“Very interesting … but stupid.”
My name is David and I have a problem.
I love the movies. Always have. Always will. Through good times and bad, through classic films and movies so wretched they carve a little bit of your soul away with every flicker. I stopped counting at 10,000 films and that was years ago.
Why, you ask? Because. Just because.
Because “It’s beau-ti-fullllll” turns into “Sweet son of a goat-lickin’ whore, my face is melting!!!” in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Because it’s for kids.
Because I get a little verklempt every time Jimmy Chitwood tells Norman Dale “I’ll make it.” And then does.
Because I get a lot verklempt every time the OPENING music cue starts on “Hoosiers.”
Because I got kicked out of “License to Drive” for hitting a kid with a knotted-up licorice whip, and paid a second time to see the film without thinking twice.
Because you will crap your pants when the hand shoots out of the grave at the end of “Carrie.”
Because “I could have been a contender.”
Because “Truck, what truck?”
Because of the look on Mark Wahlberg’s face during the drug deal gone epically bad in “Boogie Nights.”
Because of the way Milla Jovovich looks. Period.
Because of the final, harmonica-of-death backed showdown between Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda in “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
Because of the way Baloo the Bear’s eyes bug out when he’s rubbing his rear on the rock in “The Jungle Book.”
Because I got to see “A River Runs Through It” with my Montana-raised father before he died.
Because Heath Ledger rocked me.
Because Michael Madsen danced before cutting off the ear.
Because “The Right Stuff” made me want to be an astronaut.
Because “It’s Chinatown, Jake.”
Because Guy Pearce shoots James Cromwell in the back, and then holds up his badge to show them he’s a cop, in “L.A. Confidential.”
Because “That’ll do, pig.”
Because of the most bat-shit twist in cinema history in “Orphan.”
Because of the second most bat-shit twist in cinema history in “God Told Me To.”
Because of what’s in the jars in “Margaret’s Museum.”
Because of the way Jennifer Garner smiles in “13 Going on 30.”
Because of the way Jodie Foster sings in “Bugsy Malone.”
Because “I would never do it on a Christmas tree!”
Because it’s “Garbage day!!”
Because of the insane two-on-one rooftop fight scene with the guy who sticks his foot above his head and wiggles it in “Jackie Chan’s Who Am I?”
Because James Cagney shoved a half of a grapefruit in some poor woman’s face.
Because Sandra Bullock drove the bus in “Speed.”
Because “I’m melting! I’m melting!”
Because of the way cigarette smoke looks on black and white film.
Because “Dear blender, won’t you help a first offender?”
Because “Look at you Jim, your brain has turned to marmalade!”
Because Buster Keaton dropped a house on his head, for real, before special effects.
Because I saw John Hurt’s epic indigestion in “Alien” for the first time in a hotel in Canada when I was 12, and it still haunts me.
Because Ann-Margret wore the tightest pants in the history of the world while dancing in “Viva Las Vegas.”
Because Audrey Hepburn was flawless.
Because Robert Mitchum had LOVE on one set of knuckles, and HATE on the other set.
Because the money flies away on the wind at the end of “The Killing.”
Because the gold flies away at the end of “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
Because the money burns up at the end of the Rat Pack’s version of “Ocean’s 11.”
Because, when I saw “Psycho” for the first time, I knew all the twists, and I still jumped when the detective gets the knife to the face on the staircase.
Because “You tell them I’m coming!”
Because the foreign version of “The Vanishing” doesn’t wimp out at the end.
Because Frankie and Annette came back in the ’80s, and brought Pee-Wee along for the beach party.
Because Richard Gere let his hair go silver.
Because the Alamo doesn’t have a basement.
Because “We gotta do somethin’. I don’t know why “we” always has to be me every damn time. We, we, we. What do I look like, an expert in worm?”
Because of Terry O’Quinn’s shower and shave from Hell in “The Stepfather.”
Because of Catherine Deneuve at the gas station in the rain at the end of “Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”
Because every kid raised on ’80s arcade games knows, without a doubt, “The Last Starfighter” could happen.
Because the warriors salute each other at the end of “Zulu.”
Because of Heath Ledger in the trailer, alone with his memories of a lifetime of hurt, forever unable to find a bit of happiness, in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Because of Lee Marvin, in the back of a car, snapping together his gun, as he races the darkness in “Prime Cut.”
Because “They chopped off his bowling fingers!”
Because Dil stands by her man in “The Crying Game.”
Because the greatest ’80s slasher ever, “My Bloody Valentine,” wraps with the super-creepy, super-groovy “Ballad of Harry Warden,” over its end credits.
Because Einstein invented beer and rock and roll. Yahoo Serious said it was so.
Because of a mad man on a raft covered in monkeys, floating down a shorter-than-he-realizes river in “Aguirre, Wrath of God.”
Because no one rocks the adult diaper like Sean Connery in “Zardoz.”
Because “SUPER DUPER!!”
Because they didn’t use seat-belts, shooting permits or the brake (ever!) in the original ’70s “Gone in 60 Seconds.”
Because of Pam Grier’s awe-inspiring Afro.
Because of Burt Reynold’s awe-inspiring laugh.
Because “She takes after her dear, departed mother.” “Mother died, huh?” “Nope, she just departed.”
Because Donald Sutherland made the freakiest noise known to man at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Because, check that, Felissa Rose makes the freakiest noise known to man at the end of “Sleepaway Camp.”
Because “My god, she’s a boy!!”
Because of the three chained convicts trying, and failing badly, to jump on a moving box car in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Because of the old guy trying, and failing badly, to jump through a plexiglass window in “The Hudsucker Proxy.”
Because “Sit down, sit down, you’re rockin’ the boat.”
Because “I don’t want your respect. Who wants respect from a ten-year old kid?”
Because of the crane kick.
Because we knew nothing going in, and then Trinity went running up the wall in “The Matrix” and our brains melted.
Because “I want my two dollars!!”
Because “The Terror of Tiny Town,” an all-midget western from ’38, really exists.
Because “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!!!!”
Because the entire theater went berserk when Randy Quaid came flying in to save the day in “Independence Day.” “I’m back, boys!!!”
Because the tomatoes always attack down hill in the super-cheap, super-fun “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.”
Because Joan Osborne blows the doors off the building belting “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” in “Standing in the Shadows of Motown.”
Because Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman sing “Come What May” in the berserk, heart-breaking finale to “Moulin Rogue.”
Because “Jimmy, I’m in my nightgown!! Bunnies? I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I like the sound of it!!”
Because every other person in the theater walked out before “Natural Born Killers” was done, but not me. Because I’m stupid that way.
Because I have NEVER walked out of a movie in my life. EVER.
Because we got screeners almost every day for 12 years at Videoville.
Because Patrick Swayze catches one final wave.
Because “Bueller… Bueller… Bueller…”
Because my sister, Sarah, was so freaked out during the snake scene in “Raiders,” she threw her pop all over me.
Because my parents took me to the movies.
Because the first video store owner I ever met couldn’t speak English, didn’t care how old I was, and let me rent everything from “The African Queen” to “Summer School” to “Xtro” — where a woman gives birth to a full-grown alien (think about it…) in CLOSE-UP.
Because all of these things have made me what I am today.
