Every family has its shorthand. You know, a simple way of getting across what they mean without saying anything particularly relevant to the actual conversation that can only come from living together in close quarters and spending serious amounts of time together. Sure, friends have this too, but it’s different with families. It’s more….. dysfunctional. In my family it was movies. We couldn’t get through a dinner together, rare as they were, without referencing some movie or another. You see, for all the things that were weird about my family when I was growing up, we did movies really, really well and so, you could say, the tie that bound was really made of celluloid.
So here, for your voyeuristic pleasure is my list of 10 movies my family could not communicate without (or just have fun memories of seeing together…):
Sneakers: A brilliant heist movie with a twist this was a movie we watched over and over again. To this day I say ‘Power to the people Marty.’ and only if I’m with a member of my immediate family will someone respond, ‘Power to the people Cos.’
The Commitments: I saw this in the theatre with my dad first, but then we took my mom. It became a staple in our household, the soundtrack playing almost constantly for years. My parents continue to haunt me with lines like, ‘It’s a start. And I believe in starts.’
Jumpin’ Jack Flash: ‘For godsakes Larry lose some weight!’ and ‘It’s a tropical fish and it’s mate!’ are two phrases that will follow me until the day I die. And trust me when I say that when my family uses them, we genuinely have no relationship to the context of the movie. It’s a gas, gas, gas.
All of Me: I was a little young to really understand this one, but the performances by Lily Tomlin and Steven Martin entertained even if I didn’t have the faintest idea what happened. I remembered being enamoured with “Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnng! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnng!” and “Fixbowl.” Every now and then my dad will *still* use these.
Mr. Mom: I passionately love this movie for absolutely no other reason than nostalgia. My father was never destined to become Mr. Mom, but he kind of liked to think he was. He will often say things to my husband like, “220, 211. Whatever it takes.” and when something has gone crashing down around me in a store I often resist the urge to scream, “I swear I was never IN aisle 5!”
Wayne’s World: This is the movie that started my father’s mid-life crisis. No, I’m not kidding. Moving on.
Fried Green Tomatoes: One of the more sentimental items on this list, my mother and I bonded over this movie after my parents divorced. She became quite fond of yelling ‘Towanda!’
The Blues Brothers: There are still days when I answer the phone and the voice on the other end says, “We’re on a mission from God.”
Dirty Dancing: This isn’t so much shorthand as just one of my favorite stories. I was 7 and my parents didn’t want to drive home from downtown to get a babysitter, then drive back downtown. So my mother turned to me, said, ‘Honey, you can’t ever do this with someone you don’t really love.’ And then we went to see Dirty Dancing. I liked the dancing, but didn’t understand why everyone was being so mean to each other. I didn’t see it again until I was 16. I was like, ‘Oh THAT’S what was wrong with Penny….’
Start Trek: The Voyage Home: Again, a sentimental one. Those whales. When they sing it gets me every time. Moments like Chekov running around an American city asking where the ‘nuclear wessels’ are simply priceless. Regardless of whether or not this was a Star Trek movie, it’s still great, sappy movie. No one ever gets the reference when I sit down to fix someone’s machine and say, ‘Hello computer.’ in a crappy Scottish accent. It’s always funny to me.
And there you have it: One very personal list. These movies are wonderful memories of a crazy trio who had a pretty good run. Even though my parents and I are scattered around Southern Ontario and we don’t talk as often as we should, it’s these things that always bring me back to memories of the best of times. To me, that’s what movies should be.
var addthis_pub=”nameitbob”;
