The first time I watched Space Jam was when I was in in middle school at my grandma’s house next-door. My grandma was handicapped so I was over there a lot helping out or spending time with her. One day I sat admiring her tall shelf of VCR tapes underneath her TV, when I asked her who her favorite actor was. She replied with a few names that I did not recognize and one of them was Bill Murray. I told her I hadn’t heard of any of them and she immediately had me pull out What About Bob? to introduce me to what I had been missing out on by not knowing who Bill Murray was. My grandma, little sister, and I all sat and watched the movie, laughing together the whole time. After it finished, my grandma had me put in Space Jam which got a similar reaction from the three of us watching. I have seen Space Jam a few other times since, but this is the experience that stands out in my memory. Since then, my family has moved and we no longer live next to my grandma, I have gone through the struggles and joy of high school, and am now living 8 hours away from my family and going to college. Instead of preparing to be a professional soccer player (like I thought I was going to be back then), I’m studying to work with computers. Seeing Space Jam Friday night at State theater brought a lot of these memories back to me. My life has changed drastically from my first time watching Space Jam and I could not be happier with where I have ended up. I was now watching it with my best friends, who I didn’t even know existed back then in middle school, and am attending a college that I love. I think that this is one of the great things about seeing a movie that you have seen before. You can recall the great memories that you had in the past and better appreciate the ones happening at the current moment. This made this last experience seeing Space Jam on Friday a close second in my memories of seeing it. My friends and I had just come from the Michigan basketball game and headed straight to the theater, stopping only at Subway on the way. We scanned in just in time and took our seats. The small theater was a little over half full, mainly with college kids and adults a little older. It was midnight but the energy was high. From the opening credits, everyone was bouncing up and down, singing along. No one sat in front of me and my group of friends and we were able to sprawl out our legs over the seats in front of us. Throughout the whole movie everyone was laughing out loud and clapping at the best parts. It was very cool to be there with a group of people who were all enjoying the film and having a great time. The atmosphere made the movie exciting and very fun; and now I have another great memory with this movie. Laughing with everyone, and seeing the Looney Tunes win, helped with the sting of Michigan’s loss a couple hours prior. I am definitely looking forward to seeing more movies at State Theater. The atmosphere was awesome and relaxed. I am known to fall asleep at the theater but, even with the midnight start-time, I was wide awake till the end. On this snowy weekend here in Ann Arbor I would definitely encourage people to go to a movie at State Theater or just sit down with a new group of friends and watch an old movie.
