My little sister and I have a long history of watching movies together. When we were younger my sister was the kind of kid who loved to be outside with her friends while I was content to be reading or writing inside. Watching movies together was a way for us to hang out and do some sisterly bonding. Over the years we’ve changed the types of movies we’ve watched, but sitting on a couch and sharing snacks while glued to the screen is something that’s stayed the same.
My mother raised no wimps and we all watched Chuck Norris movies as kids. If Chuck was going to be saving people by kicking them in the face, my family was going to watch him do it. Action movies were a big deal in my house, but our favorites were the ones that involved kids. Russkies, Red Dawn and The Rescue. Oh, people remaking Red Dawn…I know that you’re going to do your best but I don’t know that you’ll ever surpass the scene where Jed is holding Mattie and says “Daddy’ll be here soon.” Makes us cry every time! We watch The Rescue to cheer, especially when Bobby has to flash his Springsteen t-shirt in order to keep their plane from being shot down. Yeah, that’s right. Springsteen T-shirt vs fighter jets. I love the 80’s.
Being girls, it wasn’t long before me and my sister choose movies based on the cute boy factor. It didn’t have to be a good movie, just had to have eye candy on the front cover. That’s fine though, since it led us to the Breakfast Club and Newsies. Both of which are movies that we still watch. We tracked down a youtube version of Newsies a few months ago and last year we went to see The Breakfast Club on the big screen of our local theaters classics series. Fun fact: After watching Newsies in 1992, my sister and I spent several hours in our basement coming up with new dance routines for the Newsies soundtrack. I’m totally biased and all, but I think we rocked.
Sci-fi and fantasy has always been a staple in our movie times. As kids we watched D.A.R.Y.L. and Flight of the Navigator and Star Trek. And of course the multiple rewatches of The Neverending Story. My sister loved Atreyu deeply. I wanted to ride on Falcor. Lately we’ve graduated to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight. I’m still trying to get her to watch Doctor Who, which I know it isn’t a movie but it counts because I’m writing this and because it really annoys me that she won’t even watch. (Mocking it in a hotel room in K.C. doesn’t count, Katie!)
The love of the musical is a love taught us by our mother. The King and I, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song were familiar films to us. We sang along to White Christmas every year and grew up only knowing how to spell Oklahoma if we could sing it out. In the 80’s we got updates to the music-driven movie with flicks like Footloose and Dirty Dancing (which we weren’t allowed to watch until we got older). Most of the musicals we watched in the 90’s were Disney animated films, which produced awesome music and had good plots to boot. But we’ve got plenty of musicals to watch now and we often get together to watch The Producers, Mamma-Mia, Bride and Prejudice, and Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
One of the movie types that we watch now that we didn’t as children is scary movies. My mom isn’t a big scary movie fan so we didn’t watch many, if any, horror flicks as children and teens. But as adults, Lily and I have seen our fair share of scary flicks. We even have a whole method of watching – she is less freaked out when she covers her ears during the scary parts and I do better when I can hold onto someone. So when the scary music starts to play or the damsel in distress ignores logic and goes to check out that spooky sound, we lean towards each other and Lily covers her ears and I grab hold of her wrist and we both squint at the TV to minimize our chance of seeing the scariest bits. Tonight we got together to watch Paranormal Activity and despite the freaky movie, it was comforting to settle in front of a TV screen with my sister.
There may be something different playing on the screen and we may look different sitting in front of it. But there is a part of us that is the two little girls sharing a blanket on the couch and laughing as we watch a movie together.
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