Top Fiver #2: Most Re-watchable Movies
Posted on 08. May, 2007 by The Gimcracker in Movies, Top Fivers
Gyaaaaarrrr! Time for another edition of Ye Old Top Fiver, ya land lubbers!
I saw Spidey 3 on Saturday at a brand new IMAX theater with 12 thousand jigawatts of Dolby sound (I’ve never figured out what other kind of sound there is besides Dolby) which got me all worked up in a fit about movies. Then, I thought about a certain element that really makes a flick good: re-watchability.
There are three main elements to the theory of re-watchableness. The first is eye candy, which can be anything from state-of-the-art special effects and CGI to amazing stunt work to beautiful women (I say only women because there’s really no such thing as a beautiful man). The second is comedy, and I’m sure we’ve all watched a particular scene multiple times due to its comedic effects. Finally, the atmosphere of a movie evokes feelings that make you want to be there, and those can bring you back again and again. Each entry will be included for its eye candy, comedy, or atmosphere – or all three.
What elements can hurt a movie’s re-watchabilasticity?
- Too much gore, blood, or violence
- Breaking the 2.5 hour threshold
- Extremely emotional scenes
- Too many abrasive scenes (i.e. scenes that are awkward, depressing, hectic/haywire, etc.)
- The movie’s hook is based on a plot twist
Ok, I’m going to take a hack at the list of top 5 re-watchabilismessences, and I’m sure I will have just finished it by the time I’m editing the order of the list.
Note: the element of re-watchabilitionnessismenticularness is unique from the element of favoritism, meaning these are not necessarily my top 5 favorite movies of all time. And, remember, these movies are all rated R for good reasons.
5. The Rock
Eye Candy: 6/10 – Hummers, artillery, explosions, and Vanessa Marcil
Comedy: 7/10 – “How, in the name of Zeus’s butthole, did you get out of your cell?”
Atmosphere: 5/10
Good old Nick Cage – the man is a pure genius, and he’s only funnier in Raising Arizona. I pop in The Rock whenever I can to see Cage’s hilarious hijinx. In the first 10 minutes of the movie he gets thrown into a life or death situation where poisonous gas is eating through his rubber hazard suit in a government chamber with a busted sprinkler system and a retarded coward of a partner who’s getting ready to stab himself in the heart with a syringe to stay alive. Shortly after, to his girlfriend regarding her pregnancy: “Well…gosh, kind of a lot’s happened since then.”
Re-watch it for the classic banter between Connery, a hardened military criminal, and Cage, a nerdy laboratory scientist. Cage’s trademark outbursts, devoid of actual swear words, are what give the movie it’s quotable lines: “So what do you say we just cut the chit-chat… A-HOLE!” Great soundtrack, action, and supporting cast (the hair stylist from Yes Dear cracks me up – “Did they tell Picasso ‘no brush’?”). Because of these reasons and many more, I’ve probably seen the Rock 20 times.
4. Old School
Eye Candy: 4/10 – Ellen Pompeo and Elisha Cuthbert
Comedy: 10/10 – “I recommend you stop being such a faggot. You’re in the backseat.”
Atmosphere: 5/10
That’s a crude quote, but I’m not gonna lie – the first time I heard it I about wet my pants. I can’t say much about this movie without just launching into a series of quotes. So, I’ll save you the trouble and direct you, once again, to the funniest movie clip I’ve ever seen.
3. The Big Lebowski
Eye Candy: 1/10 – Nothing that draws you back to the movie
Comedy: 10/10 – “And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new shit, you know, I-I-I-I… this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it’s not just, it might not be just such a simple… uh, you know?”
Atmosphere: 8/10 – I would love to be there knocking down pins with The Dude
Every time I watch this movie I catch something new. It might have to do with the fact that you really can’t understand a lot of what The Dude says, as per the quote above, and even more to do with the type of higher-level societal issues that are discussed using this medium of speech. The plot is basically about a burned-out hippie who prefers bowling and White Russians and just wants his rug replaced, but unfortunately has the same last name as a millionaire he is mistaken for. How did the Coen brothers make that plot into one of the most re-watchable films I’ve ever seen? To answer that, I ask another question: have you ever seen Raising Arizona or O Brother Where Art Thou? Watch those movies, also directed by the Coens, and you’ll understand how they can take any story and make it into something you can watch again and again.
2. The Matrix
Eye Candy: 10/10 – 8 years later and the visuals are still the best I’ve ever seen
Comedy: 1/10 – Nothing that draws you back to the movie
Atmosphere: 10/10 – Who doesn’t want to experience the Matrix?
I saw this film 8 times in the first run theaters. I was addicted. Mine eyes had never before partaken of so much candy. It’s sick that I saw it that many times, but it requires that many viewings, minimum, to absorb all of the content. I’ve probably seen it 40 times total, and I never get tired of it. It just gets my imagination going and blows my mind all over again each and every time I see it. The carefully crafted fight scenes, especially the sparring matches in The Construct, are soothing to watch. The machine world is still a mystery to me, as is the fact that I love Keanu Reeves. And I could watch Cypher eat that juicy, red steak until the cows came home, er… yeah.
1. Dazed and Confused
Eye Candy: 5/10 – Milla Jovovich and classic cars
Comedy: 8/10 – “You just gotta keep on livin’, man. L-I-V-I-N.”
Atmosphere: 10/10 – The best summer day ever
Sweet Emotion softly begins to play as the screen brightens into the morning of the last day of school. Whispers of nighttime parties to come fill the air. Plans for the summer are being drawn up. Everyone’s excited and can’t wait for that bell to ring. We’ve all been there, and this is the story of the last day of school. The cast is phenomenal, including Matthew McConaughey, Adam Goldberg, and Ben Affleck (in his best and most fitting role – usually I can’t stand him), to name a few. The soundtrack is alive with Pink Floyd and Aerosmith. Simply put, this movie makes you want to be there, and that’s what a great re-watchable movie does. Think about it, The Big Lebowski makes you want to be in that bowling alley, Old School makes you want to live in that fraternity, and Dazed and Confused begs you to go back to your rebellious teenage years when you didn’t have a care in the world. You can come in on any part of the movie and get hooked – you don’t have to start at the beginning. If it’s ever on TV (which it always is) and you flip to that channel, the only hope you have of ripping yourself away from it is during a long commercial break or if your house catches fire and your TV melts. It’s an easy choice for my #1 all-time most re-watchable movie, ever.
This list was almost impossible to compile. It would’ve been much easier as a top 10 so that I could’ve included more of the following honorable mentions:
- Hi Fidelity
- Tombstone
- Christmas Vacation
- The Jerk
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Tommy Boy
- True Lies
- Spinal Tap
- Return of the Jedi
- The Money Pit
- Raising Arizona
- Edit: Jurassic Park – Jonathan
- Edit: Dumb & Dumber – Dusty (4:29)
- Edit: Forrest Gump – Arthur
Am I forgetting something? Don’t agree? Think my list is awesome? Wanna punch me in the face? Want me to punch you in the face? Let me know with a comment.
I think I would have put a 2 in for the comedy rating of the matrix (at least). There are some funny/witty lines, as well as some funny scenes that probably aren’t meant to be funny. It wasn’t overtly comedy per-se, but it at least had humor.
I think you are DEAD wrong about old school. I think it should have been replaced with “The Jerk”. It’s cleaner (no nudity) and funnier (it’s Steve Martin) and you could actually show it to your kids (the parts that are not kid friendly are not overt enough that you would really have to explain anything). I mean, come on, “Everyone get away from the cans! These cans are defective!” and “Gentlemen, you are talking to a ******” and “And that’s all I need”. Some of the best most memorable movie lines EVER.
Nice post, Brian. I have few more suggestions (but really they’re just movies I like)
1. Princess Bride
2. Contact
3. Last of the Mohicans
that’s all I can think of right now….
I haven’t seen Dazed and Confused *or* The Big Lebowski. I’ll have to check those out.
oh…and, of course Jurassic Park.
“…bout 2 million….”
Good suggestions Jonathan. I think Princess Bride would be in the top 10 if I expanded it, as would the Jerk. Last of the Mohicans I’ve only seen once and I believe it’s a little too epic/long/emotional of a movie to be in a “most re-watchable” list. Maybe a “favorite movies” list…
Jurassic Park is up there too. It’s more like this:
This line almost made me put the Jerk in my top 5:
Being asinine twits, 2 men erroneously email yokel-like utterances namby-pambily…
That’s all I could come up with.
John (hammond) Ultimately Ruins A Sunny Saturday; Immense Creatures Prance Around Risking Knee-injuries.
Dilophosaurus eats nuisance nastily in stormy nighttime encounter, digesting roly-poly yokel.
A few more for the list: Shawshank Redemption, A Time to Kill and Dumb & Dumber
Dumb & Dumber is definitely in the top 10. I’ll add it to my honorable mention list.
Shawshank Redemption would be in my top 10 favorite movies of all time for sure.
Well, I know it borders on the long side, but Forrest Gump is pretty rewatchable for me. There’s tons of great lines, it’s funny, it’s dramatic; I could watch that one time and again and still enjoy it.
Agreed. I’ve seen it probably 20 times, so that puts it on the list right there.
[...] You don’t see westerns too often these days. The last good western I saw was Tombstone, and each time I re-watch it on TV (pretty much once a week), I realize how fast it’s climbing up the ranks of my favorite re-watchable films of all time. [...]