I started reading Bill Simmons again recently (and listening to his podcast). For various reasons, I’ve rarely read him over the past 2-3 years. It’s fun to find an old friend again.
I just finished his summer NBA two-parter, set to quotes from his pick for top movie of the decade, Almost Famous. It reminded me of the day back in the spring of 2000 when I was bored at work, scanning espn.com and found something about the NBA and Boogie Nights. Sounded interesting so I started reading. 20 minutes later I finished part two, sent a link to some friends telling them that the MUST check out this new guy on ESPN, and then went back and read part one, which had been posted earlier in the week. That was the beginning of countless hours of my employer paying me to read his columns.
Reading his current effort got me thinking about re-watching movies. Aside from the holiday classics, I just don’t do it anymore. Hell, I barely watch movies at all these days, preferring to listen to music and read. I wondered how many movies from the current decade I’ve watched more than 10 times. Not many, I bet. And I wondered how that compared to the 90s. I took a gander at my DVDs, put a little thought into it to capture those movies not in my collection, and came up with these rough lists.
These are, by the past two decades, movies that I A) love and B) have watched more than 10 times. (!) indicates the movie is one of my top 20 favorites of all-time.
90s:
Reservoir Dogs
Goodfellas (!)
Office Space
Pulp Fiction (!)
The Usual Suspects (!)
Swingers (!)
Shawshank (!)
Braveheart (!)
Saving Private Ryan (!)
Good Will Hunting
LA Confidential
Boogie Nights
00s:
High Fidelity (!)
Elf
Old School
Zoolander
Finding Nemo (WALL-E will soon join the list)
Now what, do you suppose, would explain this dramatic shift?