Friday 2 May 2014

A favourite movie. Just one?

Not sure it is possible to pick one favourite movie because I spent my teenage years in a darkened living room along with a half a dozen of my siblings or closest friends-I haven't-spoken-with-since-school-finished watching all the latest releases on video. Video! Latest releases that were only 12 months+ out from their cinema release.

We sat through hours of 1980s dross to catch the occasional pearl but we were beyond enamoured that we could sit on our own living room with the power to stop the movie. Or make it go backwards. Or zip it forwards. All at will and all through a little handheld gizmo that transmitted our every command to the video recorder through a thin and always cunningly camouflaged wire which snaked across the floor, successfully navigating the chip (crisp) packets, cordial (squash) glasses and plastic movie boxes littering its way.

If I had to pick a 'Desert Island ' list of movies my first pass would include (in no particular order) -
The Blues Brothers
Toy Story
Roman Holiday
Dirty Dancing
Some Like It Hot
The Usual Suspects
The Princess Bride
Eddie Murphy Raw
Richard Pryor Live

Yes it is true, I am a 'fluffy bunny' film kind of girl. I don't like gory horror films very much and I like psychological horror even less. I like films that make the world seem a little bit less grim for the time I am watching, whether that is because they are light and fluffy in and of themselves or because the story is so gripping all else gets forgotted (mentioning no names : The Ususal Suspects).

Factor in to this that it is an hour's drive to my nearest cinema and my inherent apathy means that I rarely see a film in its natural habitat. If it doesn't come to my house in some form I am unlikely to see it. This does not however preclude me from participating in conversations about new releases bc the ads trailing the new films include just about anything you need to know. That and my well-developed bullshitting ability have seen me through so far.

The lack of direction by their parents combined with this distance from civilsation means that neither the girlchild nor the boychild are particularly up to date on their film watching either ... although ... over the Easter holidays the boychild and I bought 'Thor: The Dark World' just because we could and quite frankly at £10 and the cost of a packet of Pringles I reckon I still came out miles ahead than if we had gone to the cinema. Then 'Frozen' came to my local Arts Centre cinema so the boy and I went to watch so we could find out what came after the line "Let it go, let it go..." Again money well spent bc of the travel costs, etc but also bc it was lovely to meet my godbaby there with his big sisters. They sat in front of us and I kept flicking bits of stuff at the back of Will's head to annoy him. Three days later the dvd found its way back to my house in my grocery shopping and all three of us spent one of the few sunny afternoons of the holidays sitting in the darkened room belting out the lyrics to 'Do you wanna build a snowman' and 'Let it go' with great enthusiasm. As I sat there I heard echoes of my teenage self living through one of those lost video-weekends.

2 comments:

  1. I have so many favorite movies, I couldn't even make a list! One that I would watch again and again when home sick from work is Victor/Victoria.

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  2. What a fun list of movies! Although, I just say, I missed something with Princess Bride. Everyone around me loves it -- I need to watch it again. I think I was just having a bad day when I saw it.

    I have a hard time picking favorite movies. Some that come to mind ... Life is Beautiful, The Full Monty, Shawshank Redemption -- like you, I definitely don't like horror!

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