Best Movie Ever Made

First things first...sometime this week, like yesterday or maybe today, I don't know because I haven't gotten an official email about it, (dunno if I should expect one or not as I've never been part of an anthology before), but, yes, I am proudly part of an anthology which releases, well, I'll just say now.

HERE is a link to it.

Along with stories by big names like Neil Gaiman, Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, and Ursula LeGuin, my prequel to VICIOUS CIRCLE, titled MARLBOROS AND MAGIC is on page 276. SQUEE!!! Yup...if you ever wanted to know exactly why such an endearing and sweet soul like Nana (cough, cough) was booted from the "retirement community" this is where to find out.

And now, without further ado,

...the award for the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE according to me,

Linda Robertson, is...

(don't hold your breath waiting for a surprise here....)

Yup. I was giddy about this film before it came out in May of 2009. I was merrily in attendance at the early-release Wednesday night 7 pm showing in the only theater in my (then) town of residence, Medina, Ohio. I had to get there early because it was TOTALLY going to sell out and be packed.

Um...yeah. Not so much. >:-/

There were 7 people in the theater, including me, my fella, and one of my sons. I was the ONLY female in the audience. Seven? Seven people? And ME and my cohorts who'd escorted me (at my lengthy insistence) accounted for about half of the total attendance? I call bullshit.

Let me tell you, I no longer live in Medina, Ohio. Nice enough town, but at that moment I knew...they just aren't my people there.

Anyway, I'm sitting there in the perfect center of a darkened theater, popcorn crunching in my jaw, just happy, happy, happy, and then the movie started...and hot tears sprang to my eyes.

Seriously.

That moment hit me so damn hard.

My mind flooded with all the memories of Saturdays spent laying in the living room floor of my childhood home, with my dad in his comfy chair, us watching Start Trek reruns together.

My dad had passed away about ten months prior to the movie's release and I sat there with the eyeball-waterworks on full because he would have LOVED to have seen it. Even in a wheelchair, he would have been in the theater with me--the rest of that town's uncool residents be damned.

Then, in fine female fashion I told myself that he was in the theater with me because it was his presence that had made me think of him just then. With mushy, heartbroken sorrow I consoled my nerdy self with the idea that, since he lived on through me, he was seeing it through my eyes.

The movie was a fantastic homage to all that made the original series so (inter)stellar. The new cast was superb, the visuals--OMG, I got chills when they showed us the completed NCC 1701!--, and the story's fresh twist that allowed them to create a pathway for a whole new series of adventures...sigh. My geeky little heart was all a-twitter.

But STAR TREK 2009 gets my vote for BEST MOVIE EVER MADE because, for me, it was more than the sum parts of its celluloid images shining on the silver screen. It was one of those moments in my life--albeit a 127 minute-long moment--that evoked the strong emotions of fond memories and family bonding and merged it all gently together with that touch of bittersweet, of grieving.

me and my dad