Medicinal Movies: how nostalgic films are curing my Covid blues
Before 2020 turned into the year that we’d all like to fast forward, I would have said, quietly, that I’m a fan of a routine. When the lockdown was announced, which feels like 3878 days ago, I was comforted in the knowledge that my skills of organising my day, and the routine I have set up, would hold me in good stead. I was wrong.
It turns out that I hate routine. This kind of routine anyway. I wake up and for a nanosecond all is good with the world, and then I remember. There is no new input. No nights out, long lunches or people. All spontaneity has gone. Each day stretches out before me like a Groundhog Day marathon. Our house in Spain, which felt an adequate size in the beginning, has now shrunk to fit us. Like shrink wrap plastic. I exercise each day but even that has now become a chore.
The routine has become the routine.
My days are mirroring my lethargic mood. I’ve had a good cry, that most definitely didn't help. I’ve laughed hysterically in the garden to try and lift my mood, but all that achieved was my neighbour asking if everything was okay. No, Juan, everything is not okay. I’ve dressed the cat up. Hang on, that was funny – for about 15 minutes.
But I’m not alone here. Every household in the world is going through something similar. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, which will achieve nothing, and drive my husband nuts, I’ve decided to be proactive and do something. So, how to break this cycle of monotony?
This is the plan. It was started about two weeks ago.
First, don’t watch the news. Easy.
Second, structure my week so days are filled with creativity. That was hard to begin with, but I started a diary of how I was feeling by printing shapes. Makes me sound mad and a bit of a woo-woo, but it’s helped. Weekends are for being silly and mainly a bit tipsy.
Third, watch a movie each night from the 70s or 80s.
They were gentler times. Aliens came to say hello, not bite your fecking head off. Dancing in abandoned warehouses didn’t end in death. The violence is minimal and the soundtracks are awesome. Some make you laugh and some make you cry. But what I can promise is this: they will leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling which makes you forget the crazy times we find ourselves in.
If you’re struggling with this enormous shit show then these are the films to watch.
Enjoy.
1: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind – if you want to build a giant mountain out of mud in your kitchen, go for it.
2: Flashdance – leg warmers are back! They’re not? They should be. They’d do my cankles a favour.
3: The Lost Boys – 14 year old me had a crush on Corey Haim; fortysomething me was slightly more interested in Michael. So pouty, so much lip gloss.
4: Working Girl – the hair, the makeup, the shoulder pads. ‘Coffee, tea, me?’
5: Poltergeist – it’s a horror but at the time of release it was a PG. The best hammy acting you’ll ever see.
6: Footloose – to this day, the anger-dance scene in the abandoned warehouse is still cringeworthy.
7: The Karate Kid – we’ve all tried to replicate that move at the end, haven’t we? No? You’re missing out.
8: Dirty Dancing – ‘I carried a melon’. Enough said.
9: The Breakfast Club – turned everyone into goths, for about a month.
10: Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom – Harrison Ford, swoon.
11: Beverley Hills Cop – ear worm of an opening tune.
12: Trading Places – awkward casual racism. Let’s leave it at that.
13: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – I bunked off school once and got caught. It was rubbish.
14: Heathers – two words: Christian and Slater.