Movies

I think I'm just about the only person in my life who doesn't care much about movies. I go to the theater about once a year and have seen maybe ten of the movies on the American Film people's list of the greatest hundred movies. (And for a couple of semesters in California, I was a Film and Television Production major! But my goal was to be an audito, not actually involved in the creative aspect of filmmaking.)

When I like a movie, I really like it a lot and will watch it over and over. I just don't care to watch many movies that I don't already know I'll like. All of my favorites are years old -- The Blues Brothers, Men in Black, The Hunt for Red October, Sister Act, Down Periscope, Doc Hollywood, and so on. Except for Harry Potter -- those are the most recent movies in my meager collection.

The last couple days I've been watching Blues Brothers. It may be old, but I still love it. Granted, I'm a huge blues fan, so the music is a big plus, but the movie is just a hoot. I love the mall scene, and the country-music bar scene, and the restaurant scene. And the chase scene at the end . . . I like it. A lot.

Somehow, I always make friends with big movie buffs. Liz, Leah and DL probably see more movies in a month than I see in a year. When we lived in North Carolina, my friend Judith saw just about every movie released each year and spent her time at home rewatching the classics on cable. She reminded me a lot of Remington Steele, able to quote old films, the stars, the plots, when they were made. And I'd just go , "Uh-huh." I was grown before I saw Casablanca for the first time. I've seen Gone with the Wind once, and that was plenty. I vaguely remember an Errol Flynn movie where he was a pirate, don't think I ever saw Clark Gable in anything besides GWTW, have seen two or maybe three Humphrey Bogart movies. Though I own Pirates of the Caribbean, I haven't actually seen it all the way through one time and I'm not totally sure about the plot.

I was once friends with another woman who loved movies and was convinced that she could convert me. She nagged and nagged me to see Titanic on the big screen. Didn't work. Nagged me to rent it when it came out. Didn't work. So she moved on to her last option: she invited Robert and me over to dinner one night, got us seated on the couch in the living room with food, turned the damn movie on and wouldn't turn it off.

(Did you notice that I mentioned we were friends? As in, I wouldn't spit on her now if she was on fire. Not just because of the attempt to force-feed me her favorite movie -- that was minor compared to all the other crap that happened. But I have to admit that every time I see that Titanic T-shirt -- the one that says, "The damn boat sank. Get over it." -- I do think of her with an evil grin.)

The point? Sheesh, I don't really need to have a point, do I? Rachel10:11 PM