Wedding Crashers (Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson) was released ten years ago tonight. It was an extremely defining movie for me. Whatever that means... But it was definitely the only movie I've ever seen in the theater three times. It was the hardest I've ever laughed at a movie. It was the most I ever cared about a comedy. It was the most camaraderie I've ever found with others over a film...it was a uniting factor for myself and two friends that summer. It was the ultimate summer movie--ever. And it just reeks of summer 2005 for me to this day.
I have a weird nostalgic gene. I can be going along--not even consciously aware of something, but I'll get a twinge and a memory. A flash. A hunch. And then I'll go check the date of it and realize it's the anniversary...or approaching the time of year of a particular happening or experience. It's weird, and no one I've ever told about it has said "Yeah, me too."
That happened last week...I just got this weird Wedding Crashersish feeling over me, and checked and sure enough, we were approaching the ten year mark.
The summer of 2005. Life was pretty simple back then. Single. Care free. Largely void of a ton of responsibility. Still living a college-esque life, despite being a couple months removed from graduating with my Masters.
Or maybe not. I found a blog recently that I wrote back then called the The Summer That Never Started or some such. In it I detailed such a tale of woe, that perhaps I'm thankful for my current set of life trials. Or maybe not. Either way, I found earthly refuge in a little summer comedy with a couple of my favorite actors at their best.
I don't think Vince and Owen have come close since. I've enjoyed some of their stuff. Fred Claus is still one of my must-watches every December, and I'll probably eventually pick up The Internship if I see it in a $2 bin someday. But I think WC was their peak. In fact I know it was.
And the scenes. The imagery. Vivid colors. The soundtrack. Wedding Crashers had it all. And I couldn't get enough. Every time we'd go back to the theater we'd catch a new, understated Christoper Walken line we hadn't previously noticed.
Ten years can do a lot to a guy. I plan on popping in my DVD tonight and getting transported to the summer of 2005. We'll see--since I've matured spiritually SO much--if it falls flat. As Matt Drudge called it at the time, there's no getting around the fact that it's a "movie packed with raunchy moments and bare-breasted beauties." But we always looked away during that part. no really, we did.
But for me, I have to scratch that itch. It's a movie I have to watch every summer. But I can't watch it anytime but the summer. And I'll probably long for the days when I was living steps from a college campus, working a 12-6p job (what?), and no inherited school loans, 3am emergency work calls, or family crises. I'll never be not sentimental. I'll never not have my ridiculous traditions. And for me, it's as much recalling friendships and memories as anything else.
And then I'll get up in the morning and thank God for the life I have now. And see what I can make of the day.
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