read between the runs

for whatever reason, about five years ago i lost just about all desire to watch movies. i have almost no motivation to watch new movies or past favorites in any capacity. i barely even want to watch tv shows anymore. maybe it was the wealth of choice and i was paralyzed with so many options that i elected to just forgo them all. even new releases that i have genuine interest in, i just won’t go see. star wars, my favorite franchise of all time that i used to watch in its entirety twice a year, i have not watched in five years either. though i love the time i spend on other hobbies and the short(er)-form content that i consume daily, i am missing out on watching an art form that i do genuinely enjoy whenever i am watching. and that’s the most confusing aspect of this to me– i really like watching movies once i start them!

so in hopes of rekindling my previous adoration of movies, i want to compile a list of my top 10 all time. for the sake of equity, i will avoid all star wars movies on this list. i am also going to pre-commit to watching them all over this summer and ranking them before i start school again in august.

in this list, i will seek to avoid movies that i watched based only on loving the book. i think that takes away from the pure love of the movie itself and pushes closer to a zone of a love for what a book represented. if i watched them separately, then they are still fair game. i am quite ineloquent when discussing these movies, so forgive me for that. i don’t really know how to talk about movies, and didn’t know where to start.

11. The Woman King (2022)

this is the only movie on this list that i’ve only seen once and has a serious tone. this was a movie that autumn and i went to the theaters with autumn for, and i immediately wanted to go watch it again. this came out during the height of my love for black fantasy, so this was destined to become a favorite. it just encapsulated everything that i love about battle scenes and fantasy and has weighed in my mind heavy since i saw it. now i just need to watch it again

10. Tropic Thunder (2008)

i’ve long been a fan of satire, and this movie represents the ultimate satire. it takes itself unseriously the entire time and excels because of it. the concept of the characters thinking they were shooting a movie but they ended up being in a real war was done well. the over the top stereotypes were executed well, though i don’t think it could be made today. and… yeah, that’s all i have to say about it lol.

9. Division III: Football’s Finest (2011)

probably the most insane movie on this list. this is just true, classic, absolute trash that was endemic in the early 2000’s. it’s one of those movies that could never be made today, but i love that it was able to be made. it’s been a while since i’ve seen it so maybe i would change my mind if i watched it again now, but the memories i have from watching this when i was younger are grand. GETSOME!

8. The Dictator (2012)

just an insanely, awfully racist movie throughout, but darn was it silly. there are so many moments from this movie that still stick out in my mind, moreso than anything else on this list. i’m not proud to like this movie, but i think it was just such a sensationalized, over the top version of what it was parody-ing that it really separates itself from the source material.

7. Pitch Perfect (2015)

when this came out, it was like crack. i don’t know that i have ever been as excited for a movie to drop than i was for Pitch Perfect my senior year of high school. the previews had me in stitches and i could not wait for it to come out. and when it did, i was absolutely not disappointed. there was definitely a time in my life when i would have called this my favorite movie

6. Troop Zero (2020)

this is the first and only movie that i truly binge watched. i saw it once, and then watched it back to back to back to back to back. five days in a row, the same movie. thinking back to 2020, i can’t even explain why i loved it so much that i felt compelled to keep watching. i think it came out at a time where people really needed a win, and the kindhearted affect of it all really struck home. i’ve watched it a couple more times since, and it still hit the same so i know it wasn’t pure lightning in a bottle.

5. The Longest Ride (2015)

this is not my kind of movie at all. i think i must have just watched it at a very impressionable time. i don’t even remember how i first watched it because knowing that it’s nicholas sparks would be a huge turn-off for me. for some reason, this love story about a bull-rider with flashbacks to a wwii love story about art really moved me and i found a way to still love it. definitely need to read the book!

4. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (1999)

everything about south park is peak, especially this movie. the songs are epic, the characters, insane, and the utilization of 666 curse words is also insane. nothing in this movie makes linear sense. it’s just balls to the walls nonsense for every second and i was here for it. i acknowledge that this movie is not for everyone, maybe the most dislikable movie on the list, but i love it for me.

3. The Lego Movie (2014)

what a joy of a movie. i’m glad that i love the lego movie because it is timeless and the jokes go hard, even for the adults. i wouldn’t consider myself a huge fan of lego, but something about them using the IP of so many different franchises is quite fun. the characters are silly and the master-building is cool. everything about the whole story is fun and everything is awesome!

2. The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

the only movie on here that makes me cry. and not just once, but still every time that i watch it. i can’t really even explain the love that i have for this movie. the tone is light until it isn’t. and then it really isn’t. but the way everything is handled, and just how deep of a story it is while being for teens is astounding. truly i love this movie so much and i’m glad that humanity was graced with this story. there are many quotes from this that continue to stick out to me and i think about to this day.

1. A Walk in the Woods (2015)

sigh, what an amazing movie. i love this movie for the movie that it is and not just because of the lord huron centric soundtrack, though that doesn’t hurt. i love the buddy movie trope where two people are doing something they have no real business attempting, and this executed that very well. it’s inspired me in a lot of ways that i can’t quite put into words, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.

after compiling the list, it is interesting to learn a lot about myself. first, almost all of the movies i deemed favorites were comedy’s in some fashion. literally only south park came out before 1999 and everything else is pretty well clustered , so i have genuinely little interest in classics, just as i am with books. writing this definitely showed me that i am in no way a movie critic because i had almost no idea about what to say about movies about what i liked about them or made them stand out. i definitely have some desire to watch some of these again now, so i would say that the mission was accomplished!

do great; be happy