A few years ago, while suffering a particularly nasty case of the flu, I collapsed on the couch to watch cartoons. (Why no, I don’t revert to childhood when I’m ill–I never left in the first place.) I started my first selection on the DVR, and promptly passed out.
When I woke, rather dazed, and not entirely sure even what day it was, the cartoons had run out, and a black and white movie was just starting: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. A 1940s rom-com turned melodrama–not something that it would ever occur to me to watch. I was dizzy, though, and achy, and tired, and I couldn’t quite muster the will to reach for the remote, so I watched it.
After a while, I realized that it had drawn me in enough that I had forgotten (for a while) that I was miserably sick. Months later, I found a copy and watched it again, mostly to see how delirious I had been. It was still charming, the characters appealing, and (for its time) the cinematography was quite striking.
I’m still not one for romance movies, but every once in a great while, I watch that one again.
This happened to me just last week! I wanted to watch the kung-fu parody movie where the guy uses “gopher chucks” in a fight, and somehow I got it in my head that the movie was Kung Fu Hustle. So without doing any further research, I added that to my Netflix queue. Well, about 5 minutes in I realized I was watching the wrong movie, but it turns out Kung Fu Hustle is freaking awesome!
The other movie, btw, is Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist, which turned out to be just okay.
If it’s anything like the movie, I suspect Brits like the show because the English in it are civilized types who allow themselves to be bulldozed by evil Scotch savages whom the English may deplore–and the Scottish like the show for the same reason.
Oh, yeah, I think I discovered* Kung Fu Hustle* the same way Justin did. It’s*** AMAZING.***
I saw a crazy asian movie on the IFC channel about some wounded guy holding a girl hostage in an airport. It looked pretty sad and interesting but I didn’t manage to see it all.
Later I tried finding it at the video store and saw THE KILLER, with an image of someone bandaged up holding a woman hostage, and thought it was the movie. It wasn’t but it turned out to be WAY better. Introduced me to the world of Chow Yun Fat and John Woo.
I watched AMERICAN PSYCHO at my step moms house because she had a bunch of VHS tapes and I was bored. I hated the movie, but ended up watching it again and it turned out to be pretty good, mostly because of the subtle performace of Christian Bale. The best parts of the movie are when he can’t handle normal social situations like comparing business cards.
OVER THE EDGE was also a VHS movie I watched because I was bored. Much better than BOYZ N THE HOOD.
My local theatre had an advance showing of Kung Fu Hustle before it released. Got the flyer in my mailbox because it was addressed to the previous owner of the house, who was on their mailing list. I had nothing to do on a Wednesday night.
Thank goodness I had nothing else to do that night. KFH is a movie I’ll always stop to watch if I stumble across it on TV, even the not-so-good dubbed version.
I had just moved into my furnished college dorm, literally putting things into the dresser for the first time. I found two DVD cases left in the dresser. The other DVD was decoy case for some porn. I want to think that the discs were hidden or concealed in some way, given the porn. However, I didn’t watch the porn.
About Schmidt was a Blockbuster rental [This was Summer 2004] and it was apparently rented to the previous tenant. I was going to return the DVD, that was obvious, but I figured, I should watch it first.
That movie spoke to me in a way I didn’t expect. I bought the DVD and yes, it still gets to me.
The exact opposite : Crash (2004)
I had the chance to rent the movie online for 99 cents from a now defunct streaming service. I had just enough time to watch it before classes, and I decided against it. I just had a feeling that it would be heavy watching, something I couldn’t just simply get up from and go to class after.
Boy was I right.
Kung Fu Hustle : I don’t remember now how I fist came to watch it, but years later I was asking myself
What was that movie with the Deaf Girl and the Lollipop?
And I asked around. Completely forgetting
The Landlord Couple, The Tailor, Doughnut Maker, and the third guy, and the Musicians
Rented it again, and found it for cheap one day, bought it instantly.
Come to think of it, I would rate both of those movies the same. For different reasons, obviously, but I think they are both around the B+ A- mark. Up gets further because it was animated and is Pixar, Up in the Air gets just as far because of how topical it was.
Yeah, I can see the eyes rolling already for this one.
I was at my parents house for Thanksgiving, flipping around at 2 in the morning. Found it on IFC.
Ok, so say what you want about the acting, but remember that it was done on a shoestring budget, a Canadian shoestring budget. IMHO the dialogue carried the movie. It carries the movie far. Lots to unpack from it. The minimalism of it all really worked for me.
Can’t say as much for Cube 2: Hypercube. But I bought the DVD of it just to have it for the collection. Cube Zero was an easy choice, and suffice to say, it makes CUBE all the more worth it.
Thanks Zjestika. I did see that only PAL recordings of the show are available for purchase, but I hope that will change in the future, or that it gets streamed via Netflix at some point.
A friend and I went to the movies one night many years ago. I don’t remember what we’d originally set out to see, but we ended up at the wrong theater. So, rather than driving halfway across town, we opted to check out whatever might look promising on the marquee. We picked a new release that neither of us had ever heard of and knew nothing about. It was called The English Patient.
Yes, yes, I know. The mere mention of that film will get me expelled physically (and with great force) from the proximity of many a cinephile. But from the opening frames, especially the way the drying brush strokes on the cave wall segued seamlessly into the aerial view of the desert, I was hooked.
It happens to me quite frequently, but the one I remember the most is Click with Adam Sandler. I was channel surfing, stumbled into that, and actually turned out to be a pretty good movie. It was a nice surprise.
My uncle managed a video rental store that closed about ten years ago. I was just out of high school, still living with my parents, and he was staying at our place in a converted garage. Boxes and boxes of VHS tapes ended up in that garage due to the video store closing. I rummaged through the boxes and found something that looked interesting, and popped it in the vcr.
I honestly don’t remember what I intended to watch, but the VHS casette had been placed in the wrong box. I was watching Mementoentirely by accident, and to date I still consider it the best movie I have ever seen. Christopher Nolan will be remembered for the new Batman movies though, and not for this masterpiece. It boggles the mind.
I was standing in a queue at a fish and chip shop after the pubs had closed when I started watching Point Blank on the small B&W set behind the counter.
I got hooked and rushed home to watch the rest of it.
Since then I have watched it from beginning to end on a decent sized, colour set(several times) and it is one of my top movies.
Paris, Texas was on the Flix channel on Monday night. Its a channel I rarely even browse by most of the time but I did on Monday, about five minutes into the movie.
I guess I don’t really qualify because even though I wanted to sit down and just watch the rest of the movie that night, I had some stuff to do and just couldn’t spend the rest of my Monday night watching it. It’s now in my list of movies I should watch someday…
Not so much by accident, but mild curiosity. I was Tivo’ing some TCM movies, when I noticed that they were showing *On the Waterfront. *I hate “crime dramas,” hate movies about the mob, hate anti-heroes, and am not a fan of Brando. But I knew this movie won eight Academy Awards, so I figured I’d watch maybe the first 10-15 minutes, just out of curiosity. It turned out to be the most riveting, moving, attention-grabbing film, and every aspect of it . . . the acting, direction, plot, music, editing, everything about it . . . was superb. I wound up watching it three times.