Lessons From Personal Obsessions, Presented Chronologically
by Lisa McIntire
Early childhood: Amadeus, Sleeping Beauty, and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure — If your favorite three movies as a kid are about a dying musical genius, three good fairies, and a man-child with a bike, then prepare to be weird.
Age 9: Anne of Green Gables — Don’t worry: If you smash your writing slate over a boy’s head and accidentally get your friend drunk, you can still marry Gilbert and remain kindred spirits with Diana.
Age 10: Les Misérables — OK, yeah, Cosette gets Marius, but she’s boring and Eponine’s songs are way better. Also: Americans only like presentations of class war in musical form. “Wisconsin” the Broadway show, anyone?
Age 12: Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes — Shit. Things with boys are going to get way worse. Shit.
Age 15: Ani DiFranco — Screw it. You’re already scary and alienating to boys. Might as well own it.
Age 17: Rushmore — Only co-write your movies with Owen Wilson, or else you’ll lose most of the humanity and humor that made your earlier films great and your later films intricate dioramas. Either way, people will dress up as your characters for Halloween until the end of time, so there’s that.
Age 18: BBC’s Pride & Prejudice mini-series — Snark and telling people off was always awesome. When Keira Knightley is cast in a movie version, allow yourself the full five stages of grieving.
Age 20: The Sopranos — Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” will forever give you the chills, despite the Glee kids and every karaoke night ever.
Age 24: Deadwood — The overwhelming greatness of this show will be ignored and lead to cancellation, because people just want sexy vampires doing soft-core porn. This will make you both angry and smug, a combination you can easily get used to.
Age 30: Little Women (’94 version), Annie Hall, and All About Eve — Watch the first when you need a cathartic cry, the second for a bittersweet laugh, and the last for Bette Davis killing it. Watch with a glass of white wine, repeat as necessary.
Lisa McIntire is a humorless feminist living in the San Francisco Bay Area.