movie night

the seventh seal

hero

children of heaven

monty python and the holy grail

grand illusion

punch drunk love

searching for bobby fischer

dead of night

ghostbusters

amelie

m

the shawshank redemption

citizen kane

yojimbo

babel

casablanca

wild strawberries

little miss sunshine

rushmore

lost in translation

lawrence of arabia

traffic

the abyss

vertigo

the royal tenenbaums

dr. strangelove (or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)

rashomon

ikiru

raiders of the lost ark

the man who planted trees

fanny and alexander

the sting

duck soup

my neighbor totoro

double indemnity

groundhog day

the dark crystal

spirited away

uhf

singin' in the rain

millions

bill and ted's excellent adventure

the cup

to live

32 short films about glenn gould

mystery science theater 3000: the movie

the muppet family Christmas carol

not one less

firefly

pieces of april

blood diamond

dreams

joe vs. the volcano

minority report

shall we dance

mirrormask

raising arizona

mr. smith goes to washington

he loves me, he loves me not

it all began two years or so years ago, when i would hang around after church and talk with our executive secretary, who served his mission in sweden.  i mentioned that there was a swedish director i liked, and, after weeks of saying we should, we did get together one night and watched the seventh seal.  trevor, mark, and i enjoyed it enough that we got together the next week and watched hero.  another friend came.  then some girls wanted to come.  thus, movie night was born.

for me, it's a chance to watch my favorite movies with my friends.  for them, it's a chance to see something they probably would otherwise never see, a chance to get together, or time to catch a nap.  and, since tim and i went to best buy in july, it's a chance to play rock band afterward.

i try introduce the movies with a few notes or insights, to put the movie into context, help people understand why it's "great", or give things to look for.  when i'm off on a movie, mark and tim take over as host.  and, showing my roots as a byu film grad, i try to have a discussion about the film afterward.  sometimes it goes well; lost in translation brings plenty to talk about, and traffic's discussion went in a different direction than i planned.  other weeks, no one really has anything to say and we break out the guitars and drum set.

for the sake of the variety of interests, i try to balance between the black and white art film and movies that are more mainstream but may have been overlooked.  it took a lot of courage to show solaris, yet everyone who came really liked it.  there are people who want to see the ponderous international films and others who generally prefer color and, if possible, english.

and while everyone comes at their own free will, if people aren't enjoying the show, it's hard for me to enjoy it.  as a result, showing 2001 a few weeks ago didn't go quite so well.

uhf was, i think, the least popular.  thankfully, my dad reassured me that the movie is, indeed, a classic.  conversely, babel is, by far, the most popular.  it's been shown at least four times, and people always want to see it yet again.  he loves me, he loves me not kind of freaked out a friend (as it's prone to do on occasion) and made fans of a few others.

the attendees have rotated through at least two full times, as is prone to happen in a the young single world of provo, with the exception of mark, who has been here since the beginning.  i used to worry i'd run out of movies, yet the turnover rate allows me to show my favorites again, and i still seem to have a plentiful list to keep it going for quite a while.