Three, Schmee!

I love DVDs. They let me relive my childhood, or at least the parts spent sitting in front of the TV. What a minute. That pretty much was my whole childhood. Anyhow, in the last three years I've amassed quite the collection of low-budget horror and sci-fi films. It's always fun to watch someone's reaction when they browse through my movie shelf and pause at titles like The Thing With 2 Heads or The Giant Gila Monster. This has led a few of my friends to conclude that my entire collection consists of old American-International Pictures and Hammer Horror flicks.

That's untrue. I have a quite a few episodes of Doctor Who, too.

Actually, there are more than a few Hollywood Blockbusters lining the shelves -- The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Signs, and Spider-Man, just to name a few. I've lately been enjoying both my Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies.

In fact, it was my viewing of the adventures of Luke Skywalker and Indy that prompted me to look up the all-time box office champs on the Internet Movie Database. I remember back in high school when almost all the movies in the top ten had the names Speilberg or Lucas attached and I wanted to see if the situation had changed. Boy, has it ever.

The number one box office film of all time is Titanic, proving that women can go to movies en masse. I had avoided this whole phenomenon back in the early 90s, because I didn't see a point in watching a movie when the ending was already apparent. The ship sinks! The ship sinks! I would warn my female coworkers to no avail. Then they would show up for work the next day sobbing with red swollen eyes. Go figure. But Titanic made over 600 million for movie theaters and easily double that amount for Kleenex manufacturers.

The number two film was easy enough to predict -- Star Wars. I don't think there's ever been quite as perfect of a fantasy film and I don't think there ever will be. No gripes here.

Then I continued down the list: Shrek 2 at number three, E.T at number four, The Phantom Menace at number five...

Wait a second. Did I just type Shrek-freaking-2 as the number three box office champ of all-time? How the heck did that happen? I do concede that it was a pleasant enough diversion for kids, but NUMBER THREE? That many people went to see a so-so sequel about an ogre and his bride who looks like a green-skinned Oprah Winfrey? I just can't fathom that this film was that significant to Americans. I can't honestly imagine people having the same kind of emotional reactions that they had with Titanic, Star Wars or E.T.:

"Everytime I think of Donkey I can't stop crying!"
or
"This film changed movies forever. I went to NYU film school to be a director because of Shrek 2."
or
"Shrek 2 made me hungry for Reese's Pieces!"

Number Three. I demand a recount. And I bet that's not the only time you're going to read those words in the next three weeks!

BADA-BING!