GMC fills seats with September selection Top Gun
The Guelph Movie Club, which began in January 2013, has tapped into a hidden nostalgia that continues to bring in audiences to fill the seats of The Bookshelf once a month. The movie for September was the high flying classic Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, and Val Kilmer.
Top Gun tells the story of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, who train with the best of the best at the Top Gun flight school. Full of cheesy ’80s action movie moments and a killer soundtrack, Top Gun is truly a product of its time.
“A movie like Top Gun would never be made now…”
“It’s truly a time capsule from the ’80s,” said Guelph Movie Club creator Danny Williamson in an interview with The Ontarion. “A movie like Top Gun would never be made now,” because of the radical Cold War-era American jingoism that’s prevalent in the film.
Williamson explained that the movies shown each month are either films that people want to revisit on the silver screen, or ones that they have a deep connection to, but have never had the chance to see on the big screen. Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, is one of those movies for many people.
“Everyone knows the opening with the boulder, even if they’ve never seen the movie, they know it from references in other shows or movies. Once The Simpsons has parodied you, that’s when you know that everyone knows the opening,” said Williamson.
“…the movies shown each month are either films that people want to revisit on the silver screen, or ones that they have a deep connection to, but have never had the chance to see on the big screen.”
These are the types of films—the select few that have entered the cultural canon—that audiences want to see revived on the big screen. For Williamson, one of the most interesting parts of screening classic movies is to watch the “first timers” watch the movie.
“I usually sit at the back, and that allows me to watch the people watching the movies,” he explained.
The Guelph Movie Club isn’t limited by genre or decade, though the movies do seem to lean heavily on films that came out between the late ’70s to the early 2000s, but it all depends on the films that the voters want to see. The selected films are typically “soft spots” or “go-to movies” for audience members, explained Williamson. The upcoming films are voted on by audience members who come and see the screenings. This selection process allows fans to voice their opinions on what is shown, rather than having a preset curated list.
Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.