Wednesday, July 6

My "Where's Waldo?"

I'm one of those people who likes to sit and watch the entire movie credits at the end of a film.  My reason for this is probably different than many other peoples. 

Why would people want to stay for the credits?

1.  To watch the bloopers
Examples include: many Jackie Chan movies (Supercop, the Rush Hour movies), some Pixar films (the first two Toy Story films, A Bug's Life as well, I think).  I'm sure there are more movies that fit in all the categories I list here but they don't readily come to my mind

2.  To look out for a bonus/epilogue scene that may tie into a sequel
The Pirates of the Caribbean series and any film connected to the behemoth Avengers film has done this.  Captain America: The First Avenger hasn't come out yet, and I haven't seen the entirety of either Iron Man film but I know that all these films have a tag/tie-in scene after the main plot of the film has officially ended. 


3.  To see the names of the actors
Sometimes I'll see a movie and it'll have an actor in it who I've seen and appreciated before, and I'll rack my brain throughout the film until I remember his/her name.  Usually the name comes to me, but sometimes I have to wait for the credits to verify the name and smack my forehead aah, THAT guy/chick!  I sort of did this with an actor in The Bourne Supremacy; when my heart wasn't tattooing itself in the inside of my chest cavity I was digging through my brain trying to place his face.  His name is Karl Urban and he played Eomer in the Lord of the Rings  films and I Googled his name after seeing it in the credit roll.  But I guess in this day and age a theatre patron could flip out his/her phone after the final scene and check the movie's IMDb page and see full listings there instead of waiting for it to crawl onto the screen.

4.  To listen to the music
The way I see it, regardless of the quality of the movie, there was some serious work that went into scoring the music and I might as well get my full money's worth by listening to the rest of the music that plays.  Sometimes the last song is the best and the one that is chosen to compete as a Best Song nominee in an awards ceremony (Bruce Springsteen's song for The Wrestler and Randy Newman's (?) for Wall-E come to mind readily).  But this isn't the main Aforementioned Reason for my staying behind.

My main reason:
5.  To see if any Korean people were involved
There are lots of Korean last names out there, and some of them are also Chinese last names.  Lee and Chang are the ones that crop up most often.  Still, for me it's not hard to pick up on the Korean names when they're present.  In movies a handful of Korean names crop up, and the ones I find are usually the more unusual looking ones.  I don't mean to say they're weird Korean names but that they're weirdly spelled/spelt because they're longer and/or have more vowels sitting next to each other in ways that aren't typical of the English language.  Anyway, I'm not sure when or why I started doing this.  I'm sure you could play the same game with any race/nationality/ethnicity but I do it with Korean people because I'm Korean- American.  It's sort of fun to think that another Korean person was involved in the making of that movie and that we are connected in a very distant way in that we are both Korean and had a hand in the production of the film (as a paying audience member I contribute to the film's financial success or failure).

1 comment:

  1. I like this list....that's all I really got. I just genuinely enjoyed reading that :)

    ReplyDelete