Alphabetical Movie – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

By strange coincidence, I am writing about this movie just as I’ve been thinking about movies I call “gift movies”.  By that I mean movies that I like to “give” to people.

If you are a movie fan to any degree, you have movies that fall into that category.  You love it too much to keep it to yourself.  The Dish has always been a film that falls into that category for me.  I’m always eager to give that movie to another person.

I don’t mean “give” in the physical sense.  Rather I mean giving the opportunity to share the experience of watching that film with as many people as possible.

I have a friend who has a deep love of the film Fish Story. He loves it so much that if you tell him you haven’t seen it, he will practically tie you down and force you to call in sick to work to ensure you will see it immediately. In his opinion, every moment you spend having not seen the film is a moment wasted.

There is some risk in such an attachment.  The odds are good that very few people will love it as much as he does.  If just one person loves it that much, though, that person just might share it with a different bunch of people.  Pretty soon they are all having Fish Story parties and, eventually, conventions.  All because this one guy loved the movie enough to push it like a drug that may not be illegal but is still only available via expensive import.

Chronicle is that kind of movie for me.  It wasn’t a box office failure but I know very few people who have seen it.  I think that’s a shame because I think it takes the found footage genre and really plays with the idea of why the footage even exists.  It feels more natural than most films of that type and I want people to what it mostly so they can see what the popular conceit can look like if it is handled well.

Also, I want them to see a super-hero movie about a character who is completely new.  Viewers don’t have the baggage that comes with years of Superman (or Batman or Spider-Man)  fandom.

Since I brought it up, it should be obvious that I think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is another gift movie.  In my case, it was one of those movies that was gifted to me by a friend who observed, rightly, that this movie was exactly my kind of thing.  I don’t push it as a gift movie myself because I’m far more obsessed with getting The Dish in front of as many people as possible.

I’m grateful, though, that someone else wanted to give the enjoyment of that movie to me.  I think it is something that true movie lovers share – that desire to bring someone else in on their discovery.  Because we all share that desire, we also are more likely to indulge the behavior in others.

The next time a film fan wants to sit you down so you will watch something, humor them.  You may not love the film the way they do but the odds are good that you won’t be disappointed.