Top 5 VHS Tapes I Wore Out…
Someone in my house is watching Ice Age 4. It’s noisy and I don’t understand it. My current favorite way to “watch” movies is to listen to reviews of them on Comedy Film Nerds. Then, you see, I don’t have to actually watch them. It’s like getting the director’s commentary without having to pick off all the stickers sealing up the case.
My old favorite way to watch them was until they wore out. True then as now, I don’t like any movie the first time through — too many unknowns (Ah. Which explains the review in lieu of feature preference.)
Though I’m sure some day I will have to learn to sit in the same room as the Ice Age Du Jour, there’s no reason that some of these threadbare, favorite, watched-in-excess-of-scores movies can’t sneak in there too.
The Top 5 VHS Tapes I Wore Out:
- Muppets Take Manhattan. “I’ll trade with anyone who has a Jacuzzi!” “Is chickens, is bears, is pigs, is peoples. Peoples is peoples.” Plus a wedding and Joan Rivers? Best of the franchise, hands down.
- Parent Trap 2. This is very important to note, NOT the original. Only the sequel. The original was all stodgey and unbelievable and there was no Tom Skerritt and no cookie-making scene. I did not know that the girl who played Mary died in 1997. Nikki is a recovering lawyer and a writer with a blog.
- Labyrinth. This one beat out Dark Crystal for number of reps and continues the theme that though all of these films were my childhood favorites, no animation. There were a few Disney shorts when we rented a VCR, but live-ish action seems key to being a favorite. Also David Bowie, being on the edge of terrified, and that dress.
- The NeverEnding Story. Speaking of unsettling, “Say my name!” Spooky in that “Let’s watch it again!” kind of way.
- Troop Beverly Hills. And of course, sneaking in under the 1990s wire, the legendary, watched-on-loop during the whole of the Chicken Pox Crisis of 6th grade, important enough that I felt the need to tell the director just such a fact, perfect classic.
And maybe I spent the last three years trying not to be Phyllis. Just maybe.
