A while ago another fun meme was making the rounds in our little part of the blogosphere, and boy, do I have the home-field advantage for this one.
The question was which movies one has watched at least seven times. Wilhelm had an eclectic list on offer, while Bhagpuss actually wasn’t sure whether there’s even a single one film he’s watched that often.
Talk of polar opposites. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many I’ve watched seven or more times, let alone write a comprehensive list, because it’s just too damn many. I’ve met a lot of people over the years who can’t for the life of them understand why, but to me the reason is rather simple: I really love watching stuff that I know and like over and over again.
I laugh at jokes in advance, I get goosebumps just before the big twist or reveal, I revel in well done match cuts, parallel montages and other technical gimmicks or easter eggs – in many aspects already knowing what’s coming enhances the experience for me instead of diminishing it.
But I could watch so many good movies I haven’t seen yet instead, couldn’t I? Well, yeah, and of course I do watch new ones regularly too (have you seen The Batman yet? Seriously, go and watch that one right now!). Still, when I come home exhausted from a workday and really crave a relaxing and deeply enjoyable experience, pretty much nothing beats re-watching a movie I love with a bag of chips (I mean crisps, you crazy Brits) and a cold glass of Coke.
There’s also a neat little side effect: I can recite pretty much every bit of conversation from the films in question, and it’s all sorts of fun to throw around movie quotes whenever there’s an opportunity. Great, kid. Don’t get cocky…I hear you say, and you’re probably right. Ahem, moving on.
So here’s what I’m going to do: instead of using the threshold of seven – or any threshold at all – I’ll give you a list of movies that I’ve watched the hell out of, and I’m going to make a ballpark guess about the actual number of times I did so.
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- Star Wars – The Original Trilogy
I have a bad feeling about this!
Nah, just kidding, good feelings all around. These three movies positively changed my life, and I’m not even exaggerating. If you’ve seen these for the first time as a kid or young teenager during the eighties, like I did, I don’t have to tell you how magical, epic and just awesome these were at the time, and if you didn’t…well…I can’t tell you because there are no words to describe what the experience felt like.
Of course this effect has diminished greatly over time, and watching them over and over has most likely played a part in that, but I highly doubt that 45-year-old me would still feel the same magic even if I hadn’t, and I always had and still have so much fun coming back to these masterpieces every few years that I don’t regret a thing.
Unfortunately I haven’t counted, but I assume I’ve watched them about thirty times each by now.
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- Ghostbusters 1 & 2
Listen! Do you smell something?
In my opinion these are two of the greatest comedies ever made – yes, I actually like the second one just as much as the first, maybe even a bit more. Sue me.
Everything’s absolutely on point, casual and over the top at the same time, and all the characters are quirky each in their very own way. While Bill Murray is terrific as ever my favourite has to be Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler. I mean, how can you not love a guy who, when inquired about his hobbies by a gal who seems to fancy him, says: I collect spores, molds and fungus, stoically yet ever so slightly embarrassed?
I’ve watched these probably about twenty times each, and I just realized it’s high time to give them another spin.
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- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
That belongs in a museum!
For once it’s not the whole (original) saga but one particular movie that I like the most. Don’t get me wrong, Raiders and Temple are great films, but to me they can’t hold a candle to the third installment.
There’s a couple reasons for this. For one, I actually watched it before the other two, and also in a movie theater instead of at home (at a time when I didn’t have a 55″ OLED screen and a powerful 5.1 sound system in my living room this obviously made a much bigger difference than it would now). Also, Sean Connery kills it as Indy’s old man. The origin story at the beginning is pretty neat too – I especially appreciate how it takes the time to explain not only the character’s fear of snakes, but also the adult actor’s chin scar. Talk about going the extra mile.
It’s the perfect action adventure movie with epic locations, bad guys who turn out to be good guys and vice versa, an awesome score and, of course, lots of action. Add the constant bickering between the extremely likeable main characters and you have a classic. I’ve watched it about fifteen to twenty times.
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- Back to the Future I-III
Nobody calls me Chicken!
Hearing Alan Silvestri’s famous main theme to Back to the Future makes my eyes well up a bit pretty much instantly, even more so than the Star Wars or Indiana Jones themes. Not only is it an awesome piece of music, it’s also such an integral part of these great movies which, as a whole, always trigger a strong emotional response from me too.
This story takes the ‘Teenager goes on an epic adventure and screws up lots of stuff along the way, but all turns out well in the end’-routine, adds time travel to the mix and polishes the whole thing to perfection. And boy, the time travel stuff is so well done. Are there logic holes? Of course there are. But it’s so damn entertaining and fun that I couldn’t care less.
Most importantly, I don’t know if I have ever cared and rooted for a movie’s main characters more than I always have (and still do) for Marty and Doc, which is saying quite a lot. My guess is that I’ve watched the three films about fifteen times each.
Now, there are at least a dozen more movies from the eighties and nineties I could talk about here, for example TRON, Blade Runner, Aliens, The Fifth Element, L.A. Confidential, Groundhog Day, Terminator 1 and 2, Matrix and more, all of which I’ve watched at least ten times. However, it’s not like no awesome movies were made in more recent years (i.e. since the turn of the millenium). Quite the contrary. Hence I’d like to highlight a few newer titles too, such as…
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- The Dark Knight
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
What can be said about Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy in general and this movie in particular that hasn’t been said a thousand times already? As great as The Batman is, The Dark Knight is the best film about the caped crusader we’ve ever seen and will probably ever see. I’ve watched it at least a dozen times, and I never tire of it.
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- Edge of Tomorrow
I think there’s something wrong with your suit…there’s a dead guy in it!
Basically a mashup of Saving Private Ryan, Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day, this is a really awesome movie. It’s only eight years old at this point, and I’ve watched it about ten times already.
I can’t go into much detail because it’s very easy to spoil important plot points in this particular case, but I’ll say this: As we all know every great body of work is more than the sum of its parts. This applies here too, but even the individual parts are terrific on their own. For instance, I would watch this film again and again for Bill Paxton’s hilarious yet believable portrayal of a Master Sergeant tasked with bringing an unwilling Tom Cruise into line alone.
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- Oblivion
Everybody dies, Sally. The thing is to die well.
Another Tom Cruise flick, another slam dunk. It’s science fiction, but pretty different from anything else I’ve seen in the genre. I like the story a lot, but first and foremost it’s the visuals and the sound that blow me away every time. OMG, the noises those drones make! The score is also superb. Since it came out in 2013 I’ve seen it ten to twelve times.
I have to say, Tom Cruise has slowly but surely become one of my favourite actors. I wouldn’t say that he’s the best character actor ever, but he always seems to give his all, and, most importantly, with very few exceptions he just doesn’t do bad movies. What I mean by that is that before he agrees to star in a film he seems to make sure that the script is excellent and the director capable. Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow are good examples of this. Another case in point:
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- Jack Reacher
You think I’m a hero? I am not a hero! […] I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot!
When I watched this a little while after it came out in 2012 I’d never heard of a guy named Jack Reacher. By now I’ve read the first twenty novels the author, Lee Child, has written starring this character, and I’m (obviously) a big fan.
As I usually don’t read crime stories I wouldn’t have been interested enough to even give them a shot if the movie was crap, but fortunately it’s anything but. Of course it’s not the first thriller we’ve seen where the protagonist hunts the bad guys while operating outside the law themselves, but this guy is really well written, and the movie makes the most of the material. I especially like how it lets us participate in Reacher’s thought processes without utilizing fancy slow motion montages of him scanning the scene and stuff like that. It’s almost a bit oldschool in some regards, but in my opinion that works in its favor.
Just recently Amazon released a series just called Reacher, and I like it even better than the movie – this time around the character even looks the way he’s described in the novels, which is approximately double Tom Cruise’s size. Still, the film is awesome and I come back to it fairly regularly. Up to now I’ve watched it around ten times.
And at this point I have embarrassed myself more than enough I guess…how much time can one spend watching the same handful of movies again and again? A fuckton, that’s how much.
No regrets.
Mailvaltar 