Sick? What movies will you watch?
I’d planned on writing today about The Painted Veil, a period piece starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, which opens today at The Neon and will open next week at the Little Art. It is a well made and compelling drama, but I’m afraid I can’t find much more to say about it, other than it is certainly worth seeing. And so instead, having been laid up in bed and on the couch for the last 48 hours with some version of the flu, I’d rather talk about some of the favorites I’m compelled to watch when I’m sick. (I hope you’ll chime in with your list. A friend of mine submits Grease 2 as her favorite, for instance, and I remember reading that Lemony Snicket author Daniel Handler always begs his wife to rent the Robert Redford movie Sneakers whenever he’s sick.)
Late last night, after sleeping for most of the day, drugged up on NyQuil, with just enough energy to lift my hand and hit the “Guide” button on the remote, I stumbled onto Amy Heckerling’s brilliant Clueless on Cinemax. Three hours later, I was watching it again on Cinemax West. It’s one of those movies* I can’t not watch it if it’s on.
I first saw Clueless upon its initial release 12 (!) years ago. I was 10, and it was either late summer, or Labor Day weekend. I lived with my parents and infant brother just outside Robins AFB, Georgia. There, in Warner Robins, there were two movie theaters: One an old, dwindling twin house (now closed), where I first saw Twister (twice in a row) and Toy Story; and the other a mall-style six-screen United Artists cineplex (now a second-run house), not unlike the old Centerville Cinemas. (There was also the base theater, where I usually saw R-rated movies like In the Line of Fire and Broken Arrow with my dad weeks after they’d opened in first-run, thereby allowing me sufficient time to wear him down and let me see them.)
Between the two local theaters, first-run movies guaranteed to be hits were usually covered, but for sleepers like Clueless, you’d have to drive thirty minutes to Macon for the nearest multiplex. My mom is a big Jane Austen fan, and having heard that Clueless was based loosely on Austen’s Emma, she headed to Macon to see it with me (and maybe baby brother — I can’t be sure) in tow. To be honest, I don’t think I’d heard of Clueless at that point, but I was such a movie freak (even at 10) that there’s not a movie I can think of that I would’ve objected to.
This vague memory is a good-feeling one that combines the joy of discovery with the reassurance offered by being with my mother (a bonus when you’re sick, but without mother to take care of you), and the opportunity at 10 to do something sort of grown up with her. And that memory is with me when I watch Clueless, something the other titles in my Sick Queue* don’t offer. But beyond that, of course, is the fact that Clueless is a truly great comedy — it’s still as hilariously funny for me now as it was when I saw it then. (More, actually, since I didn’t catch a lot of the sex-related humor at 10.)
Overlooking, perhaps, that it’s a little gayer than, say, Dazed and Confused (released two years earlier), Clueless also gave us characters who were essentially normal teenagers, but still strive to be witty, to accomplish, and who ultimately improve themselves and their relationships. They grow, in other words, offering a degree of hope and aspiration (and without a hint of manipulative self-interest — not the case in Heathers, for example): Yes they will be teenagers — they will try drugs and party and be jealous and insecure — but they will also learn responsibility, they will yearn to make themselves smarter and better people, and they will have fun doing it.
And that’s just really cool to me. Somehow, without at all being a message movie, Amy Heckerling gave a new idea for what cool could be. That being cool could be defined by self-expression and helping others and how you use language and being generally good-natured, and yes being fashionable and popular and having money, maybe that helps, but we’re working on that too. And maybe it was short-lived, but it still strikes that post-adolescent, idealistic chord in me. (The Breakfast Club sort-of did that too, but not nearly as well, if you ask me.) And while so many movies written for teenagers now condescend to their audience, Clueless demands that they rise to the occasion.
* Most recently, this is also true of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Mean Girls, The Birdcage, Notting Hill, Scream, Clue, Love Actually, French Kiss, Singin’ in the Rain, and almost anything scripted by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men being my favorite) or Nora Ephron. An alarming number of romantic comedies in that list, but there it is; and I say “most recently” because those are the ones that are most often found in current TV rotation.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Movies
Comments
By Ronni
March 8, 2007 12:01 AM | Link to this
Clueless is one I can watch over and over. Mean Girls, too. Since it’s been on cable, if I happen to flip past it, I have to finish watching. And I can watch While You Were Sleeping a million times and always get caught up in the schmoopyness of it.By Rob
March 3, 2007 12:15 AM | Link to this
I was under the weather a couple Sundays back and I pretty much did nothing but catch up on the Grey’s Anatomy Season 2 DVDs. I must have gone through 11 episodes, I think I may have OD’d.By Hillary
March 2, 2007 10:40 PM | Link to this
I have to second the notion to watch Clueless. I can watch it anytime - sick or not. As for my other “sick” movies… Titanic was this week’s contender But I’m partial to hours of the Golden Girls (DVDs or Lifetime reruns). Nothing warms the heart like a good wisecrack from Sophia.