Now I do have a confession to make about this milestone that few of you were aware of me being near and even fewer of you care about me reaching: I probably watched my 1,000th a month or two ago. After logging in my 1,000th movie (the Tom Cruise film Top Gun, which I will review later on in this post), I did some more searching on Letterboxd and discovered several handfuls of movies that I have seen from start to finish, but forgot to log in to the website.
http://letterboxd.com/rytherb/
So if you take a look at the link above you'll notice that I am at 1,041 films seen as of now (Thursday, August 20th, 2015), and not currently sitting at the 1,000 mark. So it's a bit like if baseball fans searched the archives of baseball footage and discovered that Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit ball, which he kept as a souvenir was actually his 3,041st hit, and instead his actual 3,000th ball was hit and then played with for a little bit until the pitcher threw a wild pitch and the ball got a little dirty, so the catcher gave it to the umpire to put in his pocket next to his sweaty crotch where it would stay for the remainder of the game before it inevitably ended up in baseball heaven (or wherever MLB baseballs go after they're used).
I'm being dramatic. Anyway, I reached (over) 1,000 movies seen, and there are still so SOOOOO many movies from the past that I have not yet seen, as well as many great films being released each year. The situation I am in is similar to that of a heroin addict who has an overwhelmingly large amount of heroin at their disposal, but they are also being shipped tons of delicious, delicious heroin every week. And they LOVE heroin, so really their best option is to try and continue doing as much heroin as they can until they die. And maybe later on in their life, after college, if they get the opportunity, they'll start making some heroin of their own. But they are still going to do other people's heroin, because other's people's heroin is just as awesome, in fact probably better. And one day when the heroin addict is old and the heroin industry has changed in so many ways, he or she will be able to vividly describe to his or her grandkids what heroin was like when he was younger, and the kinds of heroin that he or she has tried. And they'll say, "Shut up Grandpa, we're going to go play on our Hover Heely's." Basically the heroin is a metaphor for my movie watching.
Here are a few statistics of my movie watching history:
-The oldest movie I have seen is Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896). It's 1 minute long, and it's just a silent film of a train arriving at a station.
-The newest movie I have seen is the awesome N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton (2015), released last week.
-The average length of every movie I've seen is about 1 hour and 49 minutes long. Using that average and multiplying it across 1,041 movies adds up to 113,469 minutes, or a little over 1,891 hours, or almost 79 days. And that's not including the time that would be added from the additional viewings of movies after the first time seeing them. If that time was included you could probably double the time I've spent watching movies in my lifetime.
-The shortest movie I have seen is the same as the oldest.
-The longest movie I have seen is the extended cut of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which is 4 hours and 11 minutes long.
-I have never walked out of a movie that I was seeing in theaters (not even R.I.P.D.)
-The movie I have seen the most is my at one time favorite movie, The Dark Knight, around 30 times. The closest competitors are childhood favorites, which I still enjoy today, The Sandlot and Remember the Titans, around 20 times, and my current favorite movie, Boogie Nights, about 15 times.
-The only movies I have seen more than once in theaters are Fred Claus (twice) and this year's The End of the Tour (twice).
Plus a Quick Review of Top Gun
Ahhh, the 80's. A time when the sun was setting 24 hours a day. A time when straight men could play topless beach volleyball in jeans, and no one would think anything of it. A time when Tom Cruise, was just starting to take your breath away. Times were simpler...I'm guessing; I don't know, I was born in the 90's.
Risky Business gave Tom Cruise a nice jumpstart to his career, but Top Gun put that thing into overdrive and it hasn't slowed down yet. With Maverick, as well as his several other cocky, be-the-best-there-is roles, Cruise brings a level of confidence and charisma that equals that of the characters he is playing. Maverick is the kind of guy who at one moment is flying through the sky with a weapon surrounded by enemy fighter jets, and in another moment is trying to pickup a hard-to-get Kelly McGillis with same level of confidence. To Maverick, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who are charmed by him, and those who are wrong.
While watching Top Gun, it's easy to get taken out of the film a little bit due to it's cheesier moments (silhouetted sex scene, volleyball montage, c'mon). That's especially true if like me, you watch it for the first time ever, during the 21st century. But what I'm sure were probably the film's best qualities back in 1986, remain it's best qualities today. The relationship between Maverick and Goose is still perfect, the soundtrack is still great, the flying sequences are exciting and edited together really well, and Tom Cruise is still able to charm the pants off of anyone with a pulse. If it was led by a lesser actor than Cruise, I don't see Top Gun being a very successful film, and without (SPOILERS even though it's been almost 20 years) the Maverick and Goose relationship in the announced Top Gun 2, there is no way it comes anywhere close to the original. The only think that could possibly get me excited for it would if they change the title to Top Gun 2: Goose's Revenge. I miss you Goose.
Rating: 7.5/10
-Ryan
