That's Entertainment

When I was younger my Uncle John accused me of having indiscriminate taste when it came to entertainment. Which I think actually translated to "Please stop coming to my house and making us watch Ghostbusters and Return of the Jedi every weekend." To be fair, when I was 12, there was nothing that kept me more happily occupied than watching Ghostbusters or Return of the Jedi.

As I have gotten older that hasn't really changed much. You can ask my The Fiance. He hates my taste in movies because I generally insist on watching any crap that involves ghosts, demons, witches, fighters of ghosts or demons or witches, talking animals, animals that swarm and kill, poorly choreographed fight sequences or zombies. I also enjoy any movie wherein Bruce Willis or Will Smith save the world. In fact the perfect movie, for my money, would be some sort of buddy comedy/action adventure movie starring Die Hard and The Fresh Prince. World in peril? Who else are you gonna call?

This is not to say I don't also enjoy legitimately good movies. Movies that win awards. Movies that Ebert and/or Roeper thumb up. Movies whose scripts were not penned by Joss Whedon or the guys behind Freaks and Geeks. I watch those too. I like them. I am, generally, the driving force behind all of our movie rentals and try really hard to expose The Fiance to the important films. You know, the whole John Hughes oeuvre.

I kid. Well, not really. Although I am pretty sure this whole marriage thing would be called off if I tried to make The Fiance spend a weekend watching Brat Pack films. We rent a lot of old war films, newer action movies, sometimes a thinker or two. A History Of Violence was very popular with both of us. We spent some time, before we coughed up the dough for cable, renting various National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries. We were sorely disappointed by the show on the giant crocodile. And, tempting fate again last night, we were also disappointed by the special about Gigantopithecus. Lame.

Were you to walk into my house on any given Sunday afternoon you would probably find me scanning all of the On Demand movie channels looking for the most obnoxiously under-budgeted, poorly scripted horror movies. Most of which were created during the late 70s and early 80s. I will occasionally subject myself to whatever "Chick Flick" is screening on USA/TNT. But really, if it's not Reese Witherspoon it's a pile of pooh. Yeah, I'm talking to you Drew Barrymore.

I also REALLY love bad comedies. REALLY bad comedies. Chris Farley is in it? I am all over it! Anything that Adam Sandler made before he started trying to be a "legitimate actor?" Word. Broken Lizard Production? Giddyup!

So, yeah. OK. I am, perhaps, a bit lacking in the discrimination department when it comes to movies. There are a lot of people out there making movies. And, just because it was released straight to video or as a USA Network Original does not immediately make it a bad movie. Hallmark Channel? Yeah no, those are all pretty bad.

When it comes to television shows though. I am a little more picky. Buffy and Angel fascinations aside my criteria ... Well, I actually have a criteria regarding what television shows I will watch.

I will not watch a sitcom involving a funny, fat guy married to a relative hot, intelligent chick.
I will no longer watch Reality Television. (I had to draw that line the summer I spent watching every episode of Paradise Hotel like it was my job.)
I will not watch specials on 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Lost makes my brain hurt. I wont watch that.

There are a lot of shows I just don't watch. Most of the time it's because they interfere with shows that I HAVE to watch: 24, The Simpsons, Law & Order (SVU and The Original,) South Park.

Sometimes it's because The Fiance has very high standards for is stubborn about his television viewing. So, I miss some stuff. No big deal. You can find pretty much anything on television somewhere else to watch. DVD collections, the internet, someone else's TiVo because your The Fiance doesn't want to mess with the space time continuum like that.

Plus, it's only television. At one point in time, when a regular, good old fashion television set was groundbreaking technology people were producing groundbreaking shows. People were telling groundbreaking stories. Now? Now we're mostly scraping the bottom of the barrel. We're living in a time when most of our movies are remakes or film versions of old television shows. Even some of our television shows are just remakes of old television shows. And I don't mean that in the "inspired by I Love Lucy" sense. I mean: have you heard they are remaking The Bionic Woman? Also, there are way more commercials and product placements than there is actual entertainment on TV now. Snooze. How many E.D. medication commercials can a girl watch?

I refuse to allow television to be that important to me. Except for, you know, 24, The Simpsons, Law & Order (SVU and The Original,) and South Park. I know it pays the bills. I know, I know. I think half of my anxiety dreams are because I participate in putting some of this crap on the airwaves. But whatever. It's just not that important. That's why I'm OK with watching the garbage when I have to. I can tune it out, reduce it so it's just background noise. And sometimes, it's just fun to be easily amused. Like eating cookies for breakfast.

Mmh cookies.