Friday, June 4, 2010

Some Thoughts on Movie Memes

I imagine that in this social networking world, most of you have Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or whatever the newest one is that people are going to be harassing the Cap'n to join up because "you just gotta!" only to express shock that I finally did two years later. One of the things about Facebook that I'm still getting a hang on is the idea of being tagged in "Notes"*, especially notes that don't mention your name anywhere in them.

The idea, it seems, it to try to cajole you into partaking in these memes or to try to get you to read the note (which functions not dis-similarly from what the Cap'n does here most days) and comment on it. I get the latter, but I've never been a big "meme" person. I don't like filling out surveys or answering random "tell us about yourself by using a song title for each category" etc. I also don't forward emails to ten people, even if it means using the inexplicable wizardry of the internet to grant wishes. I guess that if the wish is that important to someone else, then they can fill up your "spam" inbox to win the lottery (or whatever people wish for... dry cleaning?)

But every now and then I'll get tagged in one of these Movie memes, presumably because the Cap'n is "the movie guy" and thusly would want to break his normal habit of having nothing to do with them and will jump right in. The most recent one is a variation of something I've been seeing for years (right down to the movies listed): the "check off how many you've seen to demonstrate what a loser you are."

To wit:

SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 films, you have no life (good to know.) . Mark the ones you've seen. There are 239 films on this list. Copy this list, go to your own Facebook account, paste this as a note. Then, put x's next to the films you've seen, add them up, change the header adding your number, and click post at the bottom.

() Rocky Horror Picture Show
() Grease
() Pirates of the Caribbean
() Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
() Boondock Saints
() Fight Club
() Starsky and Hutch
() Neverending Story
() Blazing Saddles
() Airplane
Total:

() The Princess Bride
() Anchorman
() Napoleon Dynamite
() Labyrinth
() Saw
() Saw II
() Saw III
() Saw IV
() White Noise
() White Oleander
() Anger Management
() 50 First Dates
() The Princess Diaries
() The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Total so far:

() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
() Scary Movie
() Scary Movie 2
() Scary Movie 3
() Scary Movie 4
() American Pie
() American Pie 2
() American Wedding
() American Pie Band Camp
Total so far:

() Harry Potter 1
() Harry Potter 2
() Harry Potter 3
() Harry Potter 4
() Resident Evil 1
() Resident Evil 2
() The Wedding Singer
() Little Black Book
() The Village
() Lilo & Stitch
Total so far:

() Finding Nemo
() Finding Neverland
() Signs
() The Grinch
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
() White Chicks
() Butterfly Effect
() 13 Going on 30
() I, Robot
() Robots
Total so far:

() Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
() Universal Soldier
() Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
() Along Came Polly
() Deep Impact
() KingPin
() Never Been Kissed
() Meet The Parents
() Meet the Fockers
() Eight Crazy Nights
() Joe Dirt
() KING KONG
Total so far:

() A Cinderella Story
() The Terminal
() The Lizzie McGuire Movie
() Passport to Paris
() Dumb & Dumber
() Dumber & Dumberer
() Final Destination
() Final Destination 2
() Final Destination 3
() Halloween
() The Ring
() The Ring 2
() Surviving X-MAS
() Flubber
Total so far:

() Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
() Practical Magic
() Chicago
() Ghost Ship
() From Hell
() Hellboy
() Secret Window
() I Am Sam
() The Whole Nine Yards
() The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far:

() The Day After Tomorrow
() Child's Play
() Seed of Chucky
() Bride of Chucky
() Ten Things I Hate About You
() Just Married
() Gothika
() Nightmare on Elm Street
() Sixteen Candles
() Remember the Titans
() Coach Carter
() The Grudge
() The Grudge 2
() The Mask
() Son Of The Mask
Total so far:

() Bad Boys
() Bad Boys 2
() Joy Ride
() Lucky Number Slevin
() Ocean's Eleven
() Ocean's Twelve
() Bourne Identity
() Bourne Supremacy
() Lone Star
() Bedazzled
() Predator I
() Predator II
() The Fog
() Ice Age
() Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
() Curious George
Total so far:

() Independence Day
() Cujo
() A Bronx Tale
() Darkness Falls
() Christine
() ET
() Children of the Corn
() My Bosses Daughter
() Maid in Manhattan
() War of the Worlds
() Rush Hour
() Rush Hour 2
Total so far:

() Best Bet
() How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
() She's All That
() Calendar Girls
() Sideways
() Mars Attacks
() Event Horizon
() Ever After
() Wizard of Oz
() Forrest Gump
() Big Trouble in Little China
() The Terminator
() The Terminator 2
() The Terminator 3
Total so far:

() X-Men
() X-2
() X-3
() Spider-Man
() Spider-Man 2
() Sky High
() Jeepers Creepers
() Jeepers Creepers 2
() Catch Me If You Can
() The Little Mermaid
() Freaky Friday
() Reign of Fire
() The Skulls
() Cruel Intentions
() Cruel Intentions 2
() The Hot Chick
() Shrek
() Shrek 2
Total so far:

() Swimfan
() Miracle on 34th street
() Old School
() The Notebook
() K-Pax
() Krippendorf's Tribe
() A Walk to Remember
() Ice Castles
() Boogeyman
() The 40-year-old Virgin
Total so far:

() Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
() Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
() Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
() Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
() Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
()Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total so far:

() Baseketball
() Hostel
() Waiting for Guffman
() House of 1000 Corpses
() Devils Rejects
() Elf
() Highlander
() Mothman Prophecies
() American History
() Three
Total so Far:

() The Jacket
() Kung Fu Hustle
() Shaolin Soccer
() Night Watch
() Monsters Inc.
() Titanic
() Monty Python and the Holy Grail
() Shaun Of the Dead
() Willard
Total so far:

() High Tension
() Club Dread
() Hulk
() Dawn Of the Dead
() Hook
() Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
() 28 days later
() Orgazmo
() Office Space
() Waterworld
Total so far:

() Kill Bill vol 1
() Kill Bill vol 2
() Mortal Kombat
() Wolf Creek
() Kingdom of Heaven
() the Hills Have Eyes
() I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
() The Last House on the Left
() Re-Animator
() Army of Darkness
Total so far:

() Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
() Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
() Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
() Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
() Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
() Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
() Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
() Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far:

() The Matrix
() The Matrix Reloaded
() The Matrix Revolutions
() Animatrix
() Evil Dead
() Evil Dead 2
() Team America: World Police
() Red Dragon
() Silence of the Lambs
() Hannibal

In the spirit of hipster irony, people have been floating this around Facebook as a badge of pride, "look how I have no life but that actually makes me cool by having no life etc." Look, nothing personal against the people taking it; I understand. It's a challenge of your movie watching acumen, and it creates a handy number with which you can gauge your relative cinephile-ness against your friends. Fair enough.

The problem I have with the list - which, as I've said, hasn't changed that much in the last five years or so, right down to the fact that you can almost tell when it was written by the most recent movies listed - is that it's not terribly imaginative. This variation dropped the "add five movies when you finish this and pass it on" component that I remember, which is why it's so haphazard as is, but White Oleander? Really? Ice Castles? Joy Ride?

Look, I've seen Joy Ride (in the theatre) but I sincerely doubt 90% of the people taking this have. Ditto for The Jacket, which while I enjoyed it, is not something that even played in theatres for long enough for most folks to be aware of. (Oh, if you're wondering, I top out at 162).

So I'm going to give it a go. Tomorrow, I'll put up a list of 239 movies, many of which I have the feeling more people know the names of, but I'm curious to see how many you've seen. It's true that the Cap'n could simply throw up a list of 200 obscure films that I've seen to prove how much cooler I am blah blah blah. But that's not how this is going to work. In honor of the inclusion of some very random films in the other meme (including I Spit on Your Grave, Lone Star, and Mars Attacks), I'll throw in some out-of-left-field ones to see just how deep is your love your viewing tastes go, but it's not strictly "what is that movie omgz?!?!?!"

So look forward to that tomorrow. If you're feeling bold, please feel free to take the above meme and leave it as a comment. I'm sorry that I failed you guys in not having watched Cruel Intentions, The Whole Nine Yards, and Broken Lizard's Club Dread.


* I understand the tagging on all that other crap, even though people seem to hate it when I "tag" them in pictures. Well, now you know how the Cap'n feels. I like taking pictures of people, but I do not like being in them.

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