Movie Night

We tried to see The Martian Saturday night, but it was sold out at the two movie theaters we like. We have become—there's no other word for it—snobs. Not about the film...about the theater. After a few trips to the new easy-chair-style, reserved-seat, food-serving type of cinema, we have vowed never to go back to craning our necks and shifting uncomfortably at the old fashioned kind.

Instead, we stayed home and flipped around the channels looking for something to watch. Do you have a movie you will always stop at—no matter how much you have missed—and watch the rest? I do, and my husband definitely does. (As he changed the channels, I was thinking: please, not Planet of the Apes. Or a Spaghetti Western. Or, heaven forbid, Easy Rider.)

Here are a few of my always-watches:

• Steel Magnolias. And I cry every time.
• That Thing You Do. (Have you seen it? Mid-1960s band from Erie, Pennsylvania, makes a hit record. Plus, Tom Hanks.) I feel cheated if I don't see the scene when the band hears their song played on the radio for the first time.
• Raising Arizona. The first half has most of the funniest lines, though.
• Dazed and Confused. (Last day of school, 1976. Rising seniors haze, and party with, rising freshmen. Early roles for many stars: Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Parker Posey, to name a few.) Definitely not a family movie by any stretch. But so funny! And director Richard Linklater is a master of teenage-realistic dialogue.
• Speed. What can I say? It's Keanu.
• The Bourne Identity. Ditto, Matt Damon.
• Clueless. As if I would miss this one!
• Raiders of the Lost Ark. But not the sequels.
• The Parent Trap. Both versions, but I'm partial to Dennis Quaid as dad. I love the scene when the housekeeper realizes it's Annie, not Hallie.

And at Christmas:

• A Christmas Story. Why do the bullies always have red hair?
• Meet Me in St. Louis. Another tearjerker.

Hmm, it's kind of a lowbrow list. I guess you could say it's the equivalent of comfort food!