Cage, and Michael Bay, and Christian rock.
I’m a big boy. In a given public space (other than a basketball court… more on that later), I assume that I am the tallest person. If I’m not the tallest person, I’m certainly the highest combination of height and width. I played basketball for much of my life, until the usual kinds of growing-old things stopped it. I still watch basketball religiously, but, as the theme of these essays suggests, I’m about to turn 40. There are almost no professional basketball players who are still playing at age 40, to say nothing of players at lower tiers of competitive and casual play, who have significantly worse fitness, genes, money, and whatnot. All of that lateral movement and hopping is just hell on the legs.
I know that I should get into a community league, but I haven’t. Maybe this year.
We’re talking 1996, though. In 1996, I was leaving 8th grade and entering 9th, and at that time in the county, 9th grade was still at the junior high school, and 10th through 12th were at the high school. (I think that the high school is now 9th through 12th but I don’t know nor care.) I played on the team. It was a great part of my life, although it took up a massive amount of free time, and I wasn’t even a gym rat. The really dedicated players would practice, and lift weights, and play pick-up games. I played a ton of pick-up games, but didn’t lift any weights. My chief skill was that I was tall, although usually just a bit shorter than the centers on other teams.
Our county had five junior high schools, so we’d play round-robins with those, and then there were surrounding counties (Tucker, Monongalia, Taylor, Mineral, Garrett) that we’d play less frequently. There were also mini-tournaments in which we’d participate, double-elimination tourneys that lasted a whole weekend. And there were playoffs too.
Between Magic: the Gathering, basketball, music, friends, bowling, videogames, and having a driver’s license, it is kind of amazing that people ever graduate on time. Lots of distractions compressed into a small window of time.
Anyway, I was a big movie fan then and now, but back then, there still wasn’t internet that one would use to actively browse. So finding out about new movies was solely done through word-of-mouth, periodicals, and previews on TV. This often meant that movies would slip through the cracks of one’s awareness (amplified by the fact that the theater in Oakland had two screens and the one at the Lake, once it opened, had eight, so even if I knew about a movie, there was no guarantee it was playing nearby).
The Rock is one such movie. I didn’t know that it existed until I was at a pizza party at my basketball coach’s house and we all sat down to watch the movie.
I don’t love The Rock. I should get this out of the way. I think it is noisy and melodramatic. I don’t like Michael Bay’s aesthetics, and even on this, his best movie, I just don’t vibe with it. There are elements that I love. I’m not a monster. Nicolas Cage, for instance, forges his own path through the saber-rattling and the bad action sequences. Sean Connery also puts in a fun performance. There are also some iconic lines (e.g., “Karla was the prom queen”; “I’ll take pleasure in gutting you, BOY”; “How in the name of Zeus’ BUTTHOLE did you get out of your cell?”). But I’ve tried to rewatch the movie multiple times and there’s just not enough here for me.
There are plenty of other places to get a fix. If I want bugeyed Nic Cage, there is Face/Off. Manic? National Treasure. Passionate? Moonstruck. Understated? Raising Arizona. I could go on. He’s one of my favorite actors. And what about Connery? Well, he’s essentially playing old Bond here, so From Russia with Love and Diamonds Are Forever are two favorites. Angry Connery is best in The Untouchables. Funny Connery is best in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Thriller Connery? The Hunt for Red October. Again, there are better places elsewhere to get a fix. And Michael Bay even has a better and more palatable contemporary in Tony Scott (Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Last Boy Scout, Crimson Tide, True Romance, Enemy of the State… I could go on).
The idea of settling for a bad option brings to mind Christian Contemporary music, which, at least for the 80s and 90s, was very content to be delayed pantomime of mainstream pop and rock music. There were Mighty Mighty Bosstones proxies and Less Than Jake proxies and Creed and Pearl Jam and REM proxies and on down the line, as far as the eye could see, a flood of slightly worse versions of secular things (that many of the secular bands were themselves comprised of Christians always confused me on why there was a necessity for a separate Christian music. I realize now that it’s a grift, but younger me was confused.)
But in 1996 in Preston County, there weren’t other options. The same with the ball team. There were lots of players who were great people. But I hated my coach. He was a sour fuck on the court, and the kinds of nonsense that he’d do in a classroom (he was also a teacher) should have had him booted out the door. I don’t want to dwell on it, as this whole exercise has never been about spilling the tea. I just want to highlight the frustration of being in a toxic environment and not having any recourse other than to quit. I stuck it out, but when the coach at the high school turned out to be far, far shittier, I had learned my lesson and quit the team. Playing in youth leagues for the rest of high school was infinitely more fun than putting up with those types. I guess, with decades of hindsight and rose-tinted glasses, being in a high-pressure situation with little power is a useful life lesson?
But yeah, I saw The Rock out of nowhere, with zero knowledge of what it was about. And that is about the best possible setting for such a movie, but it still didn’t deliver for me.
Other 1996 candidates: Independence Day; Twister; Mission: Impossible; Scream; Fargo
I turn 40 in December. To commemorate the milestone, I’m writing 40 short biographical essays pertaining to a movie per year of my life.