SO IT'S NOT JUST THE CARAVAN MAN

I love doing things that I love doing again.

Does that make sense?

It may be a security thing - you know, like when you feel out of control with your life, you hang on desperately to the few things you feel like you can control.

But if I really love a movie, I usually love it the 18th time I see it.

When I love a book, I might as well purchase the hard-cover, because I will wear it out (you do NOT want to know how many copies of Pride and Prejudice I have worn out).

So right now I am watching "While You Were Sleeping" for the billionth time.

And there are a couple of classic lines.

"When I told my mother I was getting married to my wife, her intestines exploded. You tell them the truth now, well, you may as shoot grandma."

"He would get these far-off looks in his eyes and he would say 'Life doesn't always turn out the way you plan'. I just wish I'd realized at the time, he was talking about MY life."

"I'd say that she gets under your skin as soon as you meet her. She drives you so nuts you don't know whether to hug her or, or just really arm wrestle her. She would go all the way to Europe just to get a stamp in her passport. I don't know if that amounts to insanity, or just being really, really... likable."

"No, that's not it."

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to... "

"I object."

'I didn't get to that part yet."

"I would have to object too."

"What about you?"

"I'm thinking."

"$45 for a Christmas tree and they don't deliver? You order $10 worth of chow mien from Mr. Wong they bring it to your door."

"Is she all right?"

"She has a little heart problem - she's had three attacks already."

"They weren't attacks, they were episodes!"

"Nothing wrong with her hearing."

"It's just... I never met anyone I could laugh with."

NO MORE ADULTHOOD, PLEASE

My daughter and I went to see the sixth Harry Potter movie this afternoon, thinking, early Thursday, movie's been out for a while, should be a quiet matinee.

It wasn't packed, but it was more crowded than I expected.

I'm a HP purist. If J.R. Rowling wrote it, then that's how it is. I have little patience with the directors who drop some of the best scenes right out of the script and put in some of the stupidest lines.

So I wasn't exceptionally happy with HPATHBP - although I was surprised that some parts were absolutely perfect (the Inferi were great).

But it was fun to get lost in the wizarding world of Hogwarts, instead of worrying about how much you can honestly modify the aforementioned daughter's resume when she has been every-thing-except-fired from her fast food job, how long you can afford to pay her rent with no other income coming in, and how much can you pressure your back-living-at-home-and-not-attending-college-anymore son into possible sharing his sister's abode and thereby paying part of the rent.

Yeah, give me a wand and put me up against Voldemort - right now that sounds easier.

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR

I have been called gullible. I have been called naive. I have also been called stupid... but that's not part of this story (at least not yet).

But I assume that when people say something - or write it into a script - that they, at the very least, assume it is true.

Which is completely opposite my husband, who says, "I assume the person is lying to me, and take it from there."

So today I was SHOCKED. Completely SHOCKED.

"You've Got Mail," with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, is one of my favorite all time movies (defining 'favorite' as one of several hundred - think very broad here).

And you must understand, that with me, when I like something, I watch/read/experience whatever it is, again.

And again.

And again.

See, if I like it, I don't get bored by the repetition.

It also helps that I have almost no short-term memory. I never remember the end, so am surprised every time. (I'm not joking, folks)

However, I do memorize a lot of lines from all my 'favorite' movies.

One line from "You've Got Mail" which always puzzled me (defining 'puzzled' as actually dwelling on it for more than two nano-seconds) is one of Meg Ryan's which she is emailing out to "the cosmic universe" about a thought about a Joni Mitchell song, with the lyrics, "I wish I had a river I could skate away on."

And Meg Ryan/Kathleen Kennedy STATES in the script: "And the song isn't really about Christmas, but I was thinking about it tonight as I was decorating my tree and missing my mother so much that I couldn't breath."

Nice line.

But I am not enough of a Joni Mitchell fan to know all her songs, so I had no idea which song the she is referring to.

BUT...

Tonight on Sirius radio (one of the best things invented in the past fourteen centuries - I love music with NO/NONE/NADA commercials), I HEARD THE SONG!! That exact song!!

And the song IS about Christmas!!!

Listen!

Or read, I guess:

It's coming on Christmas,

They're cutting down trees,

They're putting up reindeer

And singing songs of joy and peace.

Oh I wish I had a river

I could skate away on.

How could the script editor / authenticity reader / HONESTY staffer NOT catch this?!?

I may never watch that movie again (sniff).

TWO HOURS I WILL NEVER HAVE AGAIN

I like movies. My best friend from high school, Annette, can attest to how many hours, DAYS we spent at the Rialto Theatre on Fair Oaks Blvd. in South Pasadena.

This is back in the dark ages, when movies were actually on FILM, and were run on PROJECTORS that occasionally broke down, accidentally burned the film, or got the sound off by a few seconds (anyone remember that great scene in "Singin' In The Rain" with the "No, No, No!" "Yes, Yes, Yes!"?).

But once you paid for the admission, you could stay there and sit through one, two, three showings - or until the theater closed for the night and they actually came in to sweep up the grotesque combination of spilled popcorn, sugary soda (this is also before diet drinks were invented - we had no idea that saturated fats, sugar, leaded paint or asbestos were bad for you), cotton candy (ditto) and Milk Duds (probably the healthiest thing we ate).

I remember seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" at least twice at the premiere - "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" probably forty-six times - "Harold and Maude", which I absolutely adore, and everyone who knows my past is always dumbfounded by that - "Papillon", although I think just once, that was pretty sad - "American Graffiti" - "The Conversation", which in retrospect is kinda intresting, because my husband worked with eavesdropping devices for the government for seven years while he was still active duty Army.

So... probably a couple of years spent watching movies between sixth grade and college.

However, now I am still happy to rent a DVD, sit down on the couch with the remote control(s) and watch a movie. I'm old - I can't sit in a theatre, drink any kind of soda and expect my bladder to stay quiet for a one hour and a half show. At home, I can pause it, rewind, and especially watch any directors' commentary, deleted scenes, gag reels, etc.

But tonight? My husband had purchased "The Mummy" - the third one. Yes, I had seen the first - and the second - in the theatre.

So... I have just lost two hours of my life that I will never, ever have again.

Damn.

I'LL SHOW YOU MINE IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS

Please accept this as a challenge; I need you to make COMMENTS to show me YOURS. And if you'd like to identify the correct movie, extra points will be awarded.

Begin....NOW:


1. "In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."


2. "I'll have what she's having."


3. "Either he's dead or my watch has stopped."


4. "Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria."


5. "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."


6. "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."


7. "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"


8. "I was a better man with you, as a woman, than I ever was with a woman, as a man. Know what I mean? I just gotta learn to do it without the dress."


9. "Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."


10. "I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals."


11. "I mean she's the first lady. I mean couldn't I have started with a cousin?


12. "Empty. The opposite of full. Anyone care to explain?"


13. "We... are dead. We are dead." "Shit. I was such a terrific guy."


14. "I want to do something for her... but what?" "Well, there's the usual things: flowers... chocolates... promises you don't intend to keep... "


15. "You have no respect for cognitive reverie, you know that?" "Yes. But pizza - now, pizza I have enormous respect for."


15. "For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there's an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales."


16. "Guy, Guy... maybe you're the plucky comic relief. You ever think about that?"