On video nasties
SOMETHING GREAT HAPPENS. I rent The Social Networkfrom the video shop. This is a big deal. I've mostly given up watching movies. I find it increasingly difficult to drag myself out to the cinema and I happen to live with someone who hits his own internal snooze button before the opening credits have rolled. I say: "This is great isn't it, I love just watching a film together," and he answers with a snore that rattles the Spire.
When I mention The Social Networkhe indicates that perhaps this is a film he might stay awake for so, full of optimism, I go to the video shop. I enjoy the way that they are still called video shops in the way I like saying I've "video taped" something on telly when I've actually done no such thing. I've merely pressed a magic button on my remote control and within a matter of weeks I have 162 episodes of Peppa Pig at my fingertips. In case of emergencies.
I used to be on nodding terms with the people at the video shop. I would ring them up and have lengthy conversations about the latest Almodovar when all I really wanted to know was whether they still had a copy of 10 Things I Hate About Youor whether Andrew McCarthy had been in anything lately. They told me about Fellini and I pretended to know what they were talking about. I went to the cool video shop back then. Now I go to the other one.
The guy I rent The Social Networkfrom . . . well, I don't know him from Adam Sandler as it has been so long since I darkened these doors. But he's cool and aloof and enigmatic in that video-shop-guy way and I get nostalgic for my once weekly visits.
Cool and aloof. I think it's in the job description. A lot of video-shop dudes – there seems to be rather less video-shop dudettes now that I think about it – come off as though the call from Woody Allen is due any day now and they've got a Tarantino-esque script burning a hole in their man bag. It's as though answering your questions about Legally Blonde 2is demeaning. Which is why I used to always ask them. "That Witherspoon one. You've got to love anything she's in really, haven't you? She just doesn't know how to pick a bad movie."
I am almost giddy going to pick up The Social Network. If he doesn't fall asleep or at least only falls asleep near the end, this could mean the revival of my whole movie life. Renting the film I expect a bit of chat from video guy about how fantastic the film is because that is what every person on the planet seems to think. But he just scans my movie without even a glance.
“You’re probably wondering what took me so long to get around to watching it,” I say as an opener. I’ve been missing this video-shop banter. He doesn’t answer. I tell him that I don’t get out to the cinema much on account of having children and he couldn’t look more fascinated if I started talking about the funny thing they said the other day. Or read him my shopping list. Hey ho.
I don’t leave anything to chance. I make sure I put the movie on just after dinner. I turn all the lights on full blast. I make my boyfriend sit in the most uncomfortable chair in the house and I open the window so a chill breeze whips around the room. I can do no more. My fate is in the hands of Zuckerberg/Eisenberg and the Winklevoss twins lookalikes.
I swear to God, Zuckerberg/Eisenberg is only back from being dumped by his girlfriend and blogging about it while simultaneously creating Facemash before my companion is snoring like a hippo. After an hour I stop poking him in the ribs, which made no difference to his snooze but made me feel better.
It is weeks before I try again. I am in Portadown for the Drumcree Church Fete where I buy a bag of toy medical supplies for 60p and briefly attend an exhausting auction. Later I rent the Witherspoon vehicle How Do You Know.
This is a question but there is no question mark in the title, which I take as a sign of the film’s cleverality and not a sign it’s missing other vital components. Enjoyability, for one thing. (It turns out Witherspoon is capable of picking turkeys. Must inform video-shop dude.)
Not that I saw the whole thing. Around the time Witherspoon decided to shack up with Owen Wilson, I decided to lie down on the sofa and there are three witnesses to my snore-fest that my boyfriend’s father said could have rattled the hut on Drumcree Hill.
And so it has come to pass. I am just another annoying person who falls asleep in the middle of a film. It doesn’t matter that this one was rubbish. It can only be a matter of time before I start stockpiling Werther’s Originals and marvelling at modern “video taping” technology. Too late.
In other news . . . If I do one thing today I am going to buy a pin for Sunflower Days (€2) in aid of hospices all over Ireland. All funds raised locally, stay locally. sunflowerdays.ie