Page 9 of Way Down Deep

I will be over here, compiling my own list with so much agonising care you’d think I was a Professor of Doing Top Fives of Things.

11.45pm

Now we’re talking, Professor Stranger.

Top five, though? That’s tough. I’ve got a notepad balanced here on my thigh, with six million titles scribbled down and crossed out and starred and underlined. Ultimately I decided I better approach this challenge from the desert island angle, like these are the only five movies I get to watch for the rest of my life, not necessarily the five best or most important movies ever made.

I’d want a mix. Something that leaves me bawling like a little bitch. Something that makes me laugh until I nearly pee—maybe two of those. Something from my childhood. Something that makes me think deep thoughts…

So here we go.

Fuck, this feels like such a monumental proclamation.

Okay, I think mine are: The Green Mile. The Jerk. Being John Malkovich. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (for both nostalgia and seasonality, because the holidays get lonely on a desert island). And guilty pleasure admission, Aladdin. Don’t tell the cool kids. I know ALL the words to ALL the songs. In my defense, I was nine when it came out.

How about you? Top five movies, plus the top five TV show box sets you’d pack to bring to your lonely island. Go.

6

Wednesday

12.02am

I was just on the verge of drifting off when your messages pinged through, one after the other. But only because I assumed you’d gone to sleep too. As soon as I heard the evidence that you hadn’t I was wide awake again, devouring everything you had to say.

Those are excellent choices.

And by excellent I mean they are both cool enough, and yet not so cool that I feel I have to lie about my own choices. If you had been one of those guys who lists obscure silent movies in French that were lost during the war, or macho films about gangsters probably played by Al Pacino, I might have pretended I loved stuff directed by Jean Luc Goddard.

Even though I honestly have no idea who he is.

He’s just the fanciest director I could think of.

But now I can be totally, one hundred percent honest. Here is my list, in all of its weird glory: Splash, Fargo, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, The Silence of the Lambs, Candyman.

Splash because I was so obsessed as a kid I once secretly made myself a tail, Fargo because catching criminals while my cuddly bald husband waited at home just seemed like the best kind of life to me, The Silence of the Lambs because of my lovely Clarice, my Clarice god I wanted to be Clarice so bad. The Truth About Cats and Dogs because it’s a meeting of minds not beautiful faces. And Candyman, because it’s a horror movie.

But also because it’s a romance.

Now, box sets.

I want to say Blackadder, but there are so few episodes. And it’s the same for American Gothic, even though I loved that show unreasonably. Dungeons and Dragons would have to go in, for old times’ sake.

But then I’m still so short on episodes.

Star Trek: The Next Generation would probably help out there. Does that get me to five? No, I need one more. Another long one, a juicier one. Maybe Dexter?

Yeah, Dexter.

Okay, your turn. And don’t skimp on the reasons!

1.40am

Nope, my days of pretending to like clever, obscure shit are over. The only people that crap ever impresses are insecure assholes, and I’m the only insecure asshole I’ve got room for in my life at this point. Jean Luc Goddard can suck it.

(Though I did like Weekend, legitimately. You should check it out. That plus Silence of the Lambs and you’ve got a cannibalism double feature!)

I hadn’t considered the quantity versus quality conundrum… Would I rather watch endless episodes of something kinda entertaining, or just a few episodes that are all genius? Shit.

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