robotchao

A lot of people know I love the movie Point Break, and no, not in the ironic love-it-because-it’s-so-bad way, but I really do think it’s a good action movie. Of course, every movie has its cheesy moments, but for me, they’re forgivable. I could totally go on a diatribe justifying points about the movie, but don’t want to do that.

Mostly, I’m gonna talk about when I first saw the movie.

In elementary school, I only had one friend–Ethan. We met the first day of kindergarten, and hung out all the time through fifth grade. I’ve been told that when Ethan was sick, instead of going outside and playing with the other kids during recess, I’d sit inside and stare out the window.

When we moved on to sixth grade, Ethan and I went to different middle schools. I went to a middle school with an attached elementary school, so everyone in my sixth grade class was moving on from that elementary school, already knowing each other. I definitely felt like an outsider. And I was an incredibly shy kid to begin with, so that didn’t help in my ability to make friends.

In my first few days, I met this kid, Mikey. He and I got along relatively quickly, but I had a hard time knowing if we were friends or not. I liked him, but wasn’t sure if he really liked me, or if he just thought I was okay enough to hang out with for a bit.

Then, he had a birthday party. He lived at the beach, and invited a whole slew of kids from school for a sleepover. The daytime was spent at the beach. I tried not to bother him too much because he was the birthday boy, he was the one everyone was giving their attention to; I didn’t want to seem too clingy.

That night, after dinner and cake and whatever else, we all watched movies. Point Break was the first movie, Alien Nation was the second. By the end of the night, almost everyone had nodded off in their sleeping bags, and as far as I remember (though I could be remembering incorrectly), Mikey and I were the only ones left awake, talking about how cool Alien Nation was.

That night really made me feel confident that I could refer to him as a “friend.” It meant a lot to me, as I was 11 and only had one other friend before him.

We went to different high schools. Mikey went to one on the East Coast. I found a great group of friends in high school, but still got amped about summers, when Mikey would come back. He was the first to put me on a surfboard. I did horribly. I’m still horrible at surfing, but I really enjoy it. We’d have beach bonfires. We’d stay up into the night talking about girls and comics. Yup, solidly a friend.

I’ve re-watched Point Break a million times now (yeah, I own it,) and really, except for a few indiscretions, I still think it’s a good action movie. The story is solid and moves along at a good pace, the characters are flawed and relatable, and I do like Johnny Utah’s struggle between his duties as a cop and his newfound daredevil friends. I like that there’s no simple bad guy, that we understand everyone’s POV enough to feel that, despite them doing bad things, no one is just evil. I really do like the movie.

But yeah, if you asked me why I love the flick, well, that’s a different answer entirely.