Believe it or not, Pitch Perfect came out two years ago. (Yeah, now you feel old.) Even though it’s history, the majority of the Internet/American population will know what you are talking about if you start doing the cup song.
Some recent movies like Pitch Perfect have made a significant impact on our culture. Movies like Frozen, Mean Girls and Princess Bride. These cult classics have four things in common.
Quotability: If you recite any part of these movies, it will be instantly recognized. These one-liners make it much easier to refer to the movie in normal social banter, especially when meeting new people. If you quote a cult classic in a crowd, you will see certain people’s eyes light up, and know who to make friends with.
Humorous: This is a large part of these movies’ popularity. If it doesn’t make you laugh, what’s the point of bringing it up in everyday conversation? What’s the point of quoting it? It’s much more difficult to bring up movies like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or The Dark Knight, regardless of how amazing they are. I’d laugh at “I’ve been shot!” more than, “Do you wanna know how I got these scars?”
Sing-alongable Soundtrack (optional): Movies like Pitch Perfect and Frozen have taken full advantage of this bonus factor. Not only will quotes bounce around in your head, but songs are going to get stuck in there, too. This can be a double-edged sword because anything your friends say that is remotely close to the lyrics of the song will spark a spontaneous solo from you. That double-edged sword depends on how good your voice is, though.
Women: It’s important that majority of the female population have to love the movie. I wish men’s taste in movies would determine the course of cult classics more, but that isn’t the case. Men have their own classics, but women seldom jump on these bandwagons because of the strong-testosterone themes. On the other hand, guys will jump on the girls’ cult-classic movie bandwagon because we will do almost anything to get in close proximity with the opposite sex, even if it means watching Princess Bride for the 17th time this month.
These are the common factors that I’ve seen in recent popular movies, but that means some amazing movies have slipped under the radar. One close contender to reach cult-classic status is Marvel’s latest sci-fi feature, Guardians of the Galaxy. It has all these factors except for one – their lack of female fandom. But all is not lost because now I can filter through my potential significant others by seeing if my potential other enjoyed this movie as much as I did.
Then again, maybe my standards are too high.
