"We are the movies and the movies are us"**

I forgot how good it is to sit down and watch a good movie. When Patrick and I first started dating, we were movie people, all the way. We watched movies all the time. I would recommend some to him, he would recommend some to me. In the early months of our relationship we spent hours upon hours hanging out, and watching movies. Somewhere along the line, though, we transitioned more from movie people to TV show people.

Honestly, I blame the full-force introduction of TV on DVD. Before TV shows were released on DVD to buy, you either watched the show and kept up with it when it was on TV or you didn't. But now, everything is on DVD. It's made it so much easier to watch shows that you normally wouldn't because you don't have enough time or DVR space. TV shows get and keep you invested, and since Patrick and I have been dating we've invested lots of time, energy, and money into our TV on DVD collection. For people with busy lives that just seem to keep getting busier, the idea of sitting down for a 40 minute episode of a TV show seems so much easier than sitting down and committing yourself to a 2 hour movie. I mean, after all, there are so many other things to do. Might as well give an hour of that time to TV instead of half an afternoon with a movie. Nevermind those TV shows that suck you in and keep you watching 4 episodes in a row...

Anyway, thanks to my addiction to the many, many shows on DVD that I try to keep up with I've been slacking on the movie-watching lately. I just don't keep up as well as I should with movies. We have Netflix, and while we do watch lots of stuff instantly through there, the DVDs we get mailed to us generally sit on the table in the living room for weeks at a time before we either watch the DVD or send it back because we just don't care whether we see it or not anymore.

But today, I made the time for my movies. Everybody's Fine was one of those Netflix movies sitting around the house. We've had it for weeks, and it's been sitting in the same spot in the living room for most of that time. Today, with a few hours to myself while Patrick was at work I finally decided I was going to watch it. I loved it. It made me cry. Multiple times. But it was a really good movie, and I think worth the two hours I spent watching it.

Later, when Patrick got home from work we got food and decided to watch The Town, which my brother let us borrow. It, also, was awesome. Well worth the time we spent watching it, and it actually let us spend some time together, sharing something. For longer than a 40-minute chunk of time. It was nice, and made me think, not for the first time, that we should make time for it more often.

Movies and TV are so different. I think part of the reason that Patrick and I, and so many other people, watch TV more these days is because it's being made better than ever before, and it's more available than ever before. With a TV show you have the time to get invested in a character, to see them grow and develop. It's like the novel of the cinematic world. A movie is more like the short story of film. You get a couple hours to get to know your characters and see where they end up. But when done well, those two hours can be magic, and you can get just invested in those characters and that story as you do in a TV show. That's how you know when a movie got it right.

My three passions in life, as anyone who knows me well could probably tell you, are movies/tv, music, and reading. Those are the things I do to unwind, how I like to spend my free time. And I think the reason that I love them so much is that they are all different windows into understanding human nature and all its facets. Those three things have so much in common, and yet are very different at the same time. But I love the way you can watch a tv show or movie, or listen to a song, or read a book and just get lost in the world that's been created. How you can find similarities to your life, even in worlds and characters so different from yourself and where you're from. These places that are created through art help us escape, but they also remind us we are not alone in the world. There's always someone out there who can relate to our lives, and I know it always makes me feel better when I see someone else express something that I feel is so unique to me to the world at large. It's in those moments that I really do realize that we're all connected, and that we all have a lot more in common than we usually realize. And the best art--in any form--not only lets us know we're not alone, but it makes us think about life, about the connections we've made, that we can make, the way we and others affect the world around us. It gives us something to talk about, and to think about.

This post has clearly gotten a little off topic. I've noticed that most of my posts have kind of done that. I start in one place and get sidetracked along the way. Maybe one of these days I'll get my thoughts gathered enough to form a coherent post that doesn't go off on tangents. Though if I can get those thoughts organized enough for anything, hopefully it will be to focus on the book I should be writing. With any luck, my daily writing for the next few days will focus on that since I've been ignoring it in favor of the blogs this week, clearly. So, to wrap this up and bring it back to where it started, I leave you with this: Find some time soon to sit down, take a couple of hours and get lost in the world of a good movie. Trust me, it's worth the time, and if the movie really is good, your mind and your mood with thank you!

**title quote from David Ansen