As we eagerly await this year's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science Oscar presentations, I am certain we are all asking the same question. Why does the Academy relentlessly snub Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme, certainly two of the greatest interpreters of the modern human condition, as least as it relates to snapping human vertebrae with one clean move?

Kidding. Really. What we really all want to know is, what makes the movies so danged magical? I thought I was close a few years back, during a family vacation in Arizona, as the kid and I jeered and hooted at the Mesa Days Inn TV every time some over- or underdressed celeb gushed on about "The English Patient" (I assume they'd quit making "Police Academy" movies by this time, or is this just an unpardonable oversight?). My workplace colleagues had waxed rhapsodically about this sweeping period saga, this tale of love and honor unvanquished by war and class bias. I replied that I must see this masterpiece at all costs, as long as I could be supplied two 10-inch steel sewing needles to plunge into the corneas of my eyes.

Which brings me to my point. The magic of the movies is not love or glory or meaning or even Meryl Streep speaking quietly in some undecipherable accent. It's a guy in a hockey mask or a hooded cloak or a giant salivating lizard stalking college kids or Jamie Lee Curtis or computer camp counselors or Neve Campbell or stranded astronauts or Jamie Lee Curtis. Let's see Mr. Ralph Fiennes or Gwynneth Paltrow or Woody Allen (puh-lease) make moviegoers leap out of their seats screaming, "Don't go in there -- he's got a Weed Wacker!!" or huddle in a pile of shaking, clenched flesh waiting for Jamie Lee Curtis to electrocute or impale or purse-whip the mindless serial killing (but, I'm certain, misunderstood) psychopath.

If you're still about ready to shut down your browser to catch the latest Jim Jarmusch film on Bravo, I implore you to take a brief Martin Magical Mayhem Movie Mystery Tour, and discover why this former doorman is enchanted by the cinema:

1977, Carrie: The recent high school grad and his FOUR-YEARS-OLDER (woof) quasi-ersatz girlfriend reflect upon the themes of angst and alienation in this film adaptation of Stephen King's initial masterwork. She works at the downtown bookstore; she is a dance student, lithe and waiflike; she is an intellect without pretense. Sissy Spacek has now ravaged the senior prom (which I'd known THAT trick), and Amy Irving is visiting her fallen "friend's" grave. I am simultaneously working on what Bob Seger termed a "night move." Spacek's dead hand thrusts from the earth, seizing Irving's wrist. I scream like a little boarding school girl being fed a Madagascar millipede, and nearly dive over the seat behind me. I didn't get any, and I did no better at Annie Hall.

1979, Alien: Cruised the campus until I found somebody to help me watch said flick. Billie Pat from my creative writing class -- unreformed hippie, wears sack dresses with few support graments, writes erotic class essays about flagellating folks, has two of those large torso things male college sophomores tend to like. Couldn't have done better if I'd used one of those Bassmaster radar things. Billie Pat doesn't believe in the additives they put on popcorn, so we bop by Dunkin' Donuts for a dozen whole wheat crullers, which I have to sneak in under my coat. For the next two hours, I am clenched in my seat, palms over eyes, whispering, "Oh no, oh no, it's behind the rocket boosters!" Billie Pat thinks chestburster scene is better than a pound of Panama Red, thinks mother ship is cosmic, and finds a poignant aspect to Mother Alien's Earth Mother instincts. I vow next time to find someone with a better attitude to take to the movies.

1986, Aliens: Am lodged in sold-out Indianapolis theater watching Sigourney Weaver take on the Mother Alien. The real terror is not the battle of good vs. evil, nor is it the concept of to-the-death combat between Weaver (who actually looks more attractive in a robotic fighting module) and the Lovecraftian Muthah of all extraterrestrials. It's the huge man with whom I've been "sharing" an armrest for the past two hours, pounding on said armrest with a fist the size of the Heavenly Ham XL and screaming at Weaver, "Kill the m--f--ing b--, KILL THE M--F--ING B--!!!" Now that I do not fear for my life, I can genuinely say that this gentleman was truly in tune with the magic of the movies, though I sincerely hope he's since dealt with some serious anger and fantasy issues.

1997, Scream 2: The Judaic faith has something called a bar mitzvah, which celebrates a boy's passage into adolescence and ostensibly manhood. We Midwestern Protestants have the rowdy boys' horror movie party, in which fathers (and stepfathers) are placed in the front row of the neighborhood cineplex with a group of hormone-crazed boys offering subtle commentary on Neve Campbell's boobs and random guesses about who's trying to kill her. Seated three feet from the screen, Neve Campbell's boobs are just a little frightening, and I'm inclined to suggest Ms. Campbell explore the notion of nostril reduction surgery.

2000, Final Destination: After less than three short years, the tables have turned. The wife is enjoying a rare Ladies Night Out, and the boy and I are enjoying an equally rare Guys Out Seeing Non-Chick Flick. The boy sits patiently as I identify every actor and actress in the film who has guested in an X-Files, note the film was scripted by a couple of X-Files writers, and cite the similarity between Agents Mulder and Scully and the detectives in the present film. Without turning, he requests with withering dignity, "Would you PLEASE be quiet!" I comply, and refrain from throwing Juju beans at the other dads in the auditorium.

Now, if you're shed of your snotty little pretensions about good writing, good dialogue, trenchant commentary, step up to the concession stand and download..

Go get a Coke while you download horror.zip, because in your basement,
NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM!!