Name a Memory You Forgot

A little game unlocks a warehouse full of goodies

Mrs. Tycoon and I like to play a game called “Name a Movie You Forgot,” wherein we try to list movies we’ve seen, but haven’t thought of in a long time, and might well have forgotten forever. It’s a fun game—we always come up with a gem or two—but also a cruel game, that re-enlists a thousand neurons who were up for honorable discharge.

The more you play, the harder it gets. Every movie I rescue from oblivion is one more off the board for the next game. Just this week, I burned Arachnophobia and Benjamin Button, which won’t count again for at least a few years. Still, I’ll try it now, and see what else I can dig up from the murk.

Let’s see—

• Big Trouble in Little China. There’s a good one to start with. (Not to be confused with Big Trouble, a movie I’d never forget.) Was this the movie where Jackie Chan slides down a roof and nearly kills himself in real life, or the one where he stunt-falls onto an awning and nearly kills himself in real life? Or something to do with a motorcycle gang? Count it for the game, in any case.

• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Think of it—until just now, I’d achieved what George Lazenby spent his whole career trying to do; I forgot about that movie entirely.

• Remember those big nineties action-lawyer movies? What was the name of the third one, after The Firm and The Pelican Brief? (Hey, I can count The Pelican Brief, too!) Ah, The Client, with Susan Sarandon. I had to look it up. Somehow I’d confused John Grisham with Tom Clancy, and was trying to remember what those beefy attorneys had to do with Russian submarines.

• That angel movie with Michael Landon. Wait, no, it was John Travolta. Michael was the name of it. This one’s iffy, because I’m sure I named it in a round of NaMYF a few years ago. I forgot it afterward, and will do so again at the first opportunity.

It’s not always the “forgettable” movies I forget. RoboCop is a wholly forgettable movie, but the new security robots on patrol downtown just earned it another decade of glory. Meanwhile Out of Africa was a Best Picture film, well-deserved, and the three of you who’ve seen it can thank me for scoring a point on your board.

The thrill of the game is not the rescued movies, but the surprising fact that the human brain can play Name a Movie You Forgot. It’s amazing to me that we all have a trove of memories displaced but roughly archived. When a memory disintegrates, we keep the pieces in a box in the basement. We file away a sketch of it, or a photo with a note on the back. It’s gone, but we can re-member it.

For people like me, always hungry for new fascinations, it’s delicious to know there’s a warehouse full of wonders I’ve known and forgotten, there to be recovered by naming the game. And you can play it with any category of experience. Name a Recipe You Forgot, or an animal, an outing, an outfit. I’ve even played Name a Person You Forgot, which always makes me feel ashamed for losing whole, real people to the erosion of time, but glad for the chance remember them.

Maybe this afternoon I’ll play Name a Song I Forgot, and see what snippets of melody I can find to make me tap my foot, or smile at a long-past moment, or cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cryyy if I want to—

(Found one for you! You’re welcome.)