Once in a while, I like to make one of the Sunday “Bad”
Movies posts a little more personal. I
spend so much time writing about the movies and where they fit into the film
landscape, or just writing about the ridiculous things in the movies. I already did that with Wild Wild West when the topic of the original post was about film
adaptations of television shows. It fit
into that 1990s/2000s flood of television inspiration. As for the ridiculous things, there’s a giant
mechanical spider, and some crazy facial hair on Kenneth Branagh.
This is the anniversary post. It’s a little bit late, but that couldn’t be
helped. There were some issues in life
that forced me into a hiatus for a few weeks, and those weeks just happened to
fall around the time of the anniversary.
Bad luck, I guess. The
anniversary post is the one time a year where a vote is sent out to the
potential readers of the blog and they get to choose which movie I’ll be
rewatching from the past year. You guys
chose Wild Wild West, which I was all
too happy to agree to. I didn’t want to
watch Death Race: Beyond Anarchy
again, and that was sneaking pretty close to the top.
The anniversary post is a time when I get to indulge in
nostalgia. Usually I have a solid topic
going into the rewatch. I know I
definitely did the first couple of years when I rewatched The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure and Winter’s Tale. This year, I let the nostalgia take over,
though not in the form of the blog. I’m
going to dive back into my entire movie history here. I want to pinpoint some moments of seeing
movies or getting home copies of movies that helped define me. No, not all of the movies were good. What kind of person would I be if every movie
that come along with stories was good?
That’s definitely not me.
So, this is where we are with this post. I’m going to take ten movie moments from
various times in my life and give little snippets about those moments. What does this have to do with Wild Wild West, you might ask? Spoiler alert! It’s going to be involved in one of the
stories. I’m not going to call any of
these stories good. Most of them are
probably pretty stale if you’re not me.
That’s okay. This is more of a
nostalgic release for me than anything.
I just hope that anyone who sticks around to read the whole thing learns
something about me. Maybe you’ll reach
out to me, interact with me, whatnot. If
you don’t, I won’t be hurt by it. It’s
life. Let’s get started with the first
movie I saw in the theater.
1) I was four years old when I remember gearing up to go see
a movie in the theater. It was
1994. The Lion King had just come out, and I was prime age for
Disney. Prime age is any age, but I was
a four-year-old who wanted to see lions.
Saying it was the first movie I saw in the theater might be a lie. I don’t remember if I actually got to the
theater. I remember being at my dad’s
auto shop, back when he had one, and my aunt was coming to pick me up and take
me to the theater. Four-year-old me
decided that was the perfect time to go outside and stand under the downspout
from the eavestrough. I got in trouble
for that. I know I ended up seeing The Lion King at some point. I just don’t remember if it was in the
theater that day.
2) The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was Home Alone 3. I don’t remember too much outside of knowing
I saw it in the theater, remembering where the theater was, and knowing that
it’s not a theater anymore. It was a
second run place. The first theatrical
experience I remember vividly, though, was A
Bug’s Life. I went to see it for a
friend’s birthday party. We all had the
popcorn, toys, and got to see a Pixar movie on the big screen. It was a good time that taught me that the
theater is a place to be loved and not loathed.
I go much more often now than I did as a child and I wouldn’t have it
any other way.
3) As a child growing up in the 90s, you were always wanting
your parents to get you things. Home
video was one of those things because VCRs and, at the end of the decade, DVD
players became a pretty common thing for people to own. I’ve always liked movies, so I would constantly
ask my parents for movies. I can
remember going to Circuit City (I’m Canadian, but we went to the USA a lot) one
time. It was probably 2000. The TVs were playing Wild Wild West as their showcase video. I can’t remember if this was the same day I
begged for the DVD of The Phantom Menace,
but I definitely got my parents to buy me a copy of Wild Wild West that day.
It’s the same copy that I have sitting beside the Blu-ray player right
now. It’s the one that I watched twice
for this blog. Am I showing my privilege
by telling you that my parents bought me movies? Maybe.
It’s a part of me, though, so that’s why it’s here.
4) This one will be pretty quick. There was a point in 2003-ish where, for
whatever reason, I decided I would watch Final
Destination once a day every day forever.
I don’t know why. I lasted about
a week. Though, for a couple years, my
regular rotation of movies included Final
Destination, Joy Ride, and Jeepers Creepers. I would watch each of those at least once a
week. I don’t understand myself
sometimes. I like those movies. I still do.
But that was a little bit overboard.
5) I was sixteen or so when I saw Boogie Nights for the first time.
It opened my eyes to what movies could be. There was something more than entertainment
there. There was an artform that I
appreciated on a deeper level.
Performances. Deliberate camera
movements. The use of music to
underscore a scene or a specific dramatic beat.
The lighting. The set
design. I started noticing each and
every one of these things through Boogie
Nights and it changed who I was as a movie watcher. It was one of those pivotal moments that
changes everything.
6) Sometime in high school, I can’t remember the exact year
or grade, my music teacher took us on a trip to Toronto to visit a foley
studio. We got to go in and experience
how hard people work to put the sounds together for a feature film. The specific film they were working on when
my class was there was Outlander, a
movie starring Jim Caviezel about Vikings and aliens going to battle. The movie came out in 2008/2009, so I was
probably 17 when we visited the place.
It wasn’t my first step into actually being in the business (I did
lighting for a couple televised concerts before that), but it was the first
time I saw a movie being put together.
I’m a film student now. It’s a
good eleven years after that. Funny how
things work out, eh?
7) Let’s go with something a little bit lighter, while being
darker. When I was in university for
engineering, I used to have a weekly bad movie night with the people I lived
with so we could blow off steam after a week of math and science. We weren’t huge into drinking or partying, so
bad movies were our outlet. One of the
guys suggested that we check out The
Human Centipede II since it had just come out. I didn’t want to. I ended up watching them because of the deal
the guy made with me. If we watched the
first two Human Centipede movies, he
would pay for my end of term dinner at East Side Mario’s. I got some food out of it. I’m okay with that deal.
8) Halloween has
always been one of my favourite horror movies since I first saw it. Without it, we wouldn’t have many of the
great horror flicks that have come out since.
Would John Carpenter have been able to make The Thing without the success of Halloween? Would Friday the 13th exist without
Halloween? Scream
definitely wouldn’t exist the way it is without Halloween. And Jamie Lee
Curtis might not be a big star without Halloween
pushing her to the forefront. It was an inspirational
movie for what came after it. The
masterful way everything played out also pushed me into writing more often
because I needed to get my thoughts about it out. Without Halloween
inspiring my blog writing, the Sunday “Bad” Movies might never have happened.
9) There was a movie directed by Atom Egoyan that came out
in 2014. It was called The Captive. I had seen The Sweet Hereafter in about 2011 or 2012, and I loved it. When I heard that The Captive, which had a different working title, would be filming
out front of my work, I was excited.
They were setting up during the last couple hours of my shift and I got
to see them design the street to look like the middle of winter. It was interesting to see the production
design. They were only going to be
filming a car driving up the street, but they put so much work in to make
things as perfect as possible. It was captivating
and might be another push into the right direction for my future.
10) Much more recently, at the end of 2018, I got to meet
Greg Sestero. It wasn’t a huge
meeting. I got a picture with him before
seeing Best F[r]iends Vol. 1 and Best F[r]iends Vol. 2. He was there for a Q&A, but also signed
books, shirts, and stuff while taking pictures with people. I had been a fan of his work since long
before this blog. By “his work,” I mean
I liked The Room and The Disaster Artist. I saw The
Room when I was in school for engineering and have seen it many times
since. I read The Disaster Artist when it first came out, while I was in between
my original career plan and my current one.
To watch his spiritual follow-up to The
Room was great. I had a good time
with a few of my film school friends, going to Toronto to see the double
feature and meet Greg.
Those are ten stories of my movie watching history. They are ten stories that helped to make me
the person I am through the things I watched or experienced. I may not have seen Outlander or The Captive,
but I got to see them being made and that most certainly had some influence on
me. I’m making movies in school
now. I helped make a short film last
semester, and I’ll be helping with a documentary this semester. I’m a filmmaker, influenced by seeing other
movies be made.
The Lion King, A Bug’s Life, Final Destination, and Boogie
Nights built me during my formative years.
They pushed me into enjoying movies for the imagination, the emotion,
and the artistic qualities that they could convey. Little would I know it at the time, but my
childhood love of The Phantom Menace
and Wild Wild West would eventually
lead me to this blog and this post. Halloween would be the reason that I
would keep blogging at all. And to cap it
all off, I got to meet one of the main creative forces of one of my favourite
bad movies.
Nostalgia can be a great thing. Wild
Wild West brings me back to a time where Will Smith was at the height of
his stardom. I was a kid without a care
in the world. I wanted to see cowboys
use technology to overcome a paraplegic megalomaniac. I wanted to see a giant mechanical spider
wreaking havoc on the frontier. Most of
all, I wanted fun. Wild Wild West was fun.
Watching it brings back that fun.
It might not be the best movie, but it’s fun. It brings back the nostalgia. So does this post. I’m done now.
Well, not quite. Here
are some notes:
- The Room (week 25), the Human Centipede movies (week 180), and Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy (week 311) were mentioned in this post.
- Here’s the original post for Wild Wild West (week 296).
- Here are the anniversary posts for The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (week 53) and Winter’s Tale (week 105).
- I also mentioned The Disaster Artist, so here's a post I wrote about the book.
- Wild Wild West was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who directed Nine Lives (week 228).
- Ian Abercrombie was in Wild Wild West. He was also in The Ice Pirates (week 128), Sextette (week 141), and Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman (week 159).
- Salma Hayek and Frederique Van Der Wal co-starred in two Sunday “Bad” Movies, Wild Wild West and 54 (week 266).
- Musetta Vander showed up in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (week 140) before Wild Wild West.
- Wild Wild West featured Gary Carlos Cervantes. He was in 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (week 10).
- James Lashly showed up in Wild Wild West. He also showed up in a little movie called Howard the Duck (week 75).
- Wild Wild West had an actor named William Victor Skrabanek. Another movie with that actor was Batman & Robin (week 138).
- Gigli (week 225) actor Scott Haslip popped up in Wild Wild West.
- One of the more memorable people in Wild Wild West was Bai Ling. She was in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (week 241).
- Christian Aubert had a part in Wild Wild West, after having been in Godzilla (week 282).
- Finally, Wild Wild West starred Will Smith. He had a small, yet important, role in Winter’s Tale (week 89).
- What are some movie moments from your life that you have nostalgia for? What are your thoughts about Wild Wild West? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
- Twitter and the comments are also good places to drop suggestions for what I should be checking out. I don’t have too many suggestions right now, since I don’t have my old bad movies list, so I’m trying to get some more. Tell me about some bad movies.
- The Sunday “Bad” Movies have an Instagram account now. Check it out @sunday_bad_movies.
- Check out my Snapchat if you want to, too. Add me (jurassicgriffin). I sometimes share bits and pieces of bad movies.
- That’s another year down for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. On Sunday, I’ll be covering something called Attila. Check out that post when it’s out. I had one the other day about the three Snake Eater movies. Check that one out too. Thanks for sticking around, guys. The writing is for me. The reading is for you. It’s been a great six years, even if the movies aren’t always great. I hope we’ll keep going for a long time to come. See you soon.
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