
Everything is awful, so help me cheer up:
What is your ultimate comfort movie?
Mine is, of course, The Princess Bride. (I wrote a [short] book about it! Cheap to buy, or read it free on Kindle Unlimited.) It’s sweet, goofy, funny, and endlessly entertaining. No matter how many times I see it — and I’ve seen it dozens of times, at least — it’s always genuinely escapist and always genuinely comforting.
Your turn…
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The Princess Bride is also my family’s go-to choice. It’s pretty much perfect.
Other comfort movies are My Neighbor Totoro, Clueless, and 10 Things I Hate About You.
I take comfort in individual scenes from movies too. This is one I always come back to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jC-rRPKZ3U&ab_channel=HenriqueKlein
Music helps too. This song comes from Broadway and has been repurposed for many things, but it applies to these times as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9JQMFnoHd0&ab_channel=LizaMinnelliVEVO
Defeat is never permanent unless we stop fighting.
I don’t rewatch movies that much (not since I was a kid, anyway). Star Trek is my comfort. Usually episodes of whatever series I’m working through, but for movies, the Wrath of Khan through Voyage Home trilogy never disappoints.
I don’t know about you, but I could go for a meditation retreat on Mount Seleya.
I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if, a generation from now, there are regular screenings of The Princess Bride with audience participation, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A lot of the people I know have already memorized most of William Goldman’s dialogue.
As I’ve said many times before, my comfort viewing these days tends to be The West Wing, which is starting to seem more and more fable-like. But as movies go, I still love Labyrinth, which has dialogue by people like Elaine May and Terry Jones.