dual personalities

DP note: Darling daughter #2 scheduled this post early because she knew she was going to be busy yesterday giving birth. Yes, baby U was born, weighing 8 lbs./15 oz.–a big bouncing baby Katiebelle! More tomorrow…

I have been off of work for over a week now, with a lot of waiting time on my hands. I have spent most of it napping and watching bad Netflix shows here and there. But a few nights, I’ve indulged in some random movie-watching impulses.

First, we landed on School of Rock, which is streaming on HBO. When we came across it, it seemed like the perfect choice. I hadn’t seen it in years, probably since the last time my family watched it together in the 2000s. School of Rock was one of those movies everyone could always agree on — no small feat for a family of five, with siblings ranging five years in age.

I think DN was pretty surprised by my familiarity with the movie and its lines, several of which fully entered our family’s lexicon. He had no idea that School of Rock was the provenance, for example, of this particular gem:

Admittedly, I did fall asleep in the third quarter of the movie (I missed Joan Cusack’s Stevie Nicks moment!) but that’s only because of my non-existent sleep schedule. The movie held up overall, with a good cast of characters working together toward a goal, each growing in their own way and accomplishing something by the end. Add in the gif-able moments, and it’s a solid choice for movie night, in 2002 or 2020.

I recently also experienced an overwhelming urge to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. DN owns them (“Everyone bought those DVDs, Susie”) and dug them out of storage at his parent’s house. While no one in my family ever got really into the Lord of the Rings fandom, the movies were a thing for us. At least once, we went to see the new release on Christmas day. When the DVDs would come out, we would watch the extended director’s cut AND all of the special features.

This was the intense moment that leapt to mind when I remembered the movies and suggested we watch them. I guess I was in the mood for some epic Gandalf good-versus-evil.

While watching, we were also struck by this moment, which has become a total meme:

But ultimately, I was kind of underwhelmed! The hobbits irritated me — they were always causing trouble and then having to be saved — and it takes nearly 2 hours for the movie to even feel like it’s beginning. We do plan to forge ahead, and as I recall the movies might get better as they go? (I’m not looking forward the Gollum storyline, though.) Mostly, I will stick with it for Viggo Mortensen:

He is undeniably the best part of these movies — very convincingly (and handsomely) representing what is good about the race of men. (Did I mention how often he saves the hobbits?) It strikes me that Viggo might have been what we loved most in the early 2000s, too. I remember that after the series had concluded, we wanted more of him, renting every Viggo Mortensen movie we could. Well, he made a lot of gritty, sex-filmed movies, but there’s always 28 Days, another film that became a family favorite.

Well, now that I’ve rambled for several gif-filled paragraphs, I should probably make a point. I was thinking that perhaps all this nostalgia-watching I’ve blogged about in recent weeks, particularly with these two films, stems not from quarantine but from family. We were all stay-at-home types growing up (I mean, I was just not cool) and watched a lot of movies together in our “TV room.” We went to the Movie Hut to rent something new, or chose something from our vast collection, and in retrospect that was a very comforting ritual. So it isn’t that I was craving a Jack Black joke or an orc battle — I was missing my family! And thinking about eventual movie nights with my own children.

In other words,

(Name that family favorite film)