I know that might seem a little non-traditional, but hey, I'm a non-traditional guy. I mean, I'm eating breakfast... for dinner! Pretty unconventional, I'd say! Innovative, even!
I love, live and breathe movies; I even write about them for MOVIEJAWN, so I thought they'd be a fun thing to focus on. So, since I'm turning 36 and all, here they are, my gifts to you: 36 film-centric facts about yours truly.
1. I'd love to work in film. Among my "dream jobs" in the movie and movie-adjacent fields: voice work, composing and, of course, writing. I'm an idea man.
2. I collect ticket stubs. Not just movie tickets, mind you, but the movies are what we're focusing on here. My earliest movie stub is for Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992).
3. I don't have an IMDB page for myself, but I technically could. I've appeared as an extra in one movie and one TV show, as the villain in a sizzle trailer for a film that never manifested (through no fault of mine, I assure you) and, again technically, as a producer through crowd-funding sites.
4. I don't like to bother celebrities generally, but I've gotten autographs from a few generous folks, including Tenacious D, Wayne Gretzky and, notably, Bruce Campbell. He signed a copy of his book, If Chins Could Kill, for me and a friend of mine took this picture:
Mr. Campbell couldn't have been nicer, especially, because, well, look at me. Notice the unkempt mohawk-becoming-fauxhawk; the tie (Spider-Man, of course referencing Campbell's appearance in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002)) worn despite my not wearing a collared shirt; the stuffed monkey hanging from my hip. I was a weird kid is what I'm saying, and Bruce Campbell, star of some of my favorite films (see below, 5b) could not have been nicer. I love the guy.
Mr. Campbell couldn't have been nicer, especially, because, well, look at me. Notice the unkempt mohawk-becoming-fauxhawk; the tie (Spider-Man, of course referencing Campbell's appearance in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002)) worn despite my not wearing a collared shirt; the stuffed monkey hanging from my hip. I was a weird kid is what I'm saying, and Bruce Campbell, star of some of my favorite films (see below, 5b) could not have been nicer. I love the guy.
5a. I once met George Wendt in a gift shop. When he entered, I exclaimed "George Wendt!" and he responded "That's funny, most people say 'Norm'."
5b. The Evil Dead films are probably my favorite films, my favorite franchise of all time. I think that their tonal differences lend to them being the perfect trilogy to watch all in one night while getting drunk (they get progressively sillier and more fun and the drunker I get the more that is exactly what I want at any given moment). I own versions of the Evil Dead films in more varied formats than any other movies: VHS & DVD versions of the movies, Blu-rays of the Ash vs. The Evil Dead TV show (R.I.P.); I've seen Evil Dead the Musical and purchased the soundtrack on CD and I even own the porno parody from Burning Angel, Evil Head. It's pretty good.
6. I didn't really watch horror movies until Scream (1996). Somewhere in my childhood, my grandmother must have denied younger me the chance to watch what must have been an edited for TV version of one of the Halloweens or one of your assorted Fridays the 13th by telling me "You wouldn't like them. They'll scare you." To be fair: she was right, but that's part of the fun, Gram.
8. I have only seen a few movies multiple times in theaters during their initial theatrical run: The Lion King (1994), Twister (1996), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), Inception (2010), Black Panther (2018) and The Shape of Water (2018) are all that spring to mind.
9. In the 1st grade, I dressed as my hero, Indiana Jones for my school's Halloween assembly. Yup, that red plastic water gun would NEVER fly in a public school today. When I found out that Harrison Ford was both Indiana Jones AND Han Solo, it legitimately blew my mind. That's probably when I fell in love with movies. The idea that you could get to play someone who had all those different adventures! I wonder if something similar will happen to younger folks when they realize, say, that Robert Downey Jr. was both Iron Man AND Sherlock Holmes! It's very cool.
10. I love almost all types of movies, but my fave genres are Musicals (almost any, though I've yet to watch any of the High School Musical flicks), Quality Children's Animation (pre-Disney buyout Pixar, Don Bluth Productions & anything Hayao Miyazaki touched for starters), Smart Sci-Fi (I quite liked Interstellar (2014) personally), Big Dumb Action (Deep Blue Sea (1999) ) and Almost All Horror (miss me with the really squick-y, torture porn-y stuff; it's just not for me).
11. I was once in a very sparsely attended showing of 1997's Batman & Robin where myself, my two friends, and the group of four other people all mercilessly mocked it for each others' benefit. Honestly: better movie.
12. I used to make short films and film random scenes from things with my friends. Notably, we made a zombie-themed Miller Light commercial. If I ever find that tape, I'll link to it.
13. I am related, by marriage, to actor Eli Wallache, may he R.I.P.
14. I once met Joe Pantoliano. I told him I was a fan and that I'd "just seen him in..." and blanked for a second before remembering the title of the movie. This being pretty soon after The Matrix (1999) was a huge hit, he must have assumed that was it. When I said "Baby's Day Out" (1994), he laughed. Nice guy.
15. I've had a Letterboxd account since June 27th, 2017 and, as of this writing, I have logged 434 movies. I actually have an additional 40 or so to log from a while back that got missed for some reason or another as well.
16. Once, back when my friends and I would get inebriated and "just go see whatever movie starts next", I ended up sitting in the very front row for a showing of The Day After Tomorrow (2004). You cannot fathom how funny Dennis Quaid's "I'm serious and concerned" face is projected 30 feet tall right in front of you for 2 hours.
17. The first movie I saw in a drive-in was Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). I was getting over a stomach bug and definitely at one point threw up out of my cousin's car's backseat window.
18. I love wrestling. Therefore I really, really enjoy it when wrestlers appear in movies, especially when they're not playing themselves. Possibly the best one, though this is up for debate, is Macho Man Randy Savage appearing as "Bonesaw" in Spider-Man (2002).
19. Everybody has awkward movie-watching experiences, right? My most awkward was renting Hideaway (1995, based on a book by Dean Koontz, an author I was fond of at the time) with my mom and her then-boyfriend Jim. There's a graphic sex scene between stars Jeff Goldblum and Christine Lahti which is more 90's, more tantric than the usual Missionary Position business. Mom immediately made some excuse about dinner being ready and left the room. Jim, a nice guy but a bit of a lush, then asked (rhetorically, sarcastically, to see if I know) what they were doing. I "you know..."-ed a few times before I said "sex", which he thought was hilarious. The rest of the movie was a blur but that sex scene is burned into my frontal lobe. I've never attempted to watch it again.
20. My dad took me to see Jurassic Park (1993) and apocryphally, when the lawyer got eaten I looked terrified and green around the gills. My dad, in possibly the dad-est move of all time, leaned over and whispered "Don't worry, he's just a lawyer." and I cracked up. This was the 90's remember and lawyer jokes were all the rage. My terror disappeared and I enjoyed the rest of the movie.
21. In my high school years, my friends and I would stay up all night watching mostly the same handful of movies every weekend, over and over. As a result, I can recite most if not all of Scream (1996), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Clerks (1994), Mallrats (1995), From Dusk Til Dawn (1996) and The Transformers: The Movie (1986) by heart.
22. I've noticed that most people, when they develop a favorite something (actor, director, company, etc.) they tend to dive in obsessively, wanting to watch (or read or whatever) everything they can by that person or group. I'm the opposite. I prefer the idea that there's always something of theirs out in the world I haven't seen. It's nice. Then you can sort of stumble across it and decide "Now is when I watch this". I guess this isn't movie-specific, but it absolutely applies to movies.
23. In 1999, after a failed attempt to do the underage buy-a-ticket-for-one-thing-and-sneak-into-something-else rope-a-dope, I ended up watching She's All That alone while my friends watched Varsity Blues. This was, apparently, some kind of rite of passage and I didn't live that one down for a long time.
24. Once while I was in a deep depression, some friends dragged me out of my house to see the 2005 Bruce Willis thriller Hostage. On the way home it snowed and, in the back of this friend's car, I had one of those very serious, life-changing, there's-reasons-to-go-on-living epiphanies. There's no way to accurately describe it or even to explain what it means to me, but as a result I hold both snow and this one specific honestly-just-okay thriller very close to my heart.
25. As a younger man I occasionally participated in some theater-hopping, which if you don't know is paying to see one movie, then once it's over, wandering into another theater to see what's playing in there. I once paid to see The Happening (2008) and then sneaked into The Hulk (also 2008), which if you're wondering, is the Edward Norton one. I wish I'd paid for Hulk and sneaked into Happening, because Hulk was the far better movie.
26. I think Wayne's World is as near a perfect movie as you can get. Here's a picture of my old roommate and me dressed as Wayne and Garth respectively, for a friend's 90's themed birthday party. I'm Garth, by the way.
I recently had the revelation that Wayne's World might have influenced the way I view courtship and romance. I'm working on writing a piece about it, so stay tuned.
27. Once I played Jack Skellington (of A Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) fame) in a stage musical put on as a fundraiser. It went pretty well and was well-received. Subsequently, my recollection of the lyrics lead to me winning a pair of Corona (yes, the beer) brand flip-flops. I'm not much of a "Corona Guy", but they're perfect to wear to- and from- the shower.
28. Anyway, speaking of my singing: An old band of mine had a song called "Re-Elect Mayor Goldie Wilson", a reference to the Back to the Future film trilogy. The song had nothing to do with the events of the films, but the song needed a title and BTTF was playing on TV that day. Boom; done.
Here's a picture of me performing in one of the bands I was in.
29. I watch a lot of horror / thrillers, action movies & etc., basically a lot of movies which include violence. Even non-horror flicks are full of uncomfortably horrific acts (like the testicular torture in Casino Royale (2006) for sure). Still, there are three things that I just cannot handle. My Horror Hard Limits are:
- First is: eye stuff
- The Salvador Dali dream sequence in Un Chien Andalou (1929) for example.
- Second: veins
- Remember when Freddy puppeteers Phillip in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)? That's a rough one.
- The distant third, though still squirm-inducing is Achilles tendon / heel stuff.
- Maybe, because it's slightly more common that the other two, I'm less discomfited by it.
30. Speaking of things that make me uncomfortable: I almost passed out watching Gravity (2013). One of my greatest fears is drifting off into empty space and the first-person sequence of Sandra Bullock doing exactly that almost did me in.
31. One of my major cinematic blind spots is foreign films, but especially non-European. I really want to watch more foreign cinema of any variety, but I frequently feel overwhelmed. I don't know where to start.
32. I did once briefly work in a movie theater, but it was not the dream job I'd envisioned. Most of my co-workers didn't really seem to care very much about movies of any stripe and would frequently damage displays, giveaway swag, posters and etc., as long as they could get away with it. Not out of malice, but mostly boredom and / or resentment against our employers. The reason I don't have a lot of secondhand movie memorabilia is because a lot of it had been, and I kid you not, pissed on.
*sigh* People are often the worst part of everything.
33. I have very high standards for both animal actors and child actors and I will not apologize for that, but as a result, I have definitely alienated people by cussing-out some awful dog or cat or kid. Fair enough, I sound like a monster, but that dog or cat or kid probably really sucked.
34. I vehemently support owning physical media. I spend a fair amount of time in secondhand / thrift stores and I frequently come across copies of movies (or often, books) that I just LOVE, but already own. They're usually only a few bucks, so at such a more-than-reasonable price, I usually just pick them up and wait around until I find someone to gift them to.
35. For a lot of my life, watching black and white films made me fall asleep, regardless of what the film was. Hitchcock films, the Universal Monsters movies; anything. This continued well into my teenage years. The first time I saw Clerks (1994), at a friend's house, I promptly fell asleep. I have, thankfully, overcome this dysfunction.
36. Okay, this one is a little cheap and self-promotion-y, but: I write about movies for the truly excellent website Moviejawn along with a whole bunch of other, more talented, super-nice people. Everyone there really, honestly love movies and I'm thrilled to work alongside them.
So, that's it. I'm trying to write more content that's purely for here, and this is a step in that direction. Maybe I'll make this an annual tradition. Maybe the Earth will explode this year. Who can say?
Anyway, you can follow me on twitter, and on letterboxd and you can read everything over on Moviejawn (where you can also get a subscription to the physical zine that features articles you won't find online). Seeing as how it's my birthday, maybe you wanna peruse my amazon wish list (The Doctor is Cinema is all movies) and send me a gift, but feel free to not do that, as well.
Also, for the past...almost a year, I've been sporadically recording episodes for a movie podcast which I hope to actually launch in the very near future. Turns out organizing, recording and editing a podcast largely on your own takes a LOT of time.
Anyway, thanks for reading and long live the movies!
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