Almost there! Today we continue our 12 Days of The Movie Advocate Series with 2 movies that are family traditions.
Justin's List:
2. Wicker Man (1973)
We try to watch this for the equinox. The first and best (and only) pagan-horror-musical. I've written at length about my love for Wicker Man here.
1. So I Married an Axe Murderer
Remember when Mike Meyers was awesome? I've watched this movie about a hundred times with my mom. I think you could call it her comfort movie. We'd watch this when she was going through a bad break up or if she just needed cheering up. We still recite lines to each other, "Look at his heeed, it looks like a grapefruit on a toothpick!"
Ryan's List:
2. Whatever Horrible Rom-Com Comes out Near Christmas Day
That is what my mom wants to do every Christmas: see a shitty romantic comedy. The quality is besides the point – her motto (I swear to God): “I always like movies that get less than 2 stars.” Did you see Rumor Has It? An unfortunate take-off of The Graduate, in which Jennifer Aniston fucks the man who allegedly inspired Dustin Hoffman’s character, only to realize he may be HER DAD???? I… just… can’t. What about The Holiday? In which Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet switch lives, and for some reason Diaz hooks up with Jude Law, while Winslet ends up with Jack Black (CUZ SHE’S A FATTY YOU GUYZ). Love, Actually? (I don’t care what you say, it sucks) One exception to the “com” subheading is the Christmas after my dad died, when for some godforsaken reason we settled on Cold Mountain, in which Nicole Kidman waits for her star-crossed lover Jude Law to walk home from the goddamn Civil War, only to have him DIE at the moment of their reunion. That was probably a bad call that year. I’m not entirely sure what we’ll see this year – depends on whether or not she’s seen New Year’s Eve yet, I suppose.
1. Flatliners
One day, sometime in the mid-1990s, my older sister Kendra began a Kiefer Sutherland phase. Okay, it turned out not to be a phase – we’ll call it an orientation. As a result, I have seen Flatliners, a largely forgotten Sutherland/Julia Roberts-led ensemble, supernatural thriller about 800 times. You guys, it’s not that good. I mean, I was really more of a William Baldwin man when I was 13, so the combined Baldwin/Sutherland presence was certainly appreciated, but Jesus it’s bad. That said, it will never not remind me of me and Kendra, tween-agers, rewinding the VHS for the second time at 1 in the morning on a Friday night. I didn’t have that many (ZERO) friends back in those days, and she was nice enough to allow me to attend her bi-weekly, in-our-basement, all-girls sleepovers at which they watched Flatliners (usually twice), typically followed by The Lost Boys. I will be forever grateful.