"The Crow," starring Brandon Lee, was released in theaters nearly 25 years ago!!! Now I TOTALLY feel old. I believe that this movie could totally stand alone based on the acting talent, the amazing storyline and the dark and gritty cinematography. Add in the memories that this movie invokes as well as the rockin' grungy soundtrack, and that EASILY puts The Crow in my top five favorite movies... ever. That's saying a lot! So, when a local movie club known as "VHS and Chill" was doing a special showing at a little independent theater... I KNEW I had to get a ticket. I loved the fact that they didn't show some digitalized HD version. Nope! They showed the original VHS version, complete with super cheesy trailers for movies like "Halloween 6" and "Mother's Boys." They also included the last recorded interview with Brandon Lee, filmed shortly before the accident that took his life. I managed to convince Megan and Michael Massey (BOTH who had never seen the movie before!) to come along with me... I am pretty sure both of them loved it. Well, at least Megan did.
The plot for the Crow is fairly simple, a man and his fiancee are brutally murdered. The weight of the sorrow makes it impossible for Brandon Lee's character, Eric Draven, to move on. He is brought back to life and, using the powers of the crow, seeks out revenge for their deaths. He then goes on to find each person responsible and (brutally) brings them to justice. I'll leave it at that, in case someone decides to read this that HASN'T seen it or isn't sure on how the film ends...
I was probably in the third grade or so when I first saw this movie. One of the perks of my brother Matt dating this girl who worked at the video rental place that was inside the GFF grocery store was that he got free rentals ALL of the time. I remember snooping in their room at various times and finding random cassette tapes that I had never even HEARD of in those big bulky boxes that you would get when you rented them from rental stores like Blockbuster, Hollywood, etc. Sometimes I was lucky (or unlucky... not all of the movies we watched were as awesome as this one) enough to be around when Matt would pop it into our massive VCR. Matt and Adam must've been watching this movie at a point when Mom was on a date or something, because there is NO way that I would've been allowed to watch it. Mom was usually pretty progressive and open and let me watch a lot of stuff, but damn... this would've been a bit much. It gathered the attention of my little third or fourth grade mind because it was the first "dark" film that I had ever seen. The super gritty and mature content matter grabbed my attention, not for the standard reasons (gasp! They said the "F" word!) that it would've gotten an eight year olds attention. It was more of the thoughts along the lines that "there are people out there that live in these dark seedy places and do these incredibly illegal things... and some of these people are little kids just like me. Not EVERYONE lives in a squeaky clean suburban setting." Thoughts like these developed an interest in certain types of films for me, movies like "Requiem For A Dream" that have characters who start off in bad situations and they don't really ever get better. There aren't always necessarily happy endings.
I remember the soundtrack that came along this movie was full of grungy awesome rock from Alice in Chains, The Cure and more. It was definitely one of the first group of CD's I ever bought. If I remember correctly, it actually came as a two-pack and included an "inspired by" CD. This CD, along with the soundtrack from the movie "Hackers" was frequently found in the CD player in my 1997 Honda Accord. I guess I thought I was pretty cool as I was blaring this, windows down and sunroof open going to school or driving to work at Mardel Christian Bookstore (yeah, I know) or Boomerang Grill (mm... chicken tenders). Lots of fun memories.
Needless to say this movie ranks high in my book. Like I said, it is EASILY in my top five. It's not necessarily JUST because it's an awesome movie... but it definitely helps. I totally give it a 10 out of 10.
"A building gets torched. All that is left is ashes. I used to think that was true about everything: family, friends, feelings. But now I know that sometimes, if love proves real and two people are meant to be together, nothing can keep them apart."
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