If there is one thing going on in my life that flabbergasts me, it’s how difficult it is to watch new movies or television shows.
“New” isn’t even the right word for it. Some of the things I can’t bring myself to start have been around for a long time. I have friends who swear that “Breaking Bad” is the best thing they have ever seen on television. I watched one episode, didn’t care for it and have no desire to see anymore.
The same friends rave about Stephen King’s “The Outsider,” which is actually a book I read and enjoyed. I watched an episode and a half and was left with a classic “meh” feeling. When a new King novel used to come out, I would buy it and stay up all night reading it, but there are at least half a dozen novels published in the last decade that I haven’t read at all.
I’ve never seen “Schitt’s Creek,” “The Office” or “Parks and Recreation,” but I’ve seen seven years worth of “The West Wing” from beginning to end at least three or four times. I was trying to find something I wanted to start watching today, and I found myself starting the single season of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which I’ve seen from beginning to end twice.
It’s a show I enjoy, but there’s a reason it was only on for one season.
I suppose there’s a little bit of snobbery involved in my choices. I was never a fan of “Friends” or Seinfeld,” and while I loved “Cheers,” it was nothing special for me after Shelley Long left.
I’m the same with movies. I have some truly crummy movies that I love and watch again and again — “Real Men” and “The Hollywood Knights” come to mind right away,
But I’ve never made it through even half of any of the “Lord of the Rings” movies, and I generally force myself to watch “Star Wars” movies 2-3 years after they come out. One strange exception to my new movie phobia is movies with Dwayne Johnson. I’ve watched both his “Jumanji” movies, “San Andreas,” “Skyscraper” and “Jungle Cruise,” some more than once.
Not an Oscar winner among them.
Not that winning an Oscar means much to me. Of the last 11 Best Picture winners, I have seen two — “Spotlight” and “The King’s Speech.”
Mostly, I watch movies I have seen before and enjoyed. Having DVDs or streaming video of them enables me to do something even more ridiculous — I don’t even watch the entire movie.
Just the ending.
Pretty sure I’ve seen the last 10 minutes or so of “Trouble With the Curve” at least 15 or 20 times.
Part of it is fascination with Amy Adams, who puts on a catcher’s mitt and handles a pitcher who is throwing hard. But part of it is just baseball. For all the baseball movies I’ve loved, “Trouble” jumped into the top five the first time I saw it.
Of course, there are a handful of other baseball movies out in the last 10 years that I haven’t even brought myself to watch.
All I can say is, if this is what it’s like being on the far side of 70, there’s only one word that describes it for me.
Weird.