At the Movies

I wrote on my hand today that I should write about movies, so I'm going to go ahead and do that now. Otherwise I'll take a shower and will no longer have this brilliant idea documented anywhere. So here's my movie post.

My parents watch more movies at the theatre than anyone I know. Granted, I don't know that many people, but they watch lots of movies. My dad will watch pretty much anything. He's a big fan of the Action Summer Blockbuster genre. You know, those movies that used to be comic books back when there were comic books. But he'll also see anything that my mom wants to see. She was a librarian and watches everything that was based on a book that she read. Based on those two rather broad categories, they pretty much have 12 of the 16 screens at the theatre covered. Oh, my mom will also watch anything that features Robert Redford, Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, or any other male lead who could be named the AARP Sexiest Man Alive. Just had to get that in there, even though I know I'll get an angry phone call or email tomorrow morning. Sorry mom.

I think the data point that best explains my parents' dedication to the movies is the fact that they used to wake up at 4:00 AM on Sunday mornings (back before DVR) to watch 'At the Movies' with Siskel and Ebert or Ebert and Roper. That's dedication. They also have a very stong relationship with Netflix. Since they see everything that makes it to the theatre, their constant pen pal relationship with Netflix usually covers everything that  doesn't make it to the theatre (documentaries, etc).

Netflix probably loses money on their relationship with my parents. It more than makes up this loss with us (mostly Kate). Kate is very particular about the type of movie that she will watch. Here are Kate's rules. I'm making these up as I go, but have about six years of data or so to support this:

1.  Has to be a romantic comedy. I've found that most movies in this genre are neither romantic or funny, so I'm not sure how they came up with this label, but I digress.

2. Running time under two hours. There are some attention span issues that are the culprit here. I believe those were mentioned in a previous post about road trips if you're scoring at home.

3. Either the male or female lead has to be someone who starred in another movie that she has previously seen and enjoyed. This one is difficult, because it rules out anyone starring in their first major motion picture.

4. The male or female lead cannot have starred in a romantic comedy that she disliked. This rules out a lot of movies.

5. Movie cannot have a 'bad' ending. Bad = any loose ends. Funny story on this one. Now that Kate is back in Indy, I'm going to a lot more movies (with my parents, of course). We saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the other day. Instead of asking me questions like "how was the movie" or "would I like it" her first question was "How did it end?" It's a three hour movie and her only real question was about the ending. So yeah, I think this rule is valid.

6. Movie cannot have anything to do with Angelina Jolie. This is probably the most important rule. So you can copy and paste it into the #1 spot if you want. I think this rules out Brad Pitt movies, Billy Bob Thornton movies, and Jon Voight movies. It actually rules out movies that have trailers for Angelina Jolie movies.  Kate likes pretty much everyone. She's the nice one. But there's something about Angelina Jolie that really makes Kate angry. When a trailer for an Angelina Jolie movie is on TV, it is usually followed with "ugh, that freak, go drink some blood" or "ugh, what is she doing in another movie, doesn't she have like 18 babies to take care of" or "ugh, gross. I don't like her. I think she's a vampire." Not a big fan.

So those are the rules for new movies. For DVDs, we're pretty much limited to John Hughes movies made between 1983 and 1993. So my choices are cinematic gems like Uncle Buck, She's Having a Baby, Home Alone, Curly Sue, and a handful of other movies that I've seen a dozen times. Our Netflix queue pretty much looks like it would if I was in a coma for the past 15 years and was from Chicago. Awesome. 

My movie tastes are somewhere between those of my wife and my parents. But I'm usually too busy to go to the movies. This TV isn't going to watch itself.