by Pa Rock
Film Fan
I like movies and on occasion I have been known to sit through a film more than once, usually with several years intervening between the viewings. This week I enjoyed two Gene Wilder movies for the second time, "The Woman in Red" and "Young Frankenstein." Both were funny and well worth a repeat performance.
"The Last Picture Show" is my favorite movie. I have seen it three times, and I have it on DVD, so there is a chance that I may even watch it a fourth time before the old eyesight and hearing completely fade away. But really, three times is plenty. I have also seen "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" three times and have it on DVD as well - and I have seen it two additional times as a stage production - and "Dammit, Janet!" that's enough for one lifetime.
"The Graduate" is the only movie that I have paid to see in a theatre three times - twice when it first came out, and once years later at a nostalgia showing. Also friends and I went to a drive-in (remember those?) when we were in college to see "Wild in the Streets" on two occasions when it was a fairly new release, and I have seen it once in the last five years or so on DVD - and it has held up well!
Movies are like fine chocolate. A few samplings are wonderful, but gluttony can lead to problems - I believe that.
I saw a piece on the internet about a young man in Florida who has earned a bit of fame and notoriety for watching the same movie over and over - and over. The obsessive movie-goer, Ramiro Alanis, got inspired to go on this unusual quest when he read about a woman in Australia, Joanne Connor, who earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for watching the movie, "Bohemian Rhapsody" 108 times.
(The "rules" for the endeavor as established by Guinness stated that the activity had to occur independent of any other activity. The person doing the viewing could not look at his phone, take a nap, or even go to the bathroom while the movie was running.)
Alanis didn't just want to break Connor's record, he wanted to smash it. A few months later he relieved the Australian of her title by watching "Avengers: Endgame" 191 times! That record lasted about two years until a fellow named Arnaud Klein toppled it in 2021 by watching "Kaamelott: First Installment" 204 times.
Alanis was upset at losing his title so quickly, and he vowed to win it back by again smashing the record. He chose the movie "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and managed to watch it 292 times between December 16, 2021 and March 15, 2022. That's a total of 720 hours or the equivalent of 30 solid days ov viewing! -
The glory of it all!
Somewhere today there are a half-dozen or so extraordinarily sad young people who are relentlessly focused on taking Ramiro Alanis's title away from him. And somewhere today there are a half-dozen or so psychiatric researchers who are relentlessly focused on learning what type of damage watching the same movie for 700 hours does to the human personality, thought processes, and the brain itself.
Surely if ever there was a time when the cost of fame was too damned high, this would be it!
2 comments:
The only movie I have overdone was "Paint Your Wagon". In 1970, I was stationed at Naval Training Center, San Diego, for training. I had nothing to do on a Friday night, so I went to the first playing of the movie at the base movie theater. It cost a quarter for admission. I enjoyed it so much that I stayed for the second showing. Well, I had nothing else to do anyway so that's not so remarkable. However, I went back on Saturday and watched it again - twice. I have watched it several times since and have it on VCR someplace. I have thought about buying it on DVD but haven't. I guess this won't impress the Guinness folks.
I can't leave this comment without recollecting the look on the old Mormon's face when his second wife answers him in the following exchange:
Jacob Woodling : Quiet! Brigham Young has twenty seven wives and he hasn't had half the trouble with them that I've had with the two of you!
Elizabeth : Then simplify your life, Jacob. Sell me.
Jacob Woodling : But Elizabeth: you don't know what you'll get.
Elizabeth : I know what I've had.
In the summer of 1968 the Warren Beatty Faye Dunaway movie Bonnie and Clyde made its way to the drive in theaters.
I think I saw it all the way through once even though I went five times; each time with a different girl.
It was a very good summer.
Post a Comment