Movies

I may be getting into the habit . . . I've been thinking about my blog this past week, and wondering if perhaps I will make Wednesday posts a regular thing. I have the luxury of a part-time job (or perhaps, now that I'm Older, I should say instead that I'm Semi-Retired!). I only work Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This year I 'have kids' on Wednesdays--I'm a teacher working with home educating families--and, much as I love the wonderful young people in my classes, by Wednesday evening I'm usually bagged. I come home thinking about dinner, cranberry juice with a splash of vodka, and disappearing into a good book or . . . my new blog!

Watching a rented movie with my new husband, Ken, has become my favorite thing to do on Sunday evenings, and he never objects, so perhaps it's a favorite thing of his, as well. We take turns choosing our weekly movie--exploding relationships one week; exploding helicopters the next. We bring cups of tea, and sometimes, bars of chocolate, to the coffee table, and curl up on the leather couch with my cat, Fiona. Fiona thinks she's my mother--she kept me company through many evenings when I watched movies on my own, before I met Ken, and as she came into my life before he did, he tolerates her presence now. She claims dibs on my lap, whenever I sit down.

Last Sunday we rented Stranger Than Fiction with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. (Yes, yes, I know: Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but I'm Old, and when I think of actors, I think of the Older Actors.) It delighted me from start to finish, and left me with a wide grin on my face when the credits began to roll! A geeky IRS employee falls in love with a totally radical Tattooed Baker Woman, and the twist is that the guy is the main character in a novel being written by Emma Thompson's character. What grabs me and intrigues me in movies like this one (apart from the Love Interest, of course) is the Alternative Reality angle. I've always loved time travel fiction, for this reason, I think. I've always loved magically entering another world, as presented in a novel, and time travel fiction goes one layer deeper than that--the main character in the novel magically takes me with him/her into a world beyond the world of the novel.

Other favorite movies:

• The Lake House, with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves: Boy meets girl; boy wins girl;same place; different time!
• Sliding Doors, with Gwyneth Paltrow and John Lynch: What would happen if she found out about his cheating, and left him? What would happen if she stayed with him? She does both!
• Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell: Poor jaded weatherman wakes up on the same date every morning. He knows what everyone else will do and say, and when. He tries out a variety of responses on hundreds of repeats of the same day and eventually . . . he Redeems himself! It's priceless.
• Only You with Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei: This is the only movie on my list without the Alternative Reality angle. It came out right around the time of my separation from my first husband, and Fiona and I made a ritual out of watching it on New Year's Eves, when we had the house all to ourselves! It's a delicious romantic comedy, with lots of hidden surprises that I discovered during repeated viewings. My daughter, Christina and I have a pact to travel to 'It'ly' together, rent a hot little red convertible, and re-trace the journey of Marisa's character in this movie. Luscious scenery.

Are you tempted to enjoy one of these Popcorn Movies?