By Dante Spado
I’ll admit it. I jumped the gun. When my professor told us to start writing a blog and I decided to write mine about movies, I just dove in headfirst and wrote about Rogue One without even introducing myself. How rude.
Let’s start over.
My name is Dante Spado, and I like movies. I always have, and I probably always will. As a kid, I watched movies constantly. My parents always tell me that if they needed to keep young me entertained, they’d just put on Lady and the Tramp and I’d sit there and watch it without making a peep. That is until it was over, and I’d ask them if I could watch it again.
When I think about it, I associate a lot of periods of my life with what shows or movies I was obsessed with at that time. I associate 3rd grade with Transformers because that’s the grade I was in when it came out. It was also the first PG-13 movie I saw. I begged my dad to take me to see it, arguing that I could see a PG-13 movie because eight years old was almost as old as thirteen years old. He eventually caved, and the movie blew my mind. I quote it to this day.
I associate 8th grade and the early years of high school with The Walking Dead because I ate, breathed and slept TWD (I still watch it and it’s still a great show, but that’s a blog for another time). I’ve seen seasons of The Walking Dead several times over, and I even went to Atlanta during my junior year of high school to go to Walker Stalker Con, TWD’s version of Comic-Con.
For Halloween, I always tend to dress as whomever my favorite movie or TV character at the time is. This past year it was Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Before that, it was Hopper from Stranger Things. Sophomore year I went back to my TWD origins and dressed as Rick Grimes. In 6th grade, I was Rocky Balboa. This goes all the way back to 2005 when I dressed as Anakin Skywalker from Revenge of the Sith.
The point is, I like movies, and I think they’ve played an important role in shaping my life. During my time at UNC, I’ve taken three screenwriting classes, and I’m in a fourth this semester. I love writing my own stories with my own characters, and I think this love for writing and storytelling is what led me to become an Advertising Major.
So, when my professor posed the question, “what is your passion?” my mind immediately went towards the movies and shows that I love. That’s why for the rest of this semester, I’m choosing to write about my opinions on them. Not reviews or critiques necessarily, but just things I like about them.
So that’s the plan. Readyyy aaaand action!