Lists of Lists, Volume 3: Film Edition (Part 1 of Many)

Witness was actually just my second-
favorite Amish-themed movie. My
third-favorite: Churn My Butter.

Time for a bunch of lists. This set will demonstrate what a snob I am, as if you couldn't guess by now. (The fact that the title of this post says "film" instead of "movie" should also be a tip-off.)

I don't have as much time as I once had to watch all the movies I'd like to watch, and there are glaring holes in my viewing history. This is a shame, because with Netflix there are so many movies available instantly without the hassle of the video store.

Are you old enough to remember the video store? Or a VCR, for that matter? I remember when my parents bought our first VCR. Considering what late-adopters we were — my parents didn't subscribe to pay TV until I was in my thirties — I'm surprised this happened before 1990.

One of the first movies Dad rented (it might have been the first) was Witness, the Harrison-Ford-goes-undercover-as-an-Amish-barn-raiser crime thriller, so the first list for this post will be about that film.

THINGS THAT MADE WATCHING WITNESS WITH MY FAMILY A VERY ODD EXPERIENCE TO SAY THE LEAST

1. The A-word
2. Kelly LeBrock I mean McGillis thank you Wikipedia

Witness was not just the first rental my family ever watched, it was the first uncut R-rated viewed from the moderate comfort of our den. Therefore, this marked the first time that profanity and nudity appeared in our den. From the television, at least.

There's a scene where one of the bad guys, maybe Danny Glover before he got Too Old For This Shit, calls out Harrison Ford (it might have been the other way around) with "you asshole." My sister was probably 7 or so, and she hadn't been shooed out of the room (probably because my parents were so used to watching edited-for-television programs), and she turned to Dad and asked:

"Why do bad guys call each other you asshole?"

Without pausing for ten minutes like I would have had my son asked the same question, Dad had a logical answer ready:

"Nooooo...they're saying you Ethel!"

Poor Ethel.

That's right, folks: Back in 1985 it was a major insult to refer to someone as Lucy Ricardo's best friend.

Later in the film, I had the pleasure of watching the famous Kelly-steps-out-of-the-shower-completely-naked-her-perky-boobs-like-angry-eyes-glaring-at-me scene that every teenage boy in the mid-to-late 1980s had etched in his mind like God lightning-inscribing the stole tablets for Charlton Heston.

I don't know how many of my fellow teenage boys had the pleasure of watching the scene while sitting on a lumpy couch with their dad and mom and little sisters. And let me stress that I'm using the word "pleasure" both in a sarcastic sense, and as a noun.

MAJOR MOVIE FRANCHISES FROM WHICH I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY FILMS

1. Friday the 13th
2. Nightmare on Elm Street
3. Saw
4. Fast/Furious Whatever It's Called

I'm not a big fan of horror movies, so I was never compelled to any of those well-known flicks with Jason and Freddy and that guy in Saw I forget his name. I did see one of the Hellraiser movies at a friend's house, and it was awful.

Why anyone continues to see those stupid Fast and the Furious films is a mystery. Well, maybe not a mystery: I suppose people like seeing fast cars. More of a mystery is how Paul Walker is able to get an acting job where he doesn't have to play what he'd portray best, a piece of wood.

When it comes to the James Bond franchise, I've only seen a couple of films their entirety.

JAMES BOND FILMS THAT I'VE SEEN IN THEIR ENTIRETY

Too ashamed to even
look you or each other
in the eye.

1. Goldfinger
2. One of the Pierce Brosnan films
3. The most recent Daniel Craig one

Not a fan of Bond movies, either, but a lot of my friends in junior high and early high school were obsessed with them — these were the same guys who loved talking about cars they'd never be able to afford and picked apart Whitesnake videos, as I'd described in an earlier post, so I think there's some kind of correlation.

While I was working for my previous employer, one slow Friday my boss and a couple of other guys and I sneaked over to the Ziegfeld to see Quantum of Solace, a title that sounds like it came from Magnetic Poetry: Words That Make You Sound Like a Pompous Ass Edition.

That film was so awful that I actually wanted to flee the theater and return to work. Why? Here are

THREE EXAMPLES OF WHY QUANTUM OF SOLACE SUCKED DUE TO HOW PREPOSTEROUS IT WAS, EVEN THOUGH I KNOW IT WAS A SPY FILM AND I AM QUITE CAPABLE OF SUSPENDING DISBELIEF*

1. Daniel Craig sneaks into a party and has to disguise himself as a waiter, so he karate chops some dude who's like six inches shorter and 40 pounds heavier, yet the poor guy's tux fits Bond perfectly
2. To prevent anyone from entering the bathroom where he stashed the guy, he breaks off the large metal door handle with one hand
3. When he and the forgettable interchangeable Bond girl fall out of a helicopter, the girl does not lose her heels

(* I might have gotten some of the description details wrong, but my points are still valid.)

I ended up staying for the whole thing. I never actually walked out of a film, except for Fantastic Mr. Fox, because my son loudly announced he was bored with it. I couldn't blame him, but I was annoyed because it was his idea to see it, even though at the age of 5 his judgment shouldn't be trusted.

MOVIES I ALMOST WALKED OUT OF AND PROBABLY WOULD HAVE WALKED OUT OF HAD I BEEN THERE ALONE OR WITH SOMEONE JUST AS WILLING TO BOLT THE THEATER

1. Magnolia
2. Intersection
3. The Aquatic Life of Steve Zissou

At the corner of Yawn Place
and Suck Boulevard.

The first and third films you've likely heard of, and you might argue that those are excellent films. (You would be wrong.) But the second one, Intersection, is quite a gem, if by "gem" you mean a ruby that turns out to be a lump of de-crusted Wonder Bread mushed into a packed ball then colored red with Magic Markers that stain your hands when you touch the "ruby."

Intersection starred Richard Gere and Sharon Stone, which doesn't seem like a big deal now but it was released in 1994, while both actors enjoyed very high profiles shortly after Pretty Woman and Basic Instinct, respectively. (This was back when Michael Keaton could still find his name above the titles of his movies.)

Richard Gere portrays some rich yuppie douche who drives his car into a lake and as he's drowning or in the hospital he has these flashbacks about his wife and the woman with whom he had an affair (Sharon Stone played one of them).

The flashbacks were boring and confusing. At one point, not-yet-Mrs. The Anthony Show turned to me and asked, "What is this movie about?"

I loved the ending (SPOILER ALERT!): Gere, in out-of-body-and-considering-my-life mode, is treading water, but underwater. Then he has some kind of hidden revelation before swimming away, smiling.

Cut to Richard Gere flat-lining on the operating table. The end. The Razzie goes to Sharon Stone for this and The Specialist, which I didn't see, otherwise I might have spent the rest on 1994 in a mental hospital.

TO BE CONTINUED
This is one of those posts that's beginning to run longer than I'd planned, so I'll stop here. But I'll be posting more opinions on movies that you probably won't agree with, so stay tuned!