There’s that one movie. When you see it’s on – maybe it even already started, or is halfway through – you can’t look away. You probably own it on DVD, or know it’s readily available on Netflix or some other VOD, but it’s there, on your screen right now. You can’t not watch it.
This week’s Huddle is all about that movie. What film MUST you watch when you see it’s on your TV?
Elaine Atwell: I would skip a date with Jennifer Lawrence if 10 Things I Hate About You was on. (JK I would invite her over and we would recite all the lines to each other.)
Lucy Hallowell: Mine would have to be The Cutting Edge. I married a lovely woman who hates to re-watch stuff. If she’s seen it once she never wants to see it again. This cuts into my time for obsessively re-watching every show or movie I ever loved. But if Doug Dorsey and Kate Mosely are on the TV, you can bet I am going to watch them work out their Pamchenko twist, get bombed on tequila, come out as a figure skater instead a member of the merchant marine (“did he say finger painting?), and bicker their way to gold. I love that movie and will watch it no matter how much I have missed even if it kills my hockey player heart when she takes one look at Bobby Hull’s game worn jersey and says “an old shirt?”
Ali Davis: I can’t resist watching Room in Rom-no, I can’t, not even as a joke. It’s Clueless. I just love it. Also I have purchased most or all of the old Colombo series so that I am able to leave even if one of those is on.
Grace Chu: None. Doesn’t apply to me. If I can get the film I want to watch to stream on my Android or PC I am happy. I won’t have to deal with rowdy people with their smelly food in the theater, and I won’t have to deal with Time Warner Cable drama (canceled it and never looked back). I am over theaters and TV. As long as my WiFi is working I can sit in the peace and quiet of my own bed in my PJs, choose what I want to see and watch in comfort. And I will be happy to watch anything that makes me laugh or think, as long as the streams don’t freeze. Disclaimer: only legal streams of course!
Dana Piccoli: If Goonies is on, you bet your bottom dollar that I’m busting out the Rocky Road. The Cyndi Lauper soundtrack drawn me in, Martha Plimpton‘s dry wit gets me to stay. Oh Andi….you Goonie.
Dara Nai: Despite the proliferation of on-demand viewing options for every film in the history of the human race, ever, I will still stop everything, jump in and watch any one of these movies, no matter when it started or how much of it is left: A League of Their Own, The Shawshank Redemption, any of the Alien installments, Goodfellas, The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs.
Then, when the commercial breaks and edits for television start to ruin it for me, I go find the movie on Netflix and watch it via my Chromecast. Watching a movie on TV is like some vestigial tail we all still have. We don’t have to do it anymore, and yet, we do. At least for a little while.
Kim Hoffman: I don’t have cable at the moment, but some things I wouldn’t budge for if they were on TV would be a really good old school Lifetime Original Movie starring the likes of Kellie Martin (like Death of a Cheerleader) or a classic horror playing on TNT or AMC at 2 p.m. on a Sunday, because that happens on the regular, and I’m down.
Janelle Sorenson: My fiancée and I will watch Couples Retreat any time it’s on TV. It all started when we ran out of beer in the middle of a late winter Sunday night and we ran out to get 3.2 beer (a Puritanical Minnesota law that beer sold on Sunday can only have 3.2% alcohol). We came back, cold, dreaming of warm climates and drinking Miller Lite…Lite. Something about the pointless rom com set in the tropics was just what we needed and ever since then we watch it whenever it’s on…usually on TBS late at night. Like all good movies are. Ha.
Bridget McManus: Overboard, which is constantly on TBS, Sommersby because Jodie Foster kills it in a hoop skirt and all of the Harry Potter movies.
Karman Kregloe: Bedazzled. I should be ashamed, but I’m not.
Chloe: Save The Last Dance.
Heather Hogan: Oh, man. I have seen Save the Last Dance so many times that to this very day, I have a hard time believing Kerry Washington, Bianca Lawson, and Julia Stiles as any other characters. Like sometimes I’ll be watching Scandal and all I want is for Olivia Pope to go, “You need to take off that fifth grade dance-looking top. It’s *country* and you look *country* in it.” And boy did I ever want Maya St. Germain to channel some of Nikki’s boss ass bitchness on Pretty Little Liars. What I would have given to see a Paige/Maya showdown that started with someone going, “Daaaayum, Maya. She’s all up in your nut.” (“All up in your nut and cracking it!”) And ended with, “It ain’t over, bitch.” “I don’t even know why it started, bitch.”
So, yeah. Save the Last Dance is my answer too.
Dorothy Snarker: Fried Green Tomatoes. Not only are there obvious lesbian overtones (Idgie & Ruth forever), there is also the irresistible theme of female friendship and all-ages empowerment. And if you won’t listen to reason, there’s always Towanda.
Valerie Anne: For me, it’s usually musical movies. It starts with, “Oh, perfect, I caught it before this song, I’ll change the channel after it’s over.” Then all of a sudden I’m bouncing along to “We Go Together.” Same thing happens with RENT. I *own* these movies. I have no reason to feel chained to them when they’re on TV. But it’s like the universe is giving me a gift and I can’t refuse!
Eboni Rafus: The #1 film that I can not NOT watch if it’s on television is The Color Purple. I own it on VHS and DVD and I’ve watched it on television hundreds of times. So I’m not really sure why, just last week, I was flipping through the channels on mute while talking on the phone with my girlfriend and got so distracted by The Color Purple on television that I eventually just had to hang up and watch it. It’s not exactly a fun, lighthearted like Mean Girls-which is understandably addictive (You go, Glenn Coco!). There’s a lot of heavy stuff in The Color Purple. But I love it. It just feels like home.
Trish Bendix: Why do I love Center Stage so much? I definitely own it, but haven’t busted out the DVD in forever because anytime it’s on, it’s an automatic watch. It’s the dancing, the terrible acting from some of the dancers first, actors second, and the soundtrack. It’s the memories I have attached it with, watching with my sister and knowing the dialogue like the back of our hands.
What movie can you not not watch?
