comfort movies

i know where i'm going!

Last night I needed a few beers and 90 minutes of comfort. Looked on my VHS shelf and discovered I had taped Coney Island (Betty Grable, 1943) off AMC years ago, even labelled it, and then never watched it. My night was made.

i think i do associate t.v. with comfort more. from when i was little and i would watch i love lucy every day for what seemed like years. so many shows like that. gilmore girls would be a more modern example. kinda perfect for me and i can re-watch anytime. and when me and the kids watched avatar all the way through cyrus became a little obsessed and would watch episodes over and over and i liked having them on. the kids were/are like that with futurama and now i kinda just like hearing it in the house. but obviously there were movies i watched over and over and never got tired of. they always made me feel okay. blade runner, over the edge (my fave movie ever), king of new york, housekeeping, ruby in paradise, safe (i know, but it soothed me), days of heaven. lots more. i've probably seen days of heaven 100 times. i've seen the movie BUG a hundred times! i was obsessed with that movie. i would watch it every day for a while back in the old days.

i don't watch them much anymore though. the ones i've seen so many times. i want to see too many other things that i haven't seen yet. i know those movies by heart. Five Corners! i've seen that movie so many times. neflix t.v. thing has kinda become my perfect outlet. gotta say. as far as comfort goes. its just too easy and addictive. can't wait for the new prison series! still probably should finish watching breaking bad. comforting in its itchy way.

I know ILX hates The Ice Storm but it's like a handful of Vicodin to me

snowy movies are TOTAL comfort for me. i just bought a kate beckinsale snow movie simply for the snow.

forgot about the snow...

groundhog day
black narcissus

Stealing Beauty is an annual late spring viewing for me. Anything with Peter Falk is good for dulling creeping anxiety, especially The Brinks Job.

Columbo is prime comfort viewing for me, yes.

started watching Emergency! on netflix with Cyrus. really brings me back. i loved that show. again, probably seen every episode 5 times. i kinda want to watch all the episodes of all creatures great & small on netflix. feel like that would be comforting.

Ice Storm for me too, especially a couple of years ago when I watched it a number of times.

eureka would be cool to have playing in the kitchen while you slow-cooked a side of ham or something

wayne's world
my neighbor totoro
wrath of khan

Tootsie
Husbands and Wives
The Lady Eve
The Discreet Charm...

damn u Brits listing films that aren't on DVD here

i remember Andrew Sarris saying regretfully about Casablanca in an interview, "I've seen it too much." An outdated concept I guess.

New Additions:

the Whit Stillman quartet (If I watch one, the others will soon follow)

I was in the hospital late last year, and upon my release, I weaned myself back into the habit of watching dvds by looking at music stuff like "The Old Grey Whistle Test" and Urgh! A Music War. If that's not comfort, I don't know what is.

Watched The Ice Storm tonight--very comforting.

repo man
excalibur
the thin man (etc.)
spirited away
princess mononoke
groundhog day
kung-fu hustle
red desert
rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead
dune
hellboy 2
lost highway
my man godfrey
9 to 5
the philadelphia story
blade runner
eyes wide shut
the thing
duck soup
zelig
rushmore
finding nemo
chungking express
playtime
phenomena
strangers on a train
o brother where art thou
barbarella
star wars
night of the hunter
three crowns of the sailor
where the wild things are
the red shoes
crouching tiger hidden dragon
48 hours
harry potter 3
raiders of the lost ark
key largo

fantastic planet
scott pilgrim
an american werewolf in london

[sound of list-spieling maniac forcefully dragged offstage)

andrew sarris is dead, that concept is literally outdated xps

you know who else is dead? pauline kael.

just ctrl+f'd a league of their own and space balls and wtf

Star Trek 6, so much

rio bravo otm for hangovers, though as i've gotten older & hangovers more brutal i've moved onto stronger stuff, like donovan's reef

yeah rio bravo awesome

league of their own otm

Dirty Harry movies
Manhattan
Bullitt
The French connection
Serpico
Hannah and her sisters
Le rayon vert
Lawrence of Arabia

I like **locations**

Oh yeah sunset boulevard and pulp fiction for LA

Eh I'm thinking of so much more now: hitchcocks, John carpenter stuff, probably blade runner to some extent. This can't be interesting to anyone besides me to list though.

yeah i think the idea is it's a small, personal list of something you've watched over & over (& over & over) (when wistful or drunk etc)

not a list of like 30 movies you've seen a couple times each & remember fondly or whatever

sorry for comfort policing, carry on

Forgot the ultimate for me:
Tombstone

i used to watch "in the mood for love" specifically to put me to sleep when i was having trouble sleeping. what's up with that? i even like wong kar-wai. but for whatever reason that one just did it for me.

i think once i actually finished it, but i can hardly remember what happens in it. i guess i was pretty groggy.

I will never tire of Dana Delany, Wyatt Earp fucking with chubby bearded Billy Bob Thornton and Val Kilmer's finest hour.

i remember Andrew Sarris saying regretfully about Casablanca in an interview, "I've seen it too much." An outdated concept I guess.

tbh there are certain favorite movies i resist visiting too often, just because i'm afraid of getting sick of them and i enjoy having them feel fresh again when i do watch them. but there are plenty more that i can throw on any time -- i can't imagine burning out on 'his girl friday' unless i was watching it every week or something.

fallen angels 4 me

yeah i think the idea is it's a small, personal list of something you've watched over & over ... not a list of like 30 movies you've seen a couple times each & remember fondly or whatever

― discreet, Thursday, July 11, 2013 10:39 PM (Yesterday)

i know, but it was midnight, i'd been working since 4am, more than a little loopy

back to metroplitan as we speak.
ahh didn't list that above, but I watch it so much!!

fallen angels otm

french connection
trading places
midnight run
dawn of the dead
clockwise
stan brakhage anthology vol 1 disc 2
persona
the brood
its a mad mad mad world
celine and julie go boating

Whatever is good that is repeated endlessly on ITV2/4.

Unfortunately its not Andrei Rublev but I'll settle for Escape from New York. More than good enough.

how can french connection be a comfort movie to anyone, it's so grim & noisy

It looks cool and beautiful and I like to watch it a lot when I have nothing better to do. comfort movies can be loud.

jackie brown 4ever

def jackie brown. i've seen the third man like 25 times and would probably put it on immediately if something catastrophically bad happened to me today, so that.

yeah i mean there's loads of these but really jackie brown is the pinnacle of comfort imo

maybe i'll have american psycho on the side though

joe vs the volcano

lone star

serpico as comfort film is srsly twisting my melon

i get stressed out just thinking about that shit

ebert on jackie brown is maybe relevant to comfort movies in general: I wanted these characters to live, talk, deceive and scheme for hours and hours.

the last boy scout