timeless

So I was being a dick to my ex-roommate via the Facebook wall of his friend and was drawn into a discussion of what movies are "timeless," their definition of timeless being something that people will still watch in fifty years.

This just seems pointless to me. There are movies that I seek out and watch that were made over fifty years ago. 40s detective shit that rocks (because nobody can disarm Peter Lorre quite like Humphrey Bogart). I may only watch Murder, My Sweet once, and then send the netflix back, but that's a movie I enjoyed that is more than fifty years old - so let's say some kid in fifty years gets really into old George Clooney movies and ends up watching The Perfect Storm or Batman & Robin or some other non-"timeless" shit. That doesn't make a shitty movie like The Perfect Storm timeless. And that kid would probably really like Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. One time. People are always going to watch movies. Not everybody will watch the older movies, but people like me, who are really, really into it, will.

Maybe the point is a movie that I myself would still be watching in fifty years even though I'll have already been watching it for fifty years. Well, in fifty years, I'll be seventy years old. I'll probably be willing to watch whatever the fuck my grandkids put in front of me as long as i have applesauce and a clean diaper.

While we're at it, where is the line drawn for a movie that's almost timeless, but doesn't quite make it? Is it a bad supporting performance? One redundant scene too many? Shit, what about "timeless" movies that get old after fifty-one years? It's pretty bizarre criteria for a movie to meet, and when you think about it, nothing in any art form really is "timeless" because human opinion is too much of a variable. Movies that people still watch in fifty years are the movies that got lucky.

I guess I'm just saying that I think whether a movie is "timeless" or not is completely irrelevant to any possible situation. Nobody's ever going to base their sunday night Blockbuster Video decision on which movie is "timeless." They're just going to pick whichever one their girlfriend feels like watching and hope she'll feel like sex that night after the movie. Timeless is a hyperbolic word that critics use to get their point across and get their names on movie posters and DVD covers. Who even cares?

That said, Robocop is totally timeless.


Mark my words.