My Life — As Told Through Film
Look out, it’s only Films to be Buried With!
We’re approaching a full year admist the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown that’s come with it, and while most of the world has been forced to slow down it seems the one industry that hasn’t been negatively affected is podcasting. Having once again been thrust into full-time working from home my podcast listening has exploded, and one show I’ve become particularly attached to is Films to be Buried With, hosted by the incredible Brett Goldstein whom you may know as one of the stars of Ted Lasso.
Each week Brett is joined by a guest, some you definitely know and others you may not have heard of, and he invites them to tell the story of their life through film. It’s an interesting premise — the guest is informed that they have unfortunately died, they’re then asked to tell the story of their death before running through the gauntlet of film related questions. I genuinely love this show, I genuinely love films, and since I’m unlikely to ever be in the guest’s chair I thought it would be fun to answer the questions and tell my story.
So let’s begin.
What is the first film you remember seeing?
I think it’s probable that I had seen something before this, but the very first film I can remember seeing is George of the Jungle. I would have been 5 or 6 years old, and I remember going to the small movie theatre on the corner with my dad and loving every minute of it.
What film is not critically acclaimed whatsoever, but you don’t care because you love it?
This is always a controversial opinion but I fucking love Batman Forever. By all accounts this is a terrible film but goddamn Jim Carrey chewing the scenes as The Riddler, my favourite Batman villain? Come on.
What is the film you once loved, but watching it now you realize it’s terrible?
There’s so many films I could name here that it was actually difficult to just pick one. For me though the answer is Beverly Hills Ninja, starring Chris Farley and Chris Rock. The Chris’. Chris². I used to watch this film at least once a week and at one point I know that I had basically the entire thing committed to memory.
What was the film that scared you the most?
Anyone who knows me knows that I fucking hate horror. It’s by far my least favourite film genre, in fact it may be the only one I don’t actively like. So much like the previous question there’s plenty to choose from but I bet you didn’t expect that I was going to say Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yep, that’s right, The Dick Van Dyke film with the catchy songs. While not scary in and of itself, what I remember is being absolutely terrified of the child catcher. So much so that I refuse to ever watch this film again.
What film made you cry the most?
While I regularly get emotional watching films, I’m not much of a crier. Television? Whole other story. I may be forgetting a more obvious choice here but from what I can remember it was The Bucket List that made me cry the most. It’s hard to go back and watch this now — the story of two strangers, both terminally ill and with only six months to live who decide to spend the rest of their days living their dreams. I get flashbacks to my fathers battle with cancer, and remembering what it felt like to hear that he only had six months left.
What film is terrible but you love it?
I have such a soft spot for Cop Out. Every time I watch it I’m hopeful that it’ll be better than the last time but unfortunately it never is. I remember it being eviscerated by critics upon release, and to be honest it’s easy to see why, but I kinda just don’t care because Tracy Morgan is too damn good.
What is the film that means the most to you? Not because of the film itself, but because of the memories you have of it?
Accepted means the world to me. I saw it as I was approaching high school graduation, also not knowing what the fuck I wanted to do with my life. I’ve said before but this film changed my life’s trajectory. The idea that anyone can do anything that they’re interested in, and that you don’t need a college degree to be successful in life, was incredibly inspiring to me and is the reason I started to learn about design and web development. It’s the reason I have an entirely self-taught career and I can confidently say that without it I would be an entirely different person.
What is the sexiest film?
It’s hard to choose anything other than Magic Mike for this. But I’ve also had a wild man crush on Channing Tatum ever since I saw Step Up for the first time.
What film do you most relate to?
I don’t want to double down on Accepted so I think the next film in line would be Pitch Perfect. It may not be the film I’ve seen the most in my entire life but I’m pretty sure it’s the film I’ve seen the most since it was released back in 2012. I remember my sister had to basically drag me to the theatre to watch it with her but I’m so glad she did. This film helped me come to terms with someone always on the outside feeling like they don’t belong to any one group. Plus it introduced me to Utkarsh Ambudkar, who is now one of my very favourite artists.
Which film is objectively the greatest film of all time?
This is actually my favourite question in the show because every guest seems to want to find an answer that isn’t just The Godfather. Unfortunately I’m not one of them — to me it’s a toss up between The Godfather or The Godfather Part II.
Which film is the one you’ve watched the most?
I laugh thinking about this but I’ve seen The Hot Chick more than any person should ever watch any one film. Growing up we had a DVD player in our minivan, and when my little brother was born it seemed like this was the only thing that would keep him from crying when we were driving around. So it was always on. And when I say always, I mean always. When it ended we’d just start it over from the beginning and I can’t even begin attempt to count just how many times I’ve seen it.
What is the worst film you’ve ever seen?
It takes a lot for me to hate a films. If you scroll up you can see that most of my answers here are films that one may say are objectively terrible. I can’t remember which film exactly it was but I do remember falling asleep during one of the Resident Evil films. It’s either that or the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender. That thing sucked.
What film made you laugh the most?
Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Holy fuck even rewatching it now I still laugh at almost every scene. I still remember the first time I ever saw it, channel surfing on cable late one weeknight and I switch to a channel that’s showing a uniformed Will Ferrell ride up to a crime scene on a scooter. This is likely also my most quoted film of all time and I find myself still regularly shouting out lines.
It turns out Heaven is real, and in Heaven every night is movie night. Eventually, it’s your movie night, so what film are you bringing to show everyone in Heaven?
This answer will probably change if I’m to redo this in the future but right now my answer is Chef. It’s a film that makes me happy every damn time I watch it, and film that I can never get tired of watching, and a film that may not have been brought yet by others.
If you’ve made it this far I’d like to say thanks for indulging my whimsies, and I really recommend you go check out Films to be Buried With wherever you get your podcasts.
And, as Brett likes to sign off every episode with — Be excellent to each other!
