Comfort Watching

What are the films or shows you always go back to? The ones you know will cheer you up when you feel crappy? The ones you know will entertain you when you can't be arsed to look for anything else? The one you dig out on a rainy day that you can watch from under a duvet on the couch which you've seen so many times you can just mouth the dialogue in big chunks. The ones that just make you feel good?

I've a few. Well 5 to be exact.

The Sure Thing

You really can't go wrong with an 80's John Cusack film. Well no, you can, One Crazy Summer but let's ignore that one. The Sure Thing is the perfect film to cheer you up. An aul romantic comedy with a very recognisable and relatable main character. Gib, a pure loveable fuck up. But a fuck up in the Hollywood sense, one that can still get into an Ivy league school. This is a real opposites attract film, the type where you know how its going to end. And that's why it's a perfect comfort watch. You know the destination so can lie back and enjoy the journey. Literally. It is a road trip movie after all. Throw in a few proper belly laughs and you have a super way to spend a rainy day.

Midnight Run

My all time favourite comedy. I've written about this one ( LINK ) a few years ago so won't go into it again suffice to say it's a film guaranteed to cheer you up. It's got characters you genuinely care about and it hits you in the heart and the funny bone. It's just perfection.

The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad

I've a great memory of the first time i saw this one and it's probably why i go back to it again and again. We are down in the cousins gaff, all young, deffo below 10, this was on tv and we were all glued to it. The giant Cyclops with his horny ceann and cloven feet was rampaging around his Island crushing and munching on Sinbads men. It was amazing, the action, the effects ( stopmotion and still better than any CGI ), everything. I was gobsmacked, as was my brother, and my two cousins Mairead and Jenny were roaring at the telly in terror, which of course made it even more enjoyable. A good comfort watch should bring back good memories. The first time you enjoyed it, of childhood, of easier times etc.

Tremors

Giant man eating worms terrorise a remote Arizona village. Not exactly the kind of film that sounds like it would cheer you up but it does. In spades. 100 minutes of charming, unabashedly entertaining monster fun. Great, well drawn and funny characters being attacked by monsters that look somewhat real, sort of, OK a bit shitty but that's all part of the charm of the film. Its a film that's impossible to get bored off and as such fits on this list perfectly. It covers a load of bases, loads of action, loads of scares and loads of laughs. Plus we get the serious business of Val's (Kevin Bacon) existential crisis...... OK, haha I'm taking the piss with that last bit but its a film that has something for everyone.

Hondo

I had to have a western in the list. To me old westerns are the perfect comfort watch. I once heard a person describe watching Downton Abbey as being wrapped in a warm cosy blanket and thats how i feel about westerns. I remember watching Hondo with my nana a long time ago. A John Wayne western id recommend to anyone. Its more fun than his most famous westerns but still has more heft than his lesser westerns. Plus it has one of the best bits of comedy the Duke took part i. I remember me & Nana in tatters laughing as Hondo teaches a young boy to swim by picking him up and horsing him into a pond. No messing around there. Even typing this makes me smile.

What films do it for you?