Here's one you probably recognize. I was watching Michael Mann's The Insider in a theater in 1999ish, and admiring the cool nouveau safari jacket/parka that Al Pacino is wearing in the beginning, and then later in a scene in Berkeley or NYC. Then I see the pocket on the back. :huh: Realize the costumer had used a Willis & Geiger Summer Field Parka, with the color bleached a little, the very same jacket I had draped on the seat in front of me at the Rafael Theater in San Rafael. Cool. :clap:
I'm watching episodes of Sherlock on streaming, and from time to time I see ... my car. Well, a silver Honda Euro Accord, the CL9, the same that I drive here rebadged as an Acura TSX (I took off the two extraneous badges, though). Seeing one's own car in a movie or telly show is startling, i'n' it?
From time to time I see a film with characters getting on or off a midsize corporate jet, and my sixth sense kicks in, and I think, "Wait, I know that plane." Yep, sure, it's a Falcon 20, what I spent some 1200 flight hours flying in, pre- and post-flighting, not to mention probably twice as many hours working in and around. Kind of like seeing your own bedroom, you just know it on sight.
I was watching Chance with Hugh Laurie (one of your national treasures, amirite?) on Hulu, it takes place in my hometown of San Francisco. Seeing locations familiar to me is nothing new when you grew up in the old part of the city. But there's a scene in a cafe and I instantly felt "at home." Yep, Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe at 566 Columbus Ave, 2 blocks from home. Spent many hours there. Same when watching Bullitt with Steve McQueen, I'd never noticed before the blu-ray that the signature car chase goes right past the North Beach Public Library branch on Mason St a block from home, then guns into action on Chestnut at Columbus, in front of Bimbo's 365, my own street.
... YOu know where we're headed. You're watching a movie or tv show at home. You stop the film. You rewind. You hoot with glee that you recognize a watch a character is wearing, or you recognize your own watch on the wrist of a character. Those around you are confounded. Who cares? How could you possibly have recognized it? It's like some form of dementia. That happened to me when watching Commando with Schwarzenegger. The gag watch for closeups was a mockup with digital countdown timer (the real Seiko H558 didn't do that), but the watch he wore for most of that film, and in Raw Deal, and in Predator, was the same watch I bought at the USCG TraCen Cape May post exchange store when I graduated from Basic Training, and wore throughout my career as my primary work watch. I dont' think other aficionados experience this, well car nuts probably do, but ... anyone else? I doubt it. "It's a WIS thing, you wouldn't understand."