I lived and breathed that shit.
In High School I had to write an essay in an exam about my hero, knowing full well that my hero was not my Dad, or Einstein, or Captain Cook but was actually Ash from Evil Dead II; I proceeded to write about him. That was until my oldest and dearest friend Kirk who was sat in front of me during said exam wrote "I did mine about Ash" on his hand and showed it to me. In a fit of red rage, I screwed up the half page I had written about Ash and started writing one about Sugar Watkins and his sacrifice for the rest of Rico's Roughnecks...
True Story.
I've seen it probably more times than any other movie, I've seen it more times than Evil Dead II (although its a close one) and I've seen it more times that Highlander II or Star Trek V.
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| "Excuse me...how can there be two people on this planet who would consider Ash from Evil Dead their hero? Oh, you were 13? That explains it..." |
As a kid, with an abundance of spare time (school finished at 3pm for fuck sake, and homework was for squids) I had the opportunity to watch Starship Troopers literally every day. My stepdad would come home and before even saying hello, would say "H---What? This fucking movie again? How many fucking times do you have to watch this fucking movie? Every fucking day this week I've come home to you watching this! Go outside! Be a kid! Stop wasting your fucking life watching this movie!"
It eventually evolved into him coming home, grunting and walking past the television, and finally, coming home and ignoring it completely.
I - without exaggeration - would say I watched this movie twice a week, maybe three times a week between the ages of 12 and 16. If I was half way through the film and had to stop it, I'd just start it from scratch the next day.
Years later at the dinner table I got made the butt of a little joke (I was not put out in any way folks, as dinner was generally a time to ridicule eachother).
The joke was basically about how many times I had seen Starship Troopers, it wasn't really a joke as much as it was "Hey, Jake, how many times have you seen that stupid movie with all the tits? are we at the 1000 mark yet - hyuck hyuck!"
Hyuck Hyuck. I slammed back with "I've seen it almost as many times as you've seen Stripes."
He shut up and never made fun of me again about it.
We - normally as a family - had to sit down and watch Stripes EVERY TIME IT WAS ON TV. Every fucking time. Now I love me some Stripes, it is an awesome movie, but if I'm in the other room reading, or wanking, or drawing, I don't want to come out and watch Stripes for the 500th time. Even these days if my wife has it on or wants to watch it, I'll have a PTSD moment and stare at her (through her) for a few minutes hearing Bill Murray saying "Uncle Hulka" in my head over and over and over and over and over and....
I digress...
The point is, my stepdad was allowed this little addiction to this movie. It was - and is - his all time favourite film.
Crazily enough, as many times as I have seen Starship Troopers, it isn't even my favourite film. It would probably scrape into my top 30 by a very small victory. But I judge my top 10, 20, 30, 50 whatever by how I feel after the nth viewing. Evil Dead II will never be taken off the top of my list because every single fucking time I watch it, I feel like I've watched it for the first time. Every single thing I like about movies is in that film. I don't pick something new up every time I watch it, I don't feel differently after every consecutive viewing; I feel the same as I did when I first saw it. Nowadays I limit my viewings of it so that I can properly soak in that feeling of excitement, nostalgia, and love I have for that particular film.
When I meet someone who says: "I love Evil Dead II!" I hesitate to reply, and think to myself - fuck you, you can't love Evil Dead II like I do - before snapping out of it and making a lifelong friend.
It's a thing among film buffs that the AMG's (average movie goers) can't seem to appreciate. We filmfreaks watch movies a lot. We can tend to watch the same movie a lot. My wife has seen 1408 with Cusack/Jackson more times that even she would probably like to admit. I've seen Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Conan The Barbarian, Highlander II, Aliens, and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man a SHAMEFUL amount of times. The other morning, I sat down to absorb Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse for the first time, and it was so great, so outstanding, that I woke my wife up and made her watch with me it no less than twenty minutes after the first viewing.
The burning question is: IS IT A WASTE OF TIME TO WATCH THE SAME MOVIE OVER AND OVER AGAIN?
Well I guess to answer that question, we have to do what I did with my stepdad and throw a comparison back in the inquisitors face.
Say you like Golf.
You go to the Golf place, hit your little white balls and four hours or more later you have a score.
You come home and your partner asks "How was Golf, Jerry?"
You reply: "It was sublime, Chantal, I hit that sweet motherfucker right down the goddamn fairway until it stopped, then I hit it three more times and eventually got it in the hole. Then I went to the second hole and you know what? I slammed that little fucker again, and kept doing it until finally...I came...home."
Outside of the obvious impotence symbolism associated with this conversation, I GUARANTEE you that the conversation remains the same, albeit with a few minor differences (one day Jerry gets a good score, one day Jerry gets a bad score).
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| "Sorry Jerry, today just wasn't your day. Better luck next time...No seriously, sorry to hear that you were shit today." |
Tonight I will be seeing Predator on the big screen. It's a pretty big deal. It's another film I've seen a million times, on VHS, on DVD, on BLURAY, and now I'm seeing it AT THE MOVIES. It's a totally fresh way to re-visit one of my all time favourite films.
I'll get home afterwards, and my wife (who unfortunately can't make it) will say: "Hey Jake, how was the movie?"
And I will say: "It was sublime, Tiff. I never realised that it could be better than the last time I watched it, but secretly I think I had an inkling."
But in reality it will be more like "Fucking awesome, just fucking awesome. It was fucking awesome. I came all over the back of the chair in front of me."
It's the same shit. Its like if some asshole goes on about how much money you waste on buying DVD's when they down five pints at 10 bucks a pop down at the local every night.
A pint - and a pint is good - lasts ten minutes for me, maybe less.
A DVD will last as long as I decide, I've watched the same DVD copy of Cobra so many fucking times I don't know how my player still reads the disc. I get the enjoyment out of it again and again.
You have your passions, whether it be Golfing, Boozing, Kayaking, Womanizing, Ping Ponging, Socializing, whatever. Maybe your house has a strange sculpture chosen by your interior designer in the middle of a table in the middle of a white room in the middle of your apartment in the middle of the city. Maybe that's your style.
Well my passion is for film. I buy DVD's, and Blurays and Videos. I have them all in my lounge-room covering the bland white walls. I have action figures, statues, knick knacks, posters, all kinds of shit adorning my walls. Because I fucking love it. It's awesome. When people come to visit our house they are fascinated to the point of ridiculing us because they can't comprehend why someone would blow their pay on all of this shit, when they could go to Bali and buy their entire catalogue of entertainment for the price of a West Australian dinner.
So have I answered the burning question? It's somewhat of a stalemate. I sincerely do not believe that is a waste of time to watch the same film a ridiculous amount of times. But Jerry the Golfer would probably say "Of course it is you goddamn slacker! Come out to the Golfplace with me, I'll show you a hard days work!"
But here's me saying golf is a waste of precious land, and that it is a very dull and non engaging sport.
Look, at the end of the day it's all good, you can play your game of Golf, I'll go watch Four of The Apocalypse again. There really isn't an issue either way.
But deeeeeeeeeeeep deep down, there is an issue, isn't there?
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