SUMMARY: He may not have been inside an actual movie theater for the better part of a decade, but that doesn't stop Mike Dewey from remembering how films have changed his life ... for the better.
If every married couple agreed on everything, the world would be a far duller place.
More stable, certainly, but stability is kind of, well, boring.
Picture "The Stepford Wives" mated with the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead."
I mean, what's the point?
Coupling with a mirror image would be the antithesis to William Hurt's line -- "I'm just trying to keep the conversation lively" -- in "The Big Chill."
And though "opposites attract" might be a timeworn cliche, there is more than a dollop of truth in that old syrupy saying.
Consider Bogart and Hepburn in "The African Queen" or Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" or Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald in "The Breakfast Club," not to mention John Cusack and Ione Skye in "Say Anything."
And let's not even venture into "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" territory, leaving Dick and Liz to simmer in their antithetical and iconic/ironic juices.
My wife and I -- pardon the awkward transition (did someone say Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate?") -- had the great pleasure of being invited to a housewarming/pool party last weekend and it was a one of those summer evenings when the planets were aligned just perfectly that anything was possible.
The food was excellent.
The music was fine.
The sunset was extraordinary.
And the conversation flowed effortlessly, like the guys around the fire in "Easy Rider" or the way Hamlet and Horatio bonded or the mountain scenes in "The Deer Hunter."
So I got to talking with a colleague of my wife's and it turned out that he's a serious movie guy; in fact, he has a list, which is constantly evolving -- of his favorite 300 films of all time.
Naturally, being a guy, I threw out a few pretty obvious selections, "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" among them.
That was easy.
And then we got into the marrow of the issue at hand: our spouses and the way, well, we're just different.
THE SUNSET HAD gone all purple and pink and we were standing there and he said something like, "I don't understand it."
"What's that?" I asked, feeling as if some great truth was about to be revealed.
"Well," he said, "my wife ... she won't watch a movie twice."
"Really?" I said. "Mine's the same way."
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Absolutely," I said. "The other night, I told her that 'Annie Hall' was coming on and she couldn't have cared less."
"That's a great movie," he said.
"I know," I said. "Anytime it comes on, I'm there."
"I'm the same way," he said. "Anything on my list comes on, I'm there."
"Even if it's already started," I said.
"My wife's got to see a movie from the start," he said.
"Mine, too," I said. "I don't get that."
"Neither do I," he said.
"There are just some movies that you have to see again and again and again," I said.
And it's true.
Every time, for example, that I watch "The Sting," I get closer to comprehending the complete con.
Or when "12 Angry Men" airs. I'm attuned even more to what makes Lee J. Cobb tick.
And do you know how complex the relationship between Kevin Costner and his father is in "Field of Dreams?"
Not to mention "Double Indemnity" or "Rear Window" ... now those are twisted relationships.
And those are just a handful of films that, whenever they air and I find them while channel surfing, make my night.
But my wife simply can't abide watching movies she's already seen.
"Do you mean," I've asked her on dozens of occasions when something like "Goodbye, Columbus" is on, "that you'd rather watch some junk on Lifetime or Bravo than to experience this again?"
And that's my mistake.
The word "again."
"I don't watch movies twice," she always says and that, as they say, is that.
WHEN I WAS A junior in college, I took a class that revolved around the films of Ingmar Bergman and you'd have thought I'd have gotten tired of watching "Jules and Jim" again and again, but I didn't.
I'm the same way with "Clambake" or "The King of Hearts" or "Dr. Strangelove."
If something touches me, I want to experience that once more.
I think if pretty much memorized "The Godfather," so that if my brother says, "Was it Barrzini or Tattaglia?" I always reply, "Tattaglia's a pimp."
Ah yes, classic cinema.
But give my wife credit.
She understands my affection for lines like, "You jump, I jump," though she'll always maintain that Kate Winslet pretty much killed Leonardo DiCaprio after the Titanic sank in the frigid North Atlantic.
"I'd never let go of your hand," she says and I believe her. "She could have made room for him on that piece of lumber, whatever it was."
With my wife, there are no shades of gray.
The Seven Deadly Sins are just that.
Deadly.
Bogart's greed in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre."
Kathleen Turner's lust in "Body Heat."
The list goes on and on.
Not that she'll watch those films.
She's already seen them.
Which takes us back to the pool party and I'm quoting lines from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and my cinematic confidant is rolling out lines from "The Outlaw Josey Wales" or "The Right Stuff" and it's all good.
We both understand that we're incredibly lucky to have found, somehow, the women that complete us, make the world better than we'd ever imagined it to be.
"Kind of reminds me of," I start --
"Probably best not to go there," he says ... and he's right.
Classic cinema can only get you so far.
The rest ... well, you need help.
Speaking of "Help," did I ever tell you how the Beatles were completely out of it when they made that movie and how a line like,"White Cliffs of Dover?" always makes me smile?
Didn't think so.
Stay tuned.
Mike Dewey can be emailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. He's on Facebook, as well.
