I don’t care who you are. Everyone has a list of music, movies and/or books that they clutch near and dear to them and to which they ascribe great personal meaning. Here’s the thing. That list is extremely personal, not personal meaning private, personal meaning “unless you are ME, and you are NOT ME, you will NEVER UNDERSTAND the awesomeness that is (fill in the blank), and the enduring effect it has had upon me”. Despite knowing this, we, as human beings with a need to connect to other human beings, constantly feel a pull to share what is meaningful to us with other human beings. I mean, isn’t that what the creation of art is really all about, the need to share what speaks to us with someone else, even just one other person?
Some things are harder to share than others. Books are HARD. High effort for the sharee. So much of the reading experience takes place in your own head, that while a book may move two people, it can’t possibly move them in the exact same way. Music is easier. Music can be entirely passive. It doesn’t really require rapt attention to enjoy or to endure while not enjoying. Food is a crap shoot. ( Pun not intended, but duly noted. ) Unless a particular food is inherently repulsive to the other person, they will likely indulge your need to make them sample it, but what can you do if your very favorite food is pickled herring or sushi (shut up I hate it) or haggis? You might have a hard time finding a willing participant in your sharing party. I don’t have this problem, since it is all about Taylor Ham for me, but I’m sure you can imagine. Movies are sort of inbetween. They can be an easy sell, or if the sharee is like me, they can be picky and full of actor aversions and hard to make sit still and therefore a MUCH HARDER SELL. So, the question is, what do you do when you have that unbending, unabated need to share a movie with someone who may not be terribly anxious to sit through…say…anything even remotely related to Kirsten Dunst? What we do at our house is hold a “Movie Hostage Weekend”.
The gist of Movie Hostage Weekend is that each of you pick out one or two OMG MUST SEE movies that the other person is then made to watch like, well, like a hostage. Our first Movie Hostage Weekend went a little something like this.
Moulin Rouge – It’s a musical. Right now, if you know me even a little, you should picture a disbelieving and blank, glassy eyed stare. I do not love musicals. LOVES musicals. He’s got something like ten of them on his ipod, not ten musical numbers, ten full musical scores. I’ll give you that this movie was entertaining, mostly for the stylized world in which it takes place, but I’m one of those people that are a total stickler for singing the right words to songs, and I do not do well when folks mix it up with new melodies to go with some of my old favorites. Elton John’s “Your Song” should just be Elton John’s, and I’m sorry but as doorbell as Ewan McGregor is, he AIN’T ELTON.
The Hudsucker Proxy - You know, for kids. Enjoyable. I actually never guessed we were talking hula hoops. You certainly can’t beat the cast, and a number of lines have lingered in our repertoire of “movie lines I will pull out and use whenever possible” much to the chagrin of those around me. I think I spent a couple hours walking around imitating Jennifer Jason Leigh afterwards.
I got off pretty easy for a hostage. Both of these movies were well received and not terrible to watch, even under duress. did not get off so easily.
Saturday Night Fever - I make no apologies. This movie is iconic. I first saw it with a fourth grade friend and her family. We saw the PG version, rather than the R version. That’s right, the movie was so culturally relevant at the time it was released, that they released a lite version to engulf more of the population in its disco tsunami. I love this movie. It is one of my top five, certainly. I also have the soundtrack and firmly believe that if you can listen to “More than a Woman” and not get completely lost in a delicious 70′s fog, you are DEAD INSIDE.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Yeah…I’m going to have to make some apologies. I have always had the fondest recollection of this movie. My aunt took me to see this movie in the theater. Twice. She loved loved loved Peter Frampton and I was 8. That’s my excuse. What is fascinating to me is that in rewatching this movie, I suddenly realized the genesis of my strange fascination with Steven Tyler. It all made sense. He was one of the villains in the movie, supposed to be dangerous and desireable and bad news. Clearly, I was highly impressionable. Who knows what bad teenage decisions were based on my imprinting on Steven Tyler in this movie. Hey, the Bee Gees were in this one too. You win some, you really really lose some.
I’m going to have to think long and hard to come up with movies to make up for the last go round.
What would your hostage have to watch?
Standing outside Medium’s classroom today, I perused tweets while waiting to watch the BIG WISCONSIN PRESENTATION™. I am surrounded in news all day long, which means I don’t watch the news on television. Ever. Most often, I get breaking news via Twitter, and today that breaking news was like a swift kick in the gut. A six-year-old boy was aboard a runaway hot air balloon. Alone. Never have I heard a news story and had such a visceral reaction. I had to stop looking at it, because I literally felt I was going to get sick. A six-year-old baby was in unimaginable peril at that very second. There’s the painful side of real-time web for you. Of course, all is well that ends well, and we can all breath a collective sigh of relief knowing that the little boy wasn’t aboard the balloon at all, but was instead hiding in his family’s attic, afraid for himself having unleashed his father’s balloon. PHEW. As relieved as a stranger was hundreds of miles away, I can’t begin to imagine the feeling of finding that kid, having imagined the horrifying alternatives.
1. The time I had dinner at the home of a friend of a friend, and was told upon the clearing of the plates that the “chicken” I had been enjoying was, in fact, rabbit. It should be noted that we spent a good hour before dinner playing with all the various animals at the house including goats, sheep, run of the mill dogs and…you guessed it…rabbits.
