Top Ten Movie Theater Experience #1`: "The Terminator" (1984) & "Code of Silence" (1985)

It’s a difficult call for #1 movie going experience, but I knew it would be something I saw with Mindy. I always remember hearing in my youth that one should really be more creative with dates than dinner and a movie. But movies comprised a majority of my dating life, even, especially with Mindy (often without the dinner.)

So which experience to choose? I could have gone with the movie Mindy thought was our first date, “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (1985) which Mindy thought of as our first date. (But I just asked her to go at the last minute with another couple and didn’t think it was a date.) I could have chosen the film I thought of as our first date, “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985). (Mindy wondered why I acted so nervous, like it was a first date, when she thought it was the second.)

I could have gone with the drive-in double feature of two really bad films (“Teen Wolf” and “Volunteers” both 1985) which we saw the night I proposed. Or the movie we saw on our honeymoon (“F/X” 1986).

But I have to go with a drive-in double feature that a bunch of us guys from the dorm of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School were very excited to see. Arnold and Chuck for the price of one. I had already seen “The Terminator”, but certainly wasn’t opposed to seeing it again. And “Code of Silence” was a Chuck Norris film that had actually gotten two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert and that did not happen very often.

So I asked Mindy if she wanted to go. She said no, but she began to pop popcorn for us to take to the show. I said to her, “Oh, come on, Mindy, you’ve never let us down before” and she agreed to go. I didn’t know that the reason she didn’t want to go was because the cost of the show would wipe out her remaining cash.

Several of us guys went, Mindy was the other girl. She rode in a different car than I did, but when we sat on cars to watch the show, she sat next to me. We came in halfway through “Code of Silence”, a film about a cop fighting police corruption. We then watched “The Terminator”, a film about utter awesomeness. We then watched “Code of Silence” in its entirety.

Mindy rode back to school in another car. But she had been right next to me for 2 ½ guy films. This won over my admiration almost as much as her willingness to listen to me talk about that incredible new comic, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

In the next couple of weeks, Mindy and I will celebrate our 25th Anniversary. Thanks, Arnold. Thanks, Chuck.