Monday, May 17, 2010

Gotcha

What is your captured movie? The one film that can always snare you in when you see it on TV. You're flipping the channels or searching the guide and suddenly BAM there is it. That one film you can always watch -- no matter how late you tun into the film. You'll watch. Oh you know you will.

You've seen in probably a dozen or more times and yet it still calls to you. For some people their Captured Movie is a a fairly recent production usually preceded by the phrase "cult following," I can't tell you the number of people I know for whom The Big Lebowsky has reached iconic standing.

For me? I prefer the classics. I am physically incapable of turning off Casablanca. I don't care where it is in the movie or where I am in life. If it's. I'm hooked. Same for Singing in the Rain, Charade, and The Philadelphia Story.

I can quote the dialogue word for word (much to the annoyance of my friends) and pratcically get giddy when I see these old favorites on TV. So what films have the same effect on you? Please tell me I'm not along in my movie loyalty.

1 comment:

Duke said...

I react a little differently Decca. I rarely watch a movie again unless it's been many years and my memory of it has faded. It's unusual for me to rewatch a movie I've seen in the last 5 years. The only exceptions are when I feel a need to rewatch because I might have missed something the first time. Donnie Darko is an example of a movie that's hard to fully grasp the first viewing so I watched it twice.

My thing is certain movie scenes. Some movies have particular scenes that are so outstanding I never get tired of watching them.I'll flip on the movie long enough to watch it, then turn it off. An example is the final showdown between Cogburn and Ned Pepper in True Grit. When John Wayne tells Duvall "fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch" it is the essense of the American Western. In those few minutes you see the lone hero riding to what is most certainly his own death with gun blazing in both hands and the the horse reins in his teeth. It is one of the most outstandingly crafted scenes ever put on film and totally defines the western genre. I'll never get tired of watching it.

But getting pulled into movies like you describe? I can't say I really do that.