Have you ever killed a movie?
11 April 2008 in Blog | Comments enabled

It takes a long time to resurrect them.

In 1995, the Mel Gibson film Braveheart was released. I don’t remember if my family went to see it in theaters. Possibly. But I know that we rented it and eventually bought it. At the time, we watched Braveheart several times and over the next few years, we’d watch it once a month. The Daws Family LOVED Braveheart.

And we killed it. I’ve probably seen Braveheart once since 1997. There are some movies that you enjoy so much that you want it to be played round the clock. And then one day, you wake up and someone suggests watching it and your reaction is, “Ick. I’ve seen it too much.” That’s what we did at the time - we’d watch films so much that we’d suck the very life out of them. It was the only way we knew how to view films. Over and over. (It really is the best way to appreciate a film and learn from it.)

Strangely enough, Dumb and Dumber was the other one we were killing around the same time. So whenever I think of Braveheart, I can’t help but think of Dumb and Dumber. Weird.

This week, Braveheart has been raised from the dead for me. I’ve been wanting to see it for a few months now and decided to borrow it from Josh. (I’m telling you, it was dead - I didn’t even buy it when it was released on DVD.)

I watched the film today and it was new again. What a fantastic film. It has so many great quotes. “I’m going to pick a fight.” “You may take our lands but you will never take our freedom.” And this time, I’m watching it as a serious filmmaker rather than a 15-year-old kid who likes to make stop motion films with his Star Wars action figures. And you know what? As soon as it finished, I wanted to start it again. Hurray!!!

So the cycle of life goes on even in the world of my DVD collection. I have killed and seen brought back to life such movies as The Abyss, Field of Dreams, The Truman Show, and many more.

You can see this phenomenon most when it comes to Christmas movies. My family and I have about 20 Christmas movies we watch during the months of November and December. By December 25th, I hate those movies. But by the following November, we can’t wait to pull them out again.

There are a few movies that I am killing or have killed recently. A few of them are:

The Aviator
Mission Impossible 3
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (its not dead but its dying)
The Last Samurai
Pirates of the Carribean
Walk the Line

So Braveheart gives me hope that even though I kill a film, its not really dead. It will come back and I’ll watch it again. And when the film does come back to life for me, I’ll appreciate it in a whole new light.

I just bought There Will Be Blood on DVD. That’ll be the next one I kill.