I Like Movies, What Can I Say?

Had a discussion with some folks at work the other day and as I spouted off titles of movies they needed to see (and had never seen), a co-worker said, “If we ever go to a movie trivia night, Jaynee is on my team. Always.” I was just shocked that the movies I listed were all movies that movie buffs have likely seen, and one of the guys, a self-proclaimed movie-lover, admitted that if the movie came out before his birth year, he likely hasn’t seen it.

He was born in 1985.

Y’all, that’s a lot of amazing movies that are being left on the cutting room floor because of his self-imposed release date restriction.

The Godfather
The Graduate
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Das Boot
Blazing Saddles
Raging Bull

And that’s just a handful of movies I thought of off the top of my head that came out pre-1985.

In the end, I made up a list of 52 movies ranging from 1939 – 1985 that he and the others need to watch. I left off a bunch that I feel he HAS to have seen (I mean, how can someone NOT have seen the original 1979 “Alien” at this point?), and once he’s done with this list I’ll go through and make another one that adds on more from those years as well as some from the 1980s early 1990s that he may not have seen simply because he was too young at the time (The Player? Thelma & Louise? The Hudsucker Proxy? Unforgiven?).

I’ve always loved movies, and I’ve made that plain on this blog. I wax poetic all the time about movies I love (both Oscar-worth and craptastic alike). Heck, I worked at a movie theater in my mid-20s because it meant I could see movies for free (and oh the movies I saw! Pulp Fiction, The Crow, Shawshank Redemption, Quiz Show, Speed, just to name a few). My hope in my retirement is to work at a movie theater 15-20 hours a week not only to earn a bit of pin money and remain active, but to continue to see movies (for free!), because I 100% envision myself STILL loving to go to the movies in my 70s.

So what were the 52 movies I put on the list? Well, here they are – how many have you seen?

☐ A Clockwork Orange (1971)
☐ Amadeus (1984)
☐ Apocalypse Now (1979)
☐ Arthur (1981)
☐ Blazing Saddles (1974)
☐ Breaking Away (1979)
☐ Bullitt (1968)
☐ Carrie (1976)
☐ Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
☐ Das Boot (1981)
☐ Duel (1971)
☐ E.T. (1982)
☐ Easy Rider (1969)
☐ Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
☐ Godfather (1 and 2) (1972/1974)
☐ Gunga Din (1939)
☐ Harold and Maude (1971)
☐ Heaven Can Wait (1978)
☐ It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
☐ Jaws (1975)
☐ Little Big Man (1970)
☐ M*A*S*H (1970)
☐ Midnight Express (1978)
☐ Mister Roberts (1955)
☐ National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
☐ Network (1976)
☐ Night of the Living Dead (1968)
☐ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
☐ Ordinary People (1980)
☐ Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
☐ Raging Bull (1980)
☐ Silverado (1985)
☐ Sophie’s Choice (1982)
☐ Taxi Driver (1976)
☐ The Caine Mutiny (1954)
☐ The Deer Hunter (1978)
☐ The Exorcist (1973)
☐ The French Connection (1971)
☐ The Goodbye Girl (1977)
☐ The Graduate (1967)
☐ The Great Escape (1963)
☐ The Killing Fields (1984)
☐ The Lost Weekend (1945)
☐ The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
☐ The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
☐ The Philadelphia Story (1940)
☐ The Pink Panther (1964)
☐ The Producers (1967)
☐ The Right Stuff (1983)
☐ This is Spinal Tap (1984)
☐ Tootsie (1982)
☐ Witness (1985)

Obviously I know there were plenty more I could have added to the list – but frankly, it’s not like I could just print out a copy of the 500 best movies ever made and hand it over and say, “Watch these,” when I have to admit I haven’t even seen all 500 best movies ever made.  And as I said earlier, he claims to be a movie fan himself, so there are movies I didn’t put on the list because I feel like even though they were pre-1985, he HAS to have seen them.  But I did put on a mix of movies that are widely considered to be great, and a few that *I* consider to be great.  We’ll see what he says when the come back after seeing all 52 of these listed here.

Edited to add: Clearly it’s a Friday at the office because EVERYONE in the office today has now gone through the list. *lol* Of note, one young woman under 30 years old has only seen 5 of the movies listed above.  One of the guys that was part of the original conversation, JR, has seen only 6.  The movie buff, DW, born in 1985, has seen 19 of the 52 movies, so he’s not as strict about his movie habits as he originally stated.  But he’s still got plenty of movies he needs to watch.

We then had a discussion about Disney animated movies, and JR joked that he had seen all of them (he has three young kids).  The under-30 woman printed a list of Disney animated movies and the results were as follows:  She had seen 41, DW had seen 65, JR had seen 81 and I had seen 82.  What’s wild about the list LM found online was that it included some Studio Ghibli movies on there, but not all of them.  I hadn’t realized that Disney was the distributor for some of their movies.

And proving still that it was a Friday, JR gave my list to my other boss, GR, who is in his 60s.  GR had seen many more of the movies from my list – about half.  And at least 80 on the Disney list, which JR also had him mark up.

So that’s what today has been like at work.  Movie Talk.