The Thousands

Classic cult movies, like books, are the ones everyone knows, but haven’t necessarily seen before. Then when you stumble upon one on Fox Classics or in a friend’s DVD collection one rainy Sunday after fifteen too many beers and some ill-advised tequila shots the night before, the penny drops.
You discover how [insert film industry legend here] earned their stripes, and you learn where heavily pop-culture referenced shows like THE SIMPSONS get their material.
**In DELIVERANCE, for example, you discover where Peter Berg got the idea for a film about a boys weekend gone wrong, and you learn why the sound of duelling banjos is synonymous with inbred yokels, and why grown men on camping trips jokingly tell each other to squeal like a pig.

Then in PERFORMANCE you see Mick Jagger in a muddled, surrealist orgy and you either want to dig your eyes out with the wrong end of a spoon, or eat a mushroom and do it all again. And afterwards, you wish you’d been able to see it all on a big screen. Except for the last part if you go see it at Chauvel. Instead you can sit back and pretend it’s 1972.