We’ve reached that time of year when the only sane thing to do during the afternoon hours is soak a towel, drape it over your body, and sit in front of the fan. Of course, the towel is dry after roughly fifteen minutes, but that is fifteen minutes that you are not sweating. The charla (kind of like a workshop) I had scheduled for today got canceled, leaving me with a whole day with nothing planned. That fit in perfectly with my desire to sit in front of the fan, and to keep myself occupied while staying cool, I decided to have a movie marathon and watch the Bourne Identity trilogy.
I just watched the first one, and the movie brings back so many memories. I can remember watching it in the theater in Stillwater, and then getting the movie for Christmas and being equally excited to watch it again. I watched it countless times in my apartment on Duck St, sitting on that ancient couch that had been handed down to me after my parents got new furniture, eating mac’n’cheese like every other college student in the US, and feeling slightly guilty about the amount of homework I was putting off. Then there were the times I would come home from work in Oklahoma City and pop in the movie while cooking dinner.
You see, I am not a chick flick kind of girl. I’d much rather go see a comedy or an action movie, something that will make me laugh or fill me with energy. That is why, if you take a look at my movie collection, you will find Braveheart, Gladiator, Dumb & Dumber, Bourne Identity, Zoolander, and a smattering of standup comedian acts. I want to watch a movie that will get the blood pumping, motivate me to tackle some problem I’ve been putting off, inspire me to do something with my life. Ironically, all of those things seem to require car chases and explosions.
Chick flicks, on the other hand, are rated on their ability to reduce their female audience to tears. For a chick flick to be a hit, there should be multiple moments where all you can hear is blubbering from the audience. There are other signs that you are about to watch a chick flick. You’ll see girls passing out Kleenex during the previews, somewhere in the opening credits it will say “Based on a Nicholas Sparks novel”, or there is a surprising lack of male audience members and those that are there already look bored.
The movie marathon experience lacks something when done in a Peruvian desert, though. A lot of the fun of watching a movie is the atmosphere. When I am at home, movie marathons involve drawing all the curtains, turning off the lights, ordering pizza and/or making popcorn, making sure there is an adequate supply of beverages, and stocking the couch and the surrounding area with so many pillows that you forget you have a floor. Then, once you are surrounded by enough food and drinks to ensure you won’t have to leave your new den of cushiony goodness for at least a week, you press play. Not really how it goes here. However, you take what you can get and quite honestly, I didn’t even expect to be able to watch movies during my Peace Corps experience, so can I really complain? Nope. And so, I am going to soak my towel again and start the second movie.
Cheers.
