A vivid early memory for me was me, my mother, and some friends all waiting in line on the friday night when BATMAN RETURNS opened in theaters, back in June 1992.

The line stretched from the front box-office to the back of the mall (put it simply, the length of 2 football fields) and we waited for 2 hours, so we had a little pre-planned picnic.

This was INSIDE the mall, and we had a blanket out and a ball of a time. It helped also that inside the mall at that time was a REVCO Drug Store, where we bought candy and smuggled it under our shirts.

After the movie, a news crew was out there to get instant-reactions of the movie (mind you, RETURNS was seen as "the" movie of that summer) and my mother was apparently upset about the sex/violence in it to the news crew, how it'll give her kid nightmares.

Then I jump in front of the camera and interrupted her, my 8-year old insanity: "IT WAS AWESOME! I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE!"*

She never forgave me for that.

*=Then again, we kids seemed to have liked the movie, and that whole sex/violence thing which I didn't notice until I saw it back recently...went over my head. Adults assume way too much. Thats why we're lame.