Sunday on DEMAND

As many of you may remember, for the first three and a half years of my four years here in Chicago I did not watch much television. My first apartment was the worst because I had a terrible television and was surrounded by brick walls, even outside my window. Somehow, through the bricks the only channel that found a way into my house and heart was UPN. Brannen used to call and say "What are you doing?" and I would casually reply with, "Oh, just watching The King of Queens, but I've seen this one before." And although I came to love "Becker" and "Monique" and "The Hughley's", and on sick days "The People's Court"...I avoided them as much as possible.
In my next apartment in Boystown, I was a little luckier. I still only received one channel at a time, but they mixed it up a little. On a rainy day I might have the WB, whereas on a clear day it was ABC. At night if I had all my lights off and put a book under the television I could even get NBC.
But in this new house the boys have a 600 foot television with every channel and all sorts of magical powers. You can tape things or rewind things or make them bigger or smaller. And we have ON DEMAND. For those of you who may not know, ON DEMAND is the button on the remote that you push and them you can pick out pre-recorded shows or movies from HBO and Showtime and other cable channels. I think it's funny to DEMAND these movies but it's about all I watch in the little TV in my room. My little TV isn't used to playing anything besides Conan or the aforementioned UPN hits so it zaps out once in a while, but otherwise, ON DEMAND is amazing.
That is, until you spend a whole entire Sunday in your room DEMANDING movies from your TV, and when you go to turn the whole thing off a list pops up. It was a list of all the movies I'd watched that day. I looked at it and laughed. Now, for those of you who don't know, when I'm alone I watch TERRIBLE movies. I mean, really TERRIBLE and ROTTEN. And I know they suck eggs, but for some reason I still cannot resist them. Not all the movies that I walked into my room and DEMANDED to watch were bad...but it was still a funny enough list that I decided to write a blog about it.

Here it is. Lucy and I threw a fit and DEMANDED to see the following movies while cuddled up in bed all day yesterday:

1. Pleasantville (I like this movie. I had seen the end last week on tv so I wanted to watch the beginning. I'm still waiting for Truman Show to come on demand cause I love that moie too.)

2. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (No Comment.)

3. The Next Best Thing (this movie was the next best thing to having your eyes scraped out by the hooves of a dying goat. It was a stupid concept and Madonna flung her usual bad acting chops around for everyone to see. Her acting abilities, much like her style, is kind of different and funny at first...but then it gets real old real fast. You could tell she had money behind this movie too cause there were lots of gratuitous shots of her chanting and doing yoga as well as closeups of her arm as she's pouring coffee so that we could all see the bright red kaballah bracelet. I turned it off halfway though and vaguely remembered having turned it off halfway through a couple years ago as well. I wanted to turn it off before the subliminal messages that I'm sure were stuck between each frame had me suddenly trying to stand on my head while listening to "Hung Up" for the thousandth time and sipping Kaballah water out of a straw.)

4. The Other Sister (Juliette Lewis plays a mentally challenged woman...what a stretch. When I first saw "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" I remember I thought the whole point was that she was mentally challenged just like Leonardo but then Johnny Depp learns to love her anyway. Until about halfway through when I realized she wasn't supposed to be mentally challenged. In this movie I knew I was going to hell when Juliette stands up in front of everyone and screams "Stop laughing at me" and I started laughing. Not because mentally challenged people are funny, but because of how self important and ridiculous Juliette Lewis seemed to me at that moment. And in this movie Diane Keaton, as the mother of all the sisters...not just the OTHER one...phones it in big time. Like, on a payphone. A payphone where she runs out of quarters and instead of getting more she just hangs up and thumbs through the phone book until the credits start rolling.)
5. Katt Williams: The Pimp Chronicles on HBO Comedy (if you can get past him swearing at you with every other word, this guy is pretty funny. You know, for people like me. Gangsta's.)

6. Elf (That's right, we move right from The Pimp Chronicles to Elf without passing Go or collecting $200)

7. Like Water For Chocolate (When I was about thirteen this movie was one of my favorite things in the world. I remember crying through most of it. I was a bit of a helpless romantic at that age though...and I was reading a lot of things like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Last night I found it enjoyable, but it didn't really scratch the surface. Some may think it's because I'm more mature now....but only if by mature you mean JADED OLD MAID.)

That was all I DEMANDED. At one point I nearly clicked "ok" to "Shall We Dance?" starring Richard Gere and J-Lo until I took hold of myself and said, "No! Not even when you are alone and just want to stare at the shiny box and not have to think. Nothing could ever be so bad...your brain could never be so fried....that you must resort to a J-LO movie. Didn't you learn your lesson with Jersey Girl and Gigli and for God's sake...don't you remember being saddled with "Monster In Law" on a flight to Seattle while sitting in the middle seat between smelly man and wiggle woman and thinking "This is where hell is"?...No...Never again...No more J-LO."

Sometimes if I don't feel like DEMANDING movies right then I save them in my mind for a different time when I might come home from work, kick off my shoes, flop down on the bed and scream "I DEMAND A MOVIE". I think that coming up I'll watch "Vera Drake" and "The Comeback". That'll be depressing...and funny.

Anyone DEMAND any recommendations?