The List of Movies

Everybody has movies they connect with, and there are many that lots of us share. Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Those are all on my list of like, defining movies of my life. They swim near the surface of my consciousness, always waiting for reference.

But there are some movies that you love that are shared with only a few. I think I share a couple on the list below only with, er, myself, and a few others probably only with one person (who actually might add a few to the list that I’ve forgotten. We’ve seen a lot of movies together.)

Odd Cinematic Touchstones In JB’s Life:

• L.A. Story
• Brazil
• Beetlejuice
• Bubble Boy
• Super Mario Brothers
• Soapdish
• Motorama
• Until the End of the World
• Where the Heart Is (with Dabney Coleman, not Natalie Portman)
• Dead End Drive In
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (barely makes the list)
• The Iron Giant
• Barry Gordy’s “The Last Dragon”

Some that don’t seem (or definitely aren’t) unique enough to make the list: The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Movie, When Harry Met Sally, Batman, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Edward Scissorhands, This is Spinal Tap, Three Kings, Labyrinth, Ice Pirates, Karate Kid, Spaceballs, The Last Starfighter. I can quote almost all of Spaceballs. I know, I know. But I don’t think I’m alone in that, so it doesn’t make the list.

And there are of course so many movies that I adore, but which don’t qualify as a “touchstone.”

God, how powerful cinema is! Staggering, the influence that medium has on our lives. Even the least susceptible of us has a couple flicks they love and will defend with fisticuffs if it comes down to it.

Care to share your list? What movies do you absolutely love that it seems nobody else does? Or rather, like some of the movies on my list, do you consider touchstones in your life, even if they weren’t very good? I mean, y’know, ’cause “Dead End Drive In” really isn’t very good. But still.

Self Perception

Age

I’m in a kickball league. It lets us Gen X and Y people go back in time for an hour a week. And it lets those of us who always knew we were athletes, way deep inside, get some back. And it lets those who actually are athletes show off because it’s really not that hard.

Today I made a catch. I was in the outfield, and it was a fly ball. I went back, reached up, caught the ball, and fell flat on my back. And I mean flat, man, not some kind of rolling fall preliminary to a backward somersault. No, I just kind of toppled in a way where if some kind of sharp object had been in my way I would surely have been impaled. Impaled!

It kind of hurt, and it scared me because I didn’t really expect that to happen. I don’t think I tried it, it just followed after the catch. Thank God I held on to the ball.

I don’t work out much, so after that my back was all stiff, and my neck was cracking and all that sort of thing.

I still have all these habits from playing baseball when I was a teenager. Backing people up when a play is in motion and such, which makes you run all over the field in case the ball gets away from people. But my body is not in any way ready for it, so I’m putting it through these paces it plain don’t like, Jack.

And I skinned my knee. AGAIN. The same knee as last week! (BTW I skinned my knee last week playing kickball.) Not as bad this time though, but on NEITHER occasion did I make the play. Skinned knee, no catch, not even a good throw back to the infield.

Kickball isn’t as much fun when it becomes just another occasion to ruminate on your shortcomings. Still a *little* fun though. There are girls. I’m too old for almost all of them, but I can make them laugh, and that’s nice for an old man born way back in ‘72. That’s before Star Wars, man. The first Star Wars. Old old old.

Giddy

I have a lot of ideas. I’m an excellent ideator. Sometimes the ideas come so fast, one after the other, that I get a kind of headrush. Especially when one stacks up on the last and expands or refines it, then gets stepped on by the next.

Just now, idea #1 was:

• RFID bracelet that lets me walk around the house with my music following me from room to room.

It’s a nice idea, and kind of the end result of what would be a pretty intense development process, but it’s feasible. That’s my favorite kind of idea. Mind you, I still get the pie-in-the-sky never-gonna-happen ideas, like

• “What if renters got an equity share for improving the places they live, and got a cut of the rent from everyone who came after them? If you lived in several places over the course of a couple years, you’d have accrued royalty revenue if you made improvements to each property. Work out a division and time limits on the royalties so property owners would buy in, according to the value the renter added whether monetarily or through sheer sweat-equity.”

That’s also a nice idea, but never gonna happen.This RFID thing on the other hand, I can see it working in my head and I can see myself finding a couple techies and putting the system together if I couldn’t figure it all out myself. Not that I will, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility, it’s totally possible.

So I had that idea, and then thought about what if there were two people in the house with an RFID bracelet? What would happen then?

That’s when I got giddy, because all of a sudden I had one song following me around, another song following my (theoretical) girlfriend around, and when we were in the same room whoever got there first would win but the NEXT song, if it were formed from some kind of ratings-based playlist or some awesome tool like, say, Pandora, it could merge the preferences of us and play songs we were both likely to enjoy. And what if you could start playing with the feed depending on who’s in the room. If I’m in there with my girlfriend, make the next song romantic, or sexy, or refer to some silly joke between us. Communication via iTunes playlist.

*deep breath*

And on and on like that, with idea and extrapolations piled on top of one another and it’s a good thing I was already sitting down because it almost felt like I was high. Like I just took a deep drag from a cigarette and the nicotine went to my head in a sudden rush. I had to lean back in my chair, eyes closed, face to the sky.

One of these days, I’ll have a rush like this and it won’t stop. My eyes will rotate up into my head and I’ll be lost forever.