“See, I wasn’t lying when I said yesterday that the next film on the list was better quality.
I figured out another way to justify this one being ranked right above Funny Games, even though I was more eager to watch Games. I’d stated before that franchises only get represented once on the list. Sometimes an entry counts for multiple films, sometimes its just the one. I’ll say that Bourne Ultimatum gives it the bump to pull ahead of Funny Games. I wouldnt count in Bourne Supremacy, though. It was slow and confusing.
Cue the obligatory I-remember-when-I-first-saw-this-movie antecdote.
But first, wow Matt Damon looks young.
Right, my story. Summer 2002 I spent in LA at an engineering campy thing run (or at least sponsored by) NASA. It was me and 19 other high schoolers plus our four RA’s who were students at the college we were staying at. The way the program worked is we’d have internships 9-5 M-T, workshops on Fri. Then lots of fun was planned for the weekend. Everything was payed for and we got a stipend. I lucked out being in LA group because our paid-for-by-NASA fun included things like Disneyland and Magic Mountain, and even a Tonight Show taping. I had a friend in New Mexico and they didnt really get to do anything fun. But I digress. We did have a few movie trips included in our tight but AMAZING schedule.
I dont think I’ve ever been as movie unaware as I was that summer. At this point in time, I’d barely make double digit trips to the theater in a year, if that (compared to 75+ now). I usually had a good sense of what was going on because I’d see all the trailers on TV. But the summer of aught two left zero tv time. All I knew is after a day of shopping or some such we were suddenly at a movie theater and a ticket was placed in my hand. The Bourne wha? I coudnt keep the title of the film straight. Needless to say, I had no freakin’ clue what the film was about going in. Little ironic I guess, in that it gave me solidarity with Jason Bourne in a way. I also remember obsessing over the rating for the film. I hadn’t seen too many R rated ones at that point, and I didnt know if this was but it did seem damn violent. In my head, I convinced myself it was, which made it all the more exciting.
I realized when plotting this write up there’s another film on the list that could have included that story. But Bourne got here first. I’ll hafta think of something else to talk about with the other film to be revealed later. I think I can manage that.
By the time I saw this, I was well on my way to action junkie-ness. That’s one of the reasons I loved it so much. I also was really drawn into the mystery. Im fairly sure this was my first encounter with Matt Damon (again, my film addition only started senior year of high school, but it didnt hit full blown heroin levels til college).
Also, why I haven’t I been able to stop looking at this site (NSFW) all freakin’ day? I dont know what’s worse. The mediocre designs with pisspoor execution, or the awful designs that are too well done for their own good.”