Comfort Movies

I don't tend to watch movies much at this point in my life.  I've been through phases where I would watch a movie every day, or I'd go to the theater even to see a movie when it's just come out.   Of late, I don't watch many movies.  With the twenty four hours in a day, I have things that are higher on my, "want to get done" or, "need to get done" lists that seem to take precedence.

One of those things is sleep.  When the children get to sleep, I get everything else done that needs to be done to end the day and then I go to bed.  My husband likes to watch movies during this wind down time of the day but I tend to get up early to get a start on the next day's list of things that need to happen.  A movie-length block of time seems like a long commitment to me.

Now I do like to have seen movies.  It's the taking time to see them that keeps tripping me up.  Last night, while lying in bed before nodding off to sleep, I was thinking about movies I love to re-love.  Movies that I like to watch, even though I know the lines, because they're a comfort movie to me in some way.  As I was thinking about my list, I realized it's a strange collection of movies.  Some of them would be anything of a comfort to many people.  But they're on my "favorites" list for various reasons I can't begin to explain.

The first, and probably my favorite movie ever is 2010.   It's science fiction, it's well-done, well-acted, and has held up over time.  I'm almost always up for watching it. 

In the realm of Science Fiction movies, I have three other favotires; Stargate, The Fifth Element and Dune.  Stargate has James Spader and I have always liked his work.  It's ancient Egypt with aliens and the premise is compelling.  So compelling they made multiple TV series from it.  The Fifth Element is just plain great from a sheer entertainment standpoint.  I believe I could have it playing in the background and I'd just be a little happier because it's such a fun movie.  And Dune is is such an intricate story masterfully executed on screen.

From a drama perspective, Secretary, Strictly Ballroom and White Nights are ones I come back to again and again.  Secretary, again with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal is a strange story of two people who fall in love, and how they have to save each other in their own ways in order to do so.  Every time I watch this movie, I see more layers in their acting and I love the film even more.

Strictly Ballroom is a happy movie set in Australia about breaking the rules of ballroom dancing.  It's got some great lines in it.  White Nights with Michail Barishnikov and Gregory Hines is a tremendous story with fantastic ballet and tap dancing. 

Probably the strangest , The Man Who Fell to Earth, is for when I can't get to sleep or I need to wind down.  It's a very old movie starting David Bowie and Rip Torn.  It's such a strange, bizarre even film that I believe it was the fourth or fifth time I watched it that I even made it to the end.  And yet it's my favorites.  It's so funky freaky that I won't even begin to try and explain it.  The good news is, you don't really need to make it to the end, because when you do, you still won't understand what's going on.  Based on when the movie was made, 1976, it is possible you need to be taking hallucinogenic drugs to really "get it." 

Surprisingly, there are horror movies on my comfort movie list.  I love horror movies, but I like horror movies that are more thriller horror with a scientific or supernatural edge.  My two favorites are, Prince of Darkness and Hellraiser II: Hellbound.  Oh, and Poltergeist.  I like all three, but the first and second ones are the best.  

Last is the mini-series, The Lost Room.  One of those hard to explain premises again.  Imagine you had a key and it opened every door.  Then imagine lots of other, "objects" that had strange powers.  The objects are related and there is an overriding mystery to be solved in this intricate story with some great actors playing the various roles.  

The Big Boy Update:  First stair fall.  He hasn't fallen down stairs before, but he fell down half a flight yesterday.  He caught himself but it scared him.  Today I thought there was going to be more stair mishap.  He wanted to go out in the rain.  I let him out on the covered porch and he would run into the rain, in the uncovered sections.  He was very much enjoying the rain.  But the wood is wet and when he started climbing up and down the steps I feared the worst.  Not only did he make it down to collect wet sticks, he came back up and walked up the stairs.  Walked, not crawled.  His hands were full of sticks, he had no other choice.


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Blue car and bike ride.  Just before dark last night we went on a bike and car ride around the block.  The bike is my husband's bike with the child seat on the back and baby bike helmet to match.  She and I did a walk/ride in the blue car my son loves.  It's plastic with a steering wheel that goes honk honk.  She sits up well enough now that she had a great time in the car.  Towards the end, we swapped her and put her in the bike seat with the helmet.  She promptly fell asleep with the helmet holding her head up away from the rail.


Fitness Update:  Last day before a break.  I have eye surgery tomorrow so I'll be a week without running while the incisions heal.  I decided to do the long run around the bigger loop in the park this morning to see how long it really was.  I kept waiting for, "one mile in x.x minutes..." and it didn't happen and didn't happen.  By the time I checked at close to three miles I discovered I'd pressed pause some time back.  I resumed the GPS tracking.  So I don't know exactly how far the loop is.  I know it was close to 7.5 miles because there are some mileages marked on the web site for the park I found later.  It appears I'll have to run it again in a week to find out.