Comfort Films (last, phoned-in blog before vacation, guys!)
December 16, 2008
This thing is gonna be short. I gotta go buy some presents for others and a new mac for myself. Because having this page load in less than 1 minute is my Christmas wish and I’m going to make sure it comes true.
But Holidays, the time of family foods such as christmas turkey or goose (or ham if you’re a commie) and potatoes and cookies and cakes, and just fatness and fullness in general, got me thinking about the idea of comfort food.
My comfort foods are pasta pomodoro from this place down the street, turkey goulash, which i make myself, and a lot of things involving cheese and potatoes. But to be honest, when i’m feeling really sad, ill or homesick, I comfort myself with the same few movies. I will list the films and thier uses below (you may have noticed by now that lists are my phoning-it-in format of choice), and you can decide if they are applicable to you or tell me what yours are, please. I would like more comfort films with which to comfort myself.
Out of africa - comforts me as an ambitious person…although i don’t know why. all i want in life is to be Karen Blixen, and watching this movie should only remind me that I am not. Still, I have seen this movie about 40 times. about 3x/year every year since 1995.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Comforts me as a child…this is what i watch when I have the flu or when I don’t want to go teach english to college students because i feel like i’m a 10 year-old who shouldn’t be in charge.
Cold Comfort Farm - contrary to what the title would have you think, this film comforts me as a person with OCD tendencies…when i feel like i can’t possibly organize everything in my life to a degree that would make me perfect and happy, i watch this film, which is basically about tidying people.
Coal Miner’s Daughter - Comforts me as a woman. Loretta and Dolittle Lynn have so many problems and she’s only 14 for half of them. And yet they still have fun honky tonkin’ and fighting and they have the decency to split up after the movie ends.
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington - Comforts me as an American.
Jaws - Comforts me as a moviegoer…this movie makes me want to go to the movies forever just in case another movie comes out that is as good as this movie.
I int even gonna edit this post. I have xmas-itis. see you in the new year.
Here’s a picture of comfortingly messy people from cold comfort farm. Thanks John Schlesinger, Stella Gibbons and Kate Beckinsale!
comforting list. especially Coal Miner’s Daughter! might i suggest Tender Mercies? that movie will comfort a storm.
also, i feel Mr. Smith but when push comes to shove i’m a Joe Versus the Volcano kind-of-guy. the last truly great film Tom Hanks was involved with.
Does it make me a bad person that mine are ‘annie’ and basically anything with hugh grant?
Oh wait - and marilyn monroe, can’t forget marilyn
I suspect mamma mia is rapidly heading there too
I am so low rent….
I enjoy your blog immensely, but procrastinated on commenting until seeing your comfort movie pick Out of Africa. Coincidentally, I had just decided to stop writing about Twilight on my blog for a bit and write about landscape in film, because of Out of Africa, which I saw (again) just recently. For years I have kept a quote from Karen Blixen’s book that I take out every month or so. It is similar to the film’s voiceover when she wonders whether the land will remember her after she is gone. For me, the power of that film lies in her recognition of the landscape and her relationship to it (which is so much a part of the book and her Letters from Africa). I just realized this is the key to why I feel uplifted every time I see that film, even though Blixen went through some pretty damn awful, disappointing things, maybe the worst being that she never returned to Africa.
I don’t know if this resonates with anyone else, but now I know why I love Cross Creek, and Never Cry Wolf (both films and books), and even why I still feel a kind of spiritual longing when I watch King Fu reruns. Yes, I do. He traveled through the landscape alone, living within it. Kwai Chang Caine walked the earth, man!
im sorry to lurk, but i can’t believe i forgot to mention Broadcast News. That movie is fucking comforting. i can’t even stand the characters, but i guess there’s something about being a comfort film that lets it break through the critical eye. something about that movie kills me. i think if i ever saw it on VHS again i’d lose my mind.
Being a babe, you may not know that all comfort movies for men include a Western somewhere — Rio Bravo may be the best. John Wayne, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan and Angie Dickinson. And nothing could be more America-affirming than Ricky and Dean singing “My Rifle, My Pony and Me.”