Another great list from the Onion AV Club. Naturally, it begs the question, what movies are on my list?
In no particular order:
1) Star Wars. I probably watched this 50 times between 1977 and 1984. I’ve seen it once all the way through since then.
2) Chevy’s Classics. I’ll bundle the classic work of Chevy Chase together, since watching one often meant watching another immediately after. Includes Caddyshack, Vacation, Fletch, Fletch Lives, Spies Like Us, and Three Amigos.*
3) Christmas Vacation. Separate from Chevy’s other work because I still watch it.
4) A Christmas Story. I’ll guess I’ve watched it at least twice a year for the past 20 years.
5) Swingers. The only movie not from my pre-college days that makes the list. I watched it over-and-over for the humor, how it spoke to what I – and my generation – was going through, and of course to try to absorb some of Vince Vaughn’s coolness. And we used to pop a Digiorno’s in the oven, crack open another beer, and pop this in at 2:30 after the bars closed on weekend nights when we were all still single.
- Did Chevy have the biggest drop-off in Hollywood history? We think of his work between 1980 and 1989 as brilliant, and everything since as being putrid. Check his filmography, though. There were a number of shitty movies sprinkled in with the classics. It does confirm, however, that he hasn’t done anything remotely interesting since Christmas Vacation.