So, I sit down and say to myself, while thinking about what to do for a blog, "Self... what should you write about? I hear people love reading Top 10 lists..." and at that precise moment, the d-bag I sit next to at work says, "How can you not want to see Avatar in 3D? I've seen it like 3 times and it just keeps getting better and better!" (Granted, I'm translating from the monogoloid grunting and scratching he REALLY said, but this is what he meant.) That got me thinking... "Fuck, Ritiland! You don't want to see that movie either! In fact, I bet there are tons of movies that most people absolutely freakin' love and you just... don't get." And that's when it hit me. Mongoloid's used tissue, in the side of the face, as it sailed toward the trash can, yes... but also, my Top 10 List idea! So I present you with:
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The Top 10 Movies Ritiland Doesn't Get (But everyone else does)... list.
I might as well go ahead and shatter your opinion of me right off the bat...
1. Star Wars. I'm including the original trilogy in this one. Yeah, yeah. It's "groundbreaking" and "timeless" and "masturbation material for film geeks and Leia lovers alike". I watched them over and over. Fell asleep through them. I enjoy them... to an extent. I just don't get them. What's my favorite part of this movie series? Watching the "I am your father" one in the theater with my first boyfriend and finally holding his hand. That's the thing I remember. (Send all hatemail to the filmmunkey @ gmail . com address, please)
2. The Princess Bride. I was much too old for this movie the first time I saw it - hence... don't get it. I have friends who swear this movie is the best ever made, that it shaped their very being... I just stared at the ceiling as everyone else around me laughed and said, "Oh yeah! I remember that!" over and over again. Bored, I was.
3. The Sound of Music. This one is not a case of waiting to watch a movie I should have seen years ago and not getting it. This is a case of... the songs distracting me and all I remember is her making dresses out of curtains and annoying people with "a name you call yourself" everytime they said "Me." Then... a few years ago... someone says, "That movie was so uplifting. To live through tha Nazi stuff... what a feat." And I said, (mouth slack) "Huh?" Who knew there were Nazis! Seems like there should have been a warning that said, "Pay atention to this movie, because it's not all picnics in the Austrian countryside and well-behaved children, there's a real STORY here." So yeah... didn't get it.
4. Back to the Future. The first time I even thought about watching this movie was when my art teacher had us draw film frames or whatever for a scene in it. I knew what it was about, I knew a few of the references, but never wanted to watch it. So we did in class. Did I mention this was when I was 23? Yeah... well. It was boring. Everyone was all nudging each other and going "88 miles per hour! Awesome." And I'm thinking... actually I was thinking about french toast, Alan Rickman and how perfectly the two would go together... powdery, powdery Snap. Because I had fallen asleep.
5. Slumdog Millionaire. This is probably the biggest case of... "WTF?" after watching a movie. I had it on good authority that SDM would probably win the Oscar for best film. I gave it a try, along with other films nominated, before the award was given. The beginning was very interesting, I really enjoyed the guy being tortured and whatnot. Then you see him playing "Who Wants to be a Millionare" and I'm thinking... "Is this heaven? Did he die and go to a gameshow in the sky? Or is this a metaphor for something... Oh no, wait... he's really playing the gameshow." Disappointment settled. Then... halfway through the movie, I called it. You can ask anyone, I called it. I called, "His girlfriend is going to find him... they'll fall madly in love on the phone and she will be his "lifeline..." get it??" And lo-and-behold... she did. They did. And she was. I absolutely, 100% do not understand how this movie won the award. But they all have nice little houses in India to show for it now, so I guess it worked out okay.
6. Avatar. Ah, the movie that started it all. Months ago, I was complaining to Junk, our elite fellow Munkey, about how in a world we live in where people are starving, homeless and hurting, in a world where people aren't handing me millions of dollars for no reason... the film industry certainly wasn't hurting. In fact, instead of donating proceeds of certain movies or producing good movies with a smaller budget (it can be done)... people like James Cameron are actually making movies that cost anywhere from $230 to $500 million dollars. It seems ludicrous. So this is reason #1 I have no interest in seeing it. Reason #2... I just don't get it. Doesn't seem like a plot I'd like and the d-bag I sit next to says that it's absolutely the best movie he's ever seen... besides All About Steve. And who can trust that opinion?
7. The Sixth Sense. This is completely opposite of Slumdog Millionaire. I'm watching this movie as a kid... and when I say "kid" I mean... it came out before I was 15, so I watched it then. With Slumdog, I knew exactly what was going to happen. With Sense (my first M. Night Sha-ma-lan movie) I had no idea it was coming. I would say that it blindsided me, smacking me right in the face, the twist at the end. I would say that popped up from around a corner, as twists often do, and yelled "Didn't see that coming, didja!!" But it didn't. I saw the twist, realized it was a twist and said... "Hm. I wonder if my grill-cheese sammy is done yet." (Because I used to say "sammy" for some reason...) But for some reason, all my friends and family raved about it. They said, "Watch it again and you'll see all of these clues and you'll still be surprised." I didn't want to watch it again. After an epicly boring twist... you can only watch that movie once. And the kid is creepy. Fail, M Night Shahmelawn. Fail.
8. Moulin Rouge. This one I will get flack for from men and women alike. When I was younger, I said I was going to see this movie (because I knew my parents wouldn't quiz me about it) and actually hung out with my boyfriend. Then... felt guilty. So I said, "Well, I suppose I should go see it sometime anyway, because maybe it really is a good movie." Fast forward 6 years and I watch the first 45 minutes of it. Bored out of my skull. Fast forward again, another 2 years. I watch the first 45 minutes again, and press through the next 5, then fall asleep and watch a few minutes about 15 minutes from the end. Math is fun! I was bored. Again. I just can't get into this movie. At all. I like Ewan, and I don't hate Nicole... I just wish I could like this movie.
9. The Matrix. This was a movie I really wanted to like. I felt all cool renting it from blockbuster (on my mom's card) and bringing it home and saying, "You wouldn't get it, Mom... it's supposed to be ground-breaking" when she asked why I wanted to watch it. Halfway through, after the luster of the slow-motion fights and the weird bending and waving bullets faded... I was asking myself the same question. Why did I want to watch this? Of course, I couldn't admit to my mom that it sucked, so when she saw me watching it again (trying to figure out the hoop-la about it) I explained it by, "It was so earth shattering I had to watch it again because the first time, I suffered a stroke from the coolness and blacked out for a few minutes. This time... I'm staying AWARE for it." I never watched the second one, or the third one, and refuse to watch anything else Keanu has done. Which brings me to...
10. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or Journey or Trip to the Galaxy or whatever. I hate this movie. Junk has made me sit down and watch it - twice now. I did. (I pretended... he didn't see me sneak out the window and hit the ball pit for two hours, only to sneak back in and react to the end when he came back in to see if I liked it). It's boring. It's stupid. The synopsis says it all: "Two seemling dumb (seemlingly? they were.) teens struggle to prepare a historical presentation with the help of a time machine." You have two dumb people, one of them Keanu. A history class. A time machine. How is that ANY good?
Here are movies that were very close to being in the top 10: Crash, Wedding Crashers, Scarface, Alfred Hitchcock, Airplane, All of Eddie Murphy's movies (I laughed at Coming to America twice... so maybe not that one), The Ring, Indiana Jones (all of them), Bourne movies, Mission Impossible and the Die-Hards.
*****Bonus*****
This is a movie that absolutely appalled me when I sat down to watch it the first time. Napolean Dynamite. But you know what? I watched it a second time and I fell in love with it. I love the acting, the lines, the characters, the nothing-special-ness of it. So this is an example of giving something a second chance and absolutely benefiting from it. Haha... your mom goes to college.
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Which movies would be on your list? Do you agree with me on mine? If you don't.... feel free to post, knowing that while I won't delete your comment, I will laugh at you. Quietly.
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