Torturing Teenagers Is My Business. And Business Is Good.

I was looking at my movies by mail queue this morning and realized that there are a lot of good movies on that list that continue to be trumped by "OK" movies that are more popular, or, that the kids want to see more than I do.  Or, as is often the case, the movie that I would like to see is a "serious" movie and it gets side-swiped by an "El-Freaking-Oh-El" comedy with less substance. 

 

Like, Milk v The Hangover.

 

OK, that's kind of an extreme example....

 

Soloist v Night At The Museum?

 

Anyway, you get the idea...the kids want to watch All About Steve, and meanwhile, I haven't even seen Doubt yet, and I give in to the comedy, but feel like less of a human being because the list of award-winners that I haven't seen is growing longer every day.

 

 

The queue is jam-crammed with "quality".  Lots and lots of "quality"--some of which, as you may have noticed by my examples, is a couple of years old.....Yikes.  What happens is that the handy feature that allows me to put a particular movie at the top of the queue gets used at the urging of two teenage girls, and you know their taste doesn't necessary run to somber.

 

 

Understanding that I have every intention of watching Coco Before Chanel, one wonders why it has lingered so long in the queue. 

 

Seriously...

 

Sometimes I forget to act like I'm the boss of this place.

 

 

So I decided that much like the Every "Yes" Must Be Pre-Paid* ruling of last week, that I do have the power to declare things in my household.  As such, from this day forward in the queue, every comedy must be accompanied by a NON-comedy, and/or every blockbuster must be prefaced or followed immediately by a NON-blockbuster.

 

I suppose I could supplement that ruling by adding that every time I have to watch New Moon that I get to watch three movies with sub-titles (and not just some foreign language dubbing of New Moon, either), but, I'm not going to be greedy at this point. 

 

If I ask myself the question, "If I were sitting in this room alone, what would I prefer to watch?" and apply all due respect, it still wouldn't be The Hangover...not that I wouldn't enjoy that movie--I don't know anyone who has seen it who claims to have hated it.  I'm not a movie snob--if I was, the queue would look a lot different.  But because I am paying for this, after all, I think it's perfectly acceptable that it be more of what I want and less of what I'm accepting just because everybody else wants it.  I say, if I have to sit quietly through a succession of bad/questionable TV/Movies inflicted upon me by teenagers, that they can do me the courtesy of not loudly complaining during Sunshine Cleaning or Valentino: The Last Emperor.

 

...it's an experiment.  We'll see how it goes.

 

 

 

*Every "Yes" Must Be Pre-Paid:  You know how kids promise to clean their room, or do the dishes, or sweep the floor, etc?  And you know how those promises come hot and heavy when they want you to do something for them or buy something for them?  And how easy it is not to keep those promises once they have the thing they want?  Well...I know all about that!  I know more than you would even want to know!  That's why I implemented Every "Yes" Must Be Pre-Paid, to allow the children to become familiar with the American way--that is, if you want something from someone, you gotta butter them up a little.  Want 20 bucks to go to a movie?  How about you wash the car, or clean the bathroom?  How about you do that FIRST?  So far, it has been a smashing success.  For me, that is...