Sunday, August 9, 2009

Background Movies

Very few Sundays go by that I don't spend at least a small portion of watching movies like Krull. Movies like Krull, Ladyhawke, Dreamscape, and so on, are background movies, which are watched most frequently on Sundays -- I guess because a lot of people prefer to stay home and not do all that much on Sundays (although I don't much like to do anything ever, but we're not talking just about me). What you do is, you make an agreement with your spouse or significant other, or whoever, that neither of you are going to do anything that day which requires you to stand up very often. Then you pick a sedentary activity on which you have decided to ostensibly focus, like reading or napping. Then you pick a movie to put in the DVD player, one which you are content to pay attention to only intermittently. That's your background movie.

For a background movie to be worthy of the title, it has to meet a few requirements. The most important one, to me, is that it can't be all that good. It would be preferable if your background movie wasn't a total horrorshow, either, because those can distract you away from your nap just as completely as an immortal classic can, so you want something that is professionally made, well paced, and -- let's be honest here -- reasonably violent. I remember the reviews for 'Night Mother being pretty withering, yet it features two Oscar-winning actresses, so it has the bad-mixed-with-professionalism thing going for it, but, at the very most, one person dies in the whole movie. You need something that will cause you to glance at the screen occasionally.

And yet, you don't want your eyes locked on the screen more than you'd planned, so sorry, Arnaud Desplechin, but subtitles are right out. La Sentinelle might otherwise seem like the ideal choice for next Sunday's background movie, but at worst you'll tune it out to the point where the French language starts sounding like nothing more than white noise (which, let's face it...), and at best you'll find yourself attentively watching the entire 2-plus hour film, and suddenly the whole point of background movies has been perverted. So no foreign films. Game, set, and match, Arnaud Desplechin...you lose!

No complicated plots, either, unless you've seen the film before. Mediocre fantasy and science-fiction films really are the best genres for background movies. Most fantasy films are quest stories, right, so you watch them to see how it's all handled, and what twists to the traditions the filmmakers add. In Krull, the twist is a spiky boomerang, so all you need to do is lift your eyes to the screen when the cyclops gets smooshed, and any time Lysette Anthony appears. This also works with Clash of the Titans and Judi Bowker, but that one also has a Kraken in it, and by the end the distractions are coming at a lightning pace. You have to know CotT pretty goddamn well before you can safely use it as background material. If you've never done this before, try to ease into it by starting with Krull. Or no, Willow. You're not ready for Krull.

Length is also an important consideration. Personally, I like long background movies, because it's like settling in for a baseball game -- your day is pretty much blocked off. You can plan out, cook, and eat all your meals before the film is over. For instance, today's selection was The Towering Inferno. That fucker is about a building catching on fire, and it's almost three hours long. So there are no plot intricacies you need to concern yourself with, you know you can't completely tune out lest you space on Robert Wagner running through a hellish conflagration with only a wet towel wrapped around his head for protection (to the film's credit, this actually doesn't work out too well for him), and by the time it's over you can start thinking about going to bed.

You're all probably judging me now, because I didn't use my Sunday as an opportunity to snuggle in with Andrei Rublev, but I know you all do this, too. Maybe not quite as often as I do, but you do it. Even now you're thinking, "Is it too late to watch Tron?" Well, yes, it is. That's what you get for judging me, asshole.

15 comments:

Adam Ross said...

I read most of this post to my wife, because Background Movies are a constant battleground for us (no, I didn't have a Muffintini in hand, that's another argument). I'm of the opinion that Background Movies are useful and pleasant on any day of the week, or time. She would rather have peace and quiet.

Regardless of how wrong she is, here are a couple of my favorite Background Movies: THE TRUMAN SHOW (a lot of great little moments, doesn't work for me so much altogether), FITZCARRALDO (certainly long, and it makes you feel glad you don't have to do anything terribly important to do), PLAYTIME (maybe the quintessential Background Movie for me, because it really has no plot, and can also function just as eye candy on your TV).

Another interesting genre is Nap Movies, which you alluded to. A good Nap Movie has to have a relative quiet beginning or opening credits to facilitate sleeping, but an amusing or horrifying middle for when you wake up. My go-to Nap Movie has always been BLUE VELVET, that opening music puts me to sleep, and I always seem to wake up when Frank lays in on Jeffrey, and for a second I wonder why he's yelling at me. What a nap!

Kevin J. Olson said...

I do the same thing Bill. After doing the Sunday crossword I usually watch whatever is on Encore Action or Starz Action -- which is usually something like The Rock or Predator...basically any action movie, like you said.

Other good go-to background movies: Tango and Cash, Die Hard 2, Robocop, Lethal Weapon 1 and 2, Aliens, and of course the all time classic Commando. I'm sure there are tons more, but I completely agree with you about what a background movie needs to be.

Great post, Bill. This was a lot of fun to read.

bill r. said...

Adam - I read most of this post to my wife...

Why only most? Where did I lose her? And I actually thought about mentioning The Truman Show, because I agree with your assessment of it, but I don't think I've used it for this purpose yet.

Also, you're using subtitled films as background movies, and I just can't get behind that. I don't understand how it would work.

As for naps, to be honest I nap -- or outright sleep -- with commentary tracks on more than actual movies. Every night, I go to sleep with a commentary track running. I prefer lively scholarly tracks for old horror or crime films. Those are the best.

Kevin - I usually watch whatever is on Encore Action or Starz Action...

Yes! Also, Encore Mystery, or just plain Encore. Those channels are made for this. Encore Mystery shows a lot of horror movies, and while I generally don't think horror movies work for this -- don't ask me why -- the flood of recent horror remakes do work very nicely.

Ed Howard said...

I don't really do this much -- generally if I'm watching a movie I want to, you know, watch it, and if I'm reading or napping I don't want a movie on to distract me. I'm someone who, if a TV or movie is on, I'm going to be drawn to watching it, no matter what it is and no matter what else I'm supposed to be doing. But a related phenomenon is catching bits and pieces of movies I know well on TV. I like that. Just yesterday I was lounging around, flipping through channels, and caught part of No Country For Old Men and just stuck with it for a while until it was time to go out. Not exactly in the background, but watching just isolated scenes. It's one of the few things I like about TV, that possibility of catching disconnected moments from good movies.

Ed Howard said...

Also, Bill, I don't know if you've seen Playtime or not, but despite the subtitles it's the perfect movie for this kind of thing. I can see where Adam's coming from there. You could easily turn the subtitles off and understand and enjoy any scene you happen to tune in for. Its appeal is almost entirely visual, and there's so much going on in each shot that it really rewards running your eye lazily across the screen to catch all the gags and details, rather than trying to follow it as a story or something. On the other hand, it's such a brilliant film that if I ever attempted to treat it as a background movie I'm sure I'd just wind up watching it rapt the whole time.

bill r. said...

Ed - I've been catching bits of No Country for Old Men lately, as well, and I also like it. I caught the death of Woody Harrelson one day, and Tommy Lee Jones's closing monologue another day. It really just makes me want to watch the whole damn thing again. That movie would NOT work as background. It's too good.

And I haven't seen Playtime, though I suppose I should do that pretty soon. I just can't let foreign or purely visual films work this way.

I can read with a movie on if the book and film fit together perfectly. By which I mean the book is good enough, and the film is The Towering Inferno. While that was on yesterday, I read about half, or more, of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. On Chesil Beach and The Towering Inferno are like chocolate and peanut butter.

Kevin J. Olson said...

On Chesil Beach and The Towering Inferno are like chocolate and peanut butter.

Haha! I love that. I never thought I'd read a sentence that links McEwan with O.J. Simpson. By the way, what do you think of On Chesil Beach so far? McEwan is a god to me.

And I like what Ed says about TV's usefulness for catching scenes of great movies. I do what Ed does all the time...like he says it's one of my very favorite things about TV. I get sucked in whenever I happen upon great movies, and then when it's time for me to go and do something else, I leave feeling like I need re-watch the whole movie. This happened most recently with The Talented Mr. Ripley, a film that kind of just pulls you in slowly, and before you know it 30 minutes have gone by.

bill r. said...

Kevin, I finished On Chesil Beach last night. I thought it was excellent. I've had a pretty bad stretch of reading lately, in that I've read very little that has thrilled me in quite a while, so the McEwan book was a breath of fresh air.

Kevin J. Olson said...

Good to hear. I read it a second time last summer in "real time" (well about as close as you can get). I read it one sitting and it took about the same amount of time as the events that unfold in the novel take. It's a pretty fun device that McEwan used there.

He's such an amazing writer. You've probably already read the book I'm about to mention, but if you haven't then I highly recommend Saturday . I think it's McEwan's best work, and a novel that reads about as quickly as the short On Chesil Beach. Probably the only novel about the themes that arose post September 11th that doesn't seem preachy...obvious maybe, but definitely not preachy. Plus it's just a damn good read.

bill r. said...

I haven't read Saturday!!! I really want to, but I just haven't yet. I'll get to it soon...

Tony Dayoub said...

I saw TWO background movie this weekend with my three-year-old son.

In this corollary to the rule you laid out above, the film is extremely entertaining to the young viewer, and only mildly diverting to the othr adults in the film.

In this case the films were Dragonheart and Fantastic Four.

Greg said...

I've never planned this but like Ed, I have stumbled upon something on tv that I just decide to leave on while I'm working on a photoshop this or that on the computer. A couple of weeks ago the already mentioned Predator was on and I left it there while I worked. Which is fine because I would never actually choose to watch it on its own merits even though I don't think it's a bad film.

bill r. said...

Tony - Those are perfect background movies. And I say that as someone who flat out hates Fantastic Four.

Greg - Predator is overrated by certain people that I'm tempted to hate it, but the truth is that it's fine for what it is. Just be sure to look up at the screen when Ventura's chest explodes.

Rick Olson said...

I spend every Sunday afternoon after my morning job dozing in front of some disposable piece of crap. Doesn't everybody?

Marilyn said...

I find that musicals are great background films. I've seen all of the ones that come on cable several times. I can pay attention to the better songs, look at the nice costumes and dance numbers or not, and do whatever in the meantime.

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