Since it was launched in 2008, FiveThirtyEight.com has won accolades for the way the site and its editor aggregated and interpreted political polling data. When it was purchased by ESPN in 2013, they expanded their focus to include pop culture and sports. Friday's column suggests that expansion may have been a mistake. They ran a poll of their audience and asked people to list the five films they consider most rewatchable.
FiveThirtyEight.com received 4,362 entries from 1,169 respondents to "the fill-in-the-blank question." On Friday, they posted a list of the top 25 movies adults consider most rewatchable, and a top ten for each gender. However, since I am not a woman and because my wife says I rarely act like an adult, those lists will be ignored and this post will focus on the top ten list as voted on by the men.
One would think that a website own by ESPN would have male readers who are---you know---guys. Yet, this list includes some movies guys would never watch more than once and leaves out some of the most classic "guy" movies in history.
Here is their top ten:
1 Star Wars
2 The Godfather
3 The Lord of the Rings (series)
4 The Wizard of Oz
5 Pulp Fiction
6 The Princess Bride
6 The Shawshank Redemption
6 The Matrix
6 Star Trek
7 The Sound of Music
7 Goodfellas
8 It’s A Wonderful Life
8 Forrest Gump
8 Casablanca
8 Die Hard
9 Gone with the Wind
9 Gladiator
10 Caddyshack
11 The Avengers
11 Star Wars (series)
I don't care what they say, no guy voted for the Wizard of Oz; it doesn't make sense. They may have watched the movie over and over but only because they have a nine-year-old daughter who has been Dorothy for Halloween the last five years in a row.
And the Sound of Music? Puleeeze! That is a move is so sweet, no diabetic is allowed to watch. It's a Wonderful Live is a nice movie, but do you know how many Christian guys pretend to be Scientologists so they don't have to celebrate Christmas and watch Clarence earn his wings one more time?
Forest Gump is a great movie the first-time; after that, you want to skip the movie and go straight to the box of chocolates and, to be perfectly honest, when it comes to Gone With The Wind, most real guys frankly don't give damn. It's a chick flick! Scarlett O'
There are so many classics left off the list:
- Animal House: John Belushi's (or should I say U.S. Senator Butarsky's) greatest movie gave America the toga party. It has classic dialog such as "What? Over? Did you say "over? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" Fivethirtyeight should be put on "double-secret-probation" for not having this movie on their list.
- Blazing Saddles: Mel Brook's classic satire of racist stereotypes includes a scene with nothing but cowboys sitting around a campfire farting. A guy I know watched that movie at least once per day his senior year of college. And he still says his senior year was the best five years of his life.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark: The first and third movies of this series (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) are not only classics, but watched by guys over and over.
- Independence Day: Most guys have seen this movie so many times they can recite President Thomas J. Whitmore's (played by Bill Pullman) classic speech by heart (see the video below). Most guys I know would vote for Whitmore in 2016 if he was real. He's a true leader.
- Airplane: It's almost impossible to spend hour with a guy without hearing one of the many classic lines from this ultimately rewatchable movie. Watching Barbara Billingsly arguing with a few Black guys--in jive, Lloyd Bridges routine about "I picked the wrong day to give up...," and the most famous, Leslie Nielsen's "No, I'm not kidding, and don't call me Shirley."
There are so many other movies that could be included such as: Terminator, Stripes, Spaceballs and Young Frankenstein, (Hump? What hump?) Rambo, Back to School, Police Academy, and so many others.
Maybe, the sale to ESPN was a fake, because it's really hard to believe a website owned by an all-sports media conglomerate could have male readers that have no idea about real guy movies.