Once in a while—read, about once or twice a week—I’m so tired from whatever work I was doing that day that I feel like doing absolutely nothing, either physically or mentally. What’s the most mind-numbing, still activity there is that does not include napping? Watching movies, of course!
One of the ladies in Bible study had a garage sale at her bookstore, where I picked up a VCR player and a TV for fifteen bucks. Sure, the TV has a red cast, but it’s a TV and the VCR works great. Even has an automatic rewind, as I found out last night when I waited a while before stopping the video. And my uncle gave me a small DVD player (like you could get from Family Dollar or something) a few months ago. You have to watch that it doesn’t overheat, but if the movie starts skipping I just put a small bread pan full of ice under it. Does the trick wonderfully. (Same thing can be done with overheating laptops!)
Anyways, all that to say, I have a decent setup for watching movies over in the living room—plus all that random fabric pinned on the curtain rods serves to block the waning sunlight surprisingly well.
So after a few hours in ninety-plus-degree heat at the county fair, I’m tuckered out and it’s only nine o’clock or so. Solution: let’s watch Sabrina!
This is the new Sabrina, mind you. Not the old one with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, though I do love that version as well. I happened to leave that one back at my parents’ house though. Wal-Mart had the new Sabrina on the five-dollar rack last time I was shopping, so I bought it at once.
As I sat, curled up on the couch, watching that oh-so-chick-flicky movie, I wondered if this was what single gals did on nights they were wishing they were out on a date. It seemed to me like a silly thing to do, only I was way too tired to do anything else. Besides, it’s fun to watch Harrison Ford make a fool of himself.
Then, after the very last evening at the county fair (hooray!!), I wanted to celebrate. However, it was a bit late by the time I got back here—not so late that I wasn’t going to be up for another couple hours, mind you, but late enough that my friend in Galion was not likely to be up for a visit—and again, the walking and the heat had taken some energy out of me. Oh, and those living room windows are still dressed only in unfinished fabric. Not exactly what I want to be showing all my curious friends.
So, instead of having someone over, I pulled out my aluminum foil, removed the drip pans from the stove and popped in a library VHS.
The movie was While You Were Sleeping and the project was to cover the drip pans with aluminum foil, to facilitate cleaning later. (All you do is rip off the old foil and put on new foil if it gets really gross.) Yes, it was another sappy chick flick. But it had Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman! Ever since watching Independence Day so many years ago (OK, maybe like seven or eight, possibly a decade), I’ve fancied Pullman’s style. He’s also in Newsboys which I was destined to enjoy because of my chosen vocation.
I’d never seen this movie before but I was pretty sure I remembered Mom saying it was cute, and it was only PG so it couldn’t have any gross sex scenes or anything. And turns out, it was indeed as innocent and fun as I was hoping. Pullman was funny, Bullock as awkward as could be, and not a naughty word in the whole movie. While You Were Sleeping is henceforward on my wishlist.
Bridget Jones’ Diary, however, is most emphatically not. I watched it a couple weeks ago, I think, only because I am determined to become the resident Pride and Prejudice expert and it was supposedly loosely based on P&P. Loosely is putting it mildly. And it had a gross sex scene that must’ve been ridiculously long, judging by how long it took to fast-forward through it. And on 16x speed too. Dumb modern movies. It wasn’t even that funny or ironic, not like the book is.
P.S. Just so you don’t worry that I’m becoming a hopeless romantic-turning-cat-lady: I did also watch Flyboys, one of my all-time favorite movies and much less of a chick-flick. Lots of boom-boom action in that one. I mean, c’mon, it’s set in World War I and they’re all fighter pilots (including the handsome James Franco). What could be better?
Comments