Cru Jones Society

(A quick word about the site before we get started: Senor Limon is tending to some real life obligations and will return in two weeks. Hart and I will carry the load during that time and you can look for a post-mortem about the Kentucky Derby tomorrow, and then four articles about Mother’s Day Wednesday through Saturday. Today, I begin a new Monday series entitled: The Cru Jones Love Lounge. Enjoy!)

When I moved out of my parents’ house to embark on six of the greatest years of my life known as college,¹ I said goodbye to living with girls. My mom was the only girl I’d ever lived with, and I was content to leave it that way. I spent those six years of college co-habitating with between one and four other guys in what turned out to be remarkably drama-free living. Improbably, we all maintained similar levels of cleanliness, kept similar hours and didn’t steal each other’s food (one of the biggest killers of friends-turned-roommates).

I think the most important, and underrated, aspect of this living was that we all had a love of movies and could watch virtually anything, at any time, for any reason. Whether Spike TV aired another Rocky marathon over the weekend, someone was hunkering down to watch Tombstone for the billionth time, or TBS was showing Swordfish some random morning at 2 a.m., we’d just pop in and out without a thought.² I don’t think I ever realized that girls don’t watch television this way.

It’s now 2008, and I’ve lived with a girl for about six months. My movie watching behavior has changed substantially, and although I’m not angry about it, I am taken aback. A couple of examples will help clarify this.

The girlfriend and I had a minor disagreement on Saturday before we went out about whether or not to watch the beginning of Sleeping with the Enemy before we left.

My argument was that there’s almost nothing better than watching the first 30 minutes of this movie, echoed by Bill Simmons right here, due in large part to my being bizarrely entertained by Patrick Bergin’s evil portrayal of an abusive,  fearlessly mustachioed husband.

Her argument was that watching a creepy movie about domestic violence is counter-intuitive to getting amped for celebrating a friend’s birthday before a night on the town.

When viewed through that prism, she’s got a point.

However, this speaks to the fact that I don’t give a crap when or how I stumble upon a movie I like (the movie itself is also immaterial – all that matters is that I like it), I’ll watch it. Sleeping With the Enemy is not one of my favorite movies. I’d never own it. There’s even more than a few plot holes (How could her wedding ring stay in the toilet for that long without getting flushed down?). The point is, it was on, it’s fun and entertaining viewing, and it was the first thing I found while scrolling through the digital cable guide.

Apparently, this is no longer acceptable behavior.

I’ve determined that a woman’s mood not only dictates, well, everything she does, it also dictates her movie watching. Selecting a proper movie at Blockbuster is akin to scheduling a space shuttle launch. All the elements must be perfect, the planets must be aligned, and there will be exactly one perfect movie to watch on a given evening. Ask your woman the next time you’re at Blockbuster what she feels like watching and you’ll get surprisingly specific responses. (i.e. Something funny that’s not too slapsticky.).

When confronted with what I feel like watching, my answer more closely resembles that of Justice Potter Stewart’s concurring opinion in Miller v. California when asked his definition of obscene material: “I’ll know it when I see it.” How do I know what I’ll watch tonight? I’ll know it when I see it.

A few weeks ago, I was gearing up to jump into the middle of Fight Club for my 726^th viewing without hesitation. Why? It was on and I found it.

Lady E entered the room and said, “Geez… Fight Club again? This is three times in one week. How can you watch this movie this many times?”³

I don’t know. How can you watch Anderson Cooper night after night even though he says basically the exact same thing with his eyes pressed together all serious-like?

I never imagined having to justify watching television this way. Isn’t this why cable was invented? So we have a way to escape into our favorite shows and movies at will and temporarily shut off the perpetually insistent outside world. If I spend fifteen minutes getting creeped out by Patrick Bergin terrorizing his wife, chuckling at Macaulay Culkin machine gunning questions at his Uncle Buck or reining in a man crush on Tyler Durden, I almost always instantly feel better about my day.

I feel that women don’t get this. To be honest, I don’t either. But what can I say? It’s what we do.

Just for the sake of comparison, Lady E has approximately five movies she can watch at any time: Legally Blonde, Playing By Heart, Love Actually, Sliding Doors and The Sound of Music.

Legally Blonde is a movie that has grown on me to the point where I’m not entirely comfortable talking about it. It initially sucked me in due to its crisp dialogue exchanges and bright colors (No kidding. Watch the movie sometime, the colors are intoxicating. It’s like Skittles for your eyes.). It’s now gotten to the point where I can watch this movie at any time from any point in the plot. I’ll never forgive her for this.

Playing By Heart is a good movie, but has too much romantic tension to enjoy on repeated viewings. Lots of melodrama, self-discovery and uncomfortable character developments.

Love Actually doesn’t take itself too seriously which endears it to me. It also wins the award for “Most Ridiculously Impossible but Freakin’ Sweet” sequence in a movie ever. You know which scene I’m talking about if you’ve seen the movie. The weird-looking British guy with huge teeth comes to Milwaukee – Milwaukee! – happens upon Elisha Cuthbert and her three hot friends, shares a couple of beers with them in some local dive and promptly fucks them all. Everyone watching knows what a farce this scene is, but who gives a shit? It’s fun to dream.

“It’s like Monty Python says… Noboby expects the Spanish Inquisition.” A winning line (that became a running motif) from Sliding Doors by a character who should win a medal of valor for coming off a like a great guy in the face of having to deal with mopey-yet-pretentious Gwyneth Paltrow all movie. Something about ol’ Gwyneth just rubs me the wrong way. Always has. Anyway, I have no strong feelings either way about this movie.

The Sound of Music confuses the hell out of me. I get anxiety just thinking about all those songs that are so catchy they’ll someday cause me an aneurysm. How anyone can watch this movie more than once every five years is beyond me. I realize I wrote about The Wizard of Oz right her on this very site, and that the criticisms I levy at The Sound of Music apply to one of my favorite movies, but something about this damn movie makes me anxious. God, just writing this paragraph has gotten that insipid yodeling song from the marionette scene stuck in my head.

But those are it. Five movies. And she owns those. The best casual surfing movies are the ones I don’t own and never would. Sure, I’ll watch The Warriors or Swingers any old time of day, but isn’t it so much more fun happening upon a movie like Little Giants or Sleeping With the Enemy accidentally? Doesn’t stumbling onto something like White Men Can’t Jump remind you of finding a crumpled up $10 bill in your jacket pocket you didn’t know was there?

I don’t know about anyone else, but finding these forgotten, semi-polished gems reminds me of a time in my life that I didn’t have to go work for ten hours a day. It reminds me of when I was too young to legally drink and spent my money with friends seeing whatever happened to be playing at the theater. It reminds me of when I bought VHS tapes of movies I only marginally enjoyed which causes people to look at my collection now and wonder, “Why does he own Over the Top and What’s Love Got To Do With It?” I’m reminded of when I looked forward to devouring “Entertainment Weekly” for my movie news because there was no Internet. I think of college. I think of ball-busting defenseless actors with my friends. I remember watching stuff I was sure I would hate but ended up loving to death after repeated viewings (Prime example: Super Troopers. HATED this movie with a passion after one time. After about five times: Hi-freakin’-larious!).

It’s a nostalgia kick. But more than anything else, it’s just something guys do. I went to a wedding in San Diego with Lady E. One of her friends needed some makeup help (or help with a zipper or some shit – I can’t be bothered to remember), so she came into our room. She advised me to go to her room and “hang out” with her boyfriend who was all alone. Despite feeling like I was being set up on a playdate and being five years old, I headed down there to “hang out” with this dude who I’d known for all of three hours the night before. We ended up absent-mindedly surfing to The Empire Strikes Back on HBO 8 and bonded over cracking gay jokes about Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill. Neither of us was a Star Wars fan, but we ended up watching it for an hour and a half.

We became pals over something we happened upon and ended up getting shitfaced that night at the wedding together like we were old friends. Good times! And it’s all thanks to absent-mindedly surfing to a movie neither gave a shit about!

This is something I don’t think women will ever understand, and that’s fine. There’s plenty of things about women I don’t understand and never will. Quite frankly there’s plenty I don’t want to know.

But having that argument the other night about Sleeping With the Enemy certainly brings the point home that moving in with someone presents you with things you never, ever contemplated having to discuss with another person. And I’ll say this: Considering the way I watch movies has been the most challenging aspect of living with a girl I never thought I’d encounter. That is, of course, aside from learning to live with cats who spend roughly 90% of your sleeping hours walking around on top of you… but that’s a different and far less interesting story.

For all you guys out there living with friends: Enjoy your time while it lasts because it certainly won’t last forever. You may never watch Starship Troopers again after you go your separate ways.

Now if you’ll excuse me, the girl’s at the gym and I can catch Harrison Ford growling “Get off my plane!” at Gary Oldman.

Awesome.

edagger@crujonessociety.com

¹ That six years was spent getting two degrees, a B.A. and an M.A. Shut up.

² One time I was watching one of my favorite “awful classics,” An Innocent Man, with bona fide ass kickers Tom Selleck, M.C. Gainey, and, um, F. Murray Abraham. None of my roommates had ever seen it, missed the first 30 minutes, and still watched it until the end with me. I think back on that fondly.

³ Funny postscript to this story: I called Hart shortly after this for something unrelated and asked what he was doing. “Watching Fight Club again,” was his reply. Clearly, he does not live with a girl.