Thursday, May 24, 2012

Proof That I Am A Total Movie Nerd

This is maybe more of an example that I am a little bit obsessive-compulsive than an example of the fact that I seriously love movies, but I'll share with you guys something that I've been doing for years. It's not as exciting as you think it is...

I save the ticket stubs from every movie I see in the theater. 

See? Not that cool. A search on the Google tells me that A LOT of people do this - saving ticket stubs from movies, concerts, and other events is of course a great keepsake method - but I'm pretty proud of myself for how long I've been doing it and the fact that I've kept it up. It's become an unconscious thing of mine to drop my stubs into my wallet after showing them to the ticket guy and putting them in my little Ziploc baggie of stubs when I get home. 

So just how long have I been doing this, you ask (or don't ask, whatever)? The first stub I have (I think it's the first one, at least) is from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. 


That came out in 1997 and the date on the stub is 5/31. 

You guys. THAT IS ALMOST EXACTLY 15 YEARS OF MOVIE TICKET STUB-SAVING. Holy crap. I'm impressed with myself. There might be a few stubs I'm missing, from ones that I've lost or whatever, but this little pile of paper is a pretty accurate portrayal of the movies I've seen in the theater for almost half my life. Of course, I saw many movies before The Lost World, but that's just when I decided to start saving them.

I wish I had kept them in better order - I think some of them are out of place - but they're as well organized as they can be for being kept in a Ziploc for 15 years. Should I list all the stubs I have?

Meh, I'm curious. Let's see what I got!


The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Forces of Nature
Fight Club
Entrapment
Saving Private Ryan
The Thin Red Line
Batman and Robin
Speed 2: Cruise Control
Picture Perfect
My Best Friend's Wedding
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Contact
In & Out
Men in Black
Titanic
Ed TV
The Other Sister
Titanic (yes, AGAIN)
Forces of Nature (yeah, I saw this one twice, too! I loves Sandra Bullock)
Cruel Intentions
Notting Hill
Mickey Blue Eyes
Grease (OMG, the Grease re-release! This was so much fun!)
The Newton Boys
A Civil Action
Armageddon
Deep Impact
Hope Floats
Armageddon (what?? I don't remember seeing this one twice but I obviously did!)
Patch Adams
A Simple Plan
The Parent Trap
Lethal Weapon 4
Titanic (yeah, I saw this THREE times in the theater. Each time, I had to go with someone who hadn't seen it yet and really wanted to. But I liked the movie... and still do... so I didn't really mind)
Urban Legend
The General's Daughter
Girl, Interrupted
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
The Astronaut's Wife
Deep Blue Sea (FUCK YEAH)
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
The X-Files 
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
Double Jeopardy
American Beauty
The Haunting
The Sixth Sense
Runaway Bride
Ever After: A Cinderella Story
The Green Mile
American Psycho
Reindeer Games
Analyze This
Wild Wild West
Mission Impossible 2
What Lies Beneath
The Perfect Storm
Ocean's Eleven
Save the Last Dance
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Hannibal
Heartbreakers
The Mummy Returns
Moulin Rouge
Catch Me If You Can
A Guy Thing
Final Destination 2
Shrek
Pearl Harbor
AI: Artificial Intelligence
The Fast and the Furious
Jurassic Park 3
America's Sweethearts
Hearts in Atlantis
The Others
Spy Game
A Beautiful Mind
Frailty
Lilo and Stitch
Payback
Eight Legged Freaks
Men in Black 2
Signs
Fear Dot Com
Star Trek Nemesis
Chicago
X-Men
Wrong Turn
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Twisted
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Dark Knight
Kill Bill: Volume 2
The Forgotten
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
White Noise
House of Wax
The Amityville Horror
Wedding Crashers
Land of the Dead
Saw 2
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Wolf Creek
Hostel
Brokeback Mountain
V For Vendetta
The DaVinci Code
The Lake House
Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Beginning
The Phantom of the Opera
Dead Silence
Hostel Part 2
1408
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Pirates of the Carribbean (not sure which one)
Spider Man 3
The Reaping
Transformers
Saw
Halloween (Rob Zombie's, of course)
Saw 4
Doubt
The Unborn
My Bloody Valentine (the first 3D movie I ever saw!)
The Uninvited
Friday the 13th (shitty remake)
Slumdog Millionaire
Watchmen
The Last House on the Left (awesome remake)
Quarantine
The Ruins
Saw 5
Revolutionary Road
The Haunting in Connecticut
Drag Me to Hell
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Orphan
Saw 6
Shutter Island
A Nightmare on Elm Street (another shitty remake)
Piranha 3D (fucking awesome remake)
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Saw 7 (or Saw: The Final Chapter or whatever the hell the official title is)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Scream 4
Kung Fu Panda 2
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Shark Night
and finally....
The Cabin in the Woods


Whew. So what I gather from my collection is that I don't see many movies in the theater anymore... I need to get better at that... or I need more time in the day. Also, my taste in what movies I see in the theater has gotten a bit better over the years. Did I really waste my time and money on Speed 2: Cruise Control??? Well, Sandra Bullock is still my favorite actress, so that's the only excuse I have for that one. Some of these movies I don't even remember seeing at all. Spy Game? A Guy Thing? I put a little note on that stub that says "A Guy (Gay!) Thing" so I obviously hated it. And where is Saw 3? Because I know I've seen all the Saw movies in the theater.

Anyway, that's my nerd post. So do any of you guys do this or have some other nerdy movie keepsake ritual?

13 comments:

  1. I kinda do something similar; every slasher/ thriller film I watch, it goes to a book.

    I think I'm gonna make a post like this one soon! HURRAY FOR NERD POST!

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  2. whoo, awesome collection. How about photographing and posting them all? ;-)

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  3. Wow that is a fun mini history of your cinema going habits and fun to see what movies were popular at one point or another, while highlighting how much british censorship sucks as I wasn't old enough to see "American Beauty" when it was released but stateside, you can just turn up with a random hobo pretending to be your parent or responsible adult and they let you in?!?
    Also noticed you saw "Kill Bill Part 2" but not part 1?? Is this a missing stub? Probebly obsessing over such a minor thing perhaps alittle too much, but kind of an indication of todays work day.

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  4. @Kaijinu: That was another thing I noticed from doing this: that I went from seeing crappy PG13 chick flicks to almost all horror/thriller movies. They are way more fun at the theater, anyway!

    @Maynard: I actually thought about doing that for about two seconds until I looked at all the ones I had! Maybe I'll get one of those binders with plastic holders and put them all in there and then photograph it.

    @Elwood: Wow, that IS weird. American Beauty came out in 1999... so I was only 14. How did I see that? But my parents were always cool when I was younger about letting me see what I wanted so maybe one of them took me. I know my dad went with me to see Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, but that was because he loves war movies.
    And no, Kill Bill is not a missing one. I'm not sure why I missed that at the theater, but I did, so I made sure that I saw Volume 2!

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  5. I've been saving all my movie stubs since 2005. I don't really know why either... I just cant seem to throw the things away!

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  6. I keep a strand of hair from each of my victims. ;D

    I only save movie/concert stubs of the ones that meant the most to me.

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  7. That won't surprise anyone, including you, Michele, but I do it as well! :) Not since 1997 though. LOL. I have about hundred tickets in my collection and proud of it. You should be proud too. :)

    But... Batman and Robin and Wild Wild West? Really? Oh, wait, I think I saw Joel Schumacher's crappy Batman installment in the theater too. Biggest 'cinematic' mistake of my life. LOL.

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  8. I do the same exact thing! I save them in my wallet until it's to fat to fold and fit in my pocket. I think my collection goes back even further. 6 or 7 years ago I sat down and started typing up a list and putting them in order. Some had become so warn in my wallet and in the box that I store them in, that I can no longer read them. I'm glad to know that you share my affliction. - Cory

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  9. @Erik: Keep saving them! Fifteen years down the road, you might be surprised by what you've wasted your money on - or have good memories of the movies you saw, whatever... :)

    @Jenny: That's definitely important, too, and again you'll be glad you saved that kind of stuff later on.

    @Nebs: I am proud of the fact that I've kept them all... maybe not so proud of some of the movies listed up there! Wild Wild West??? That's kind of humiliating. But hey, a good portion of these were from all the crap I saw in junior high school and high school, before my friends and I could get into R movies, so I have a somewhat good excuse!
    Batman and Robin was actually a really fun theater-going experience for me (I revisited it on the Full Moon Reviews blog). Everybody was in such a good mood and having a ball totally not taking this movie seriously. It was good times, actually!

    @Cory: Hey, apparently a lot of us do this so I feel less weird about it now! From the state of my tickets, it looks like I might have to sit down and type up a list in order as well... but then none of them have years listed on them so I might have to go back and look up the release date of these movies.. ugh, that's gonna be a lot of work!

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  10. I saw Batman & Robin at the cinema when I was about 15 and I genuinely thought it was, quite unironically the best thing ever.

    Cool collection. Makes me wish I'd done the same. Nice post - it's always cool to see other fans' viewing/collection habits.

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  11. Glad I'm not the only one who does this! I've saved all my tickets (well, at least the ones I got at theaters who provided tickets with the name of the movies on them. A few local small theaters just gave out those high school like raffle tickets. And really, what's the point in saving those sans title, right?) since 1996 when I saw the Jackie Chan flick SUPERCOP. Now, why I decided to start saving the tix then I've no idea. But the next one was THE FRIGHTENERS, so I guess I might've just had that ticket in my wallet and decided to start then. Who knows what was going on in my 18 year old brain back then.

    It's fun looking back though, I don't even remember seeing MARS ATTACKS 3 times in the theater.

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  12. I got to see Robocop at the cinema the other week. As I left I realised the stub wasn't in my pocket anymore! I ran back in to find it!

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  13. I used to do this until the started printing them with this real shitty ink that fades away after a couple of days...but I had a lot of these old movie stubs!

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