What's a great story related to your collection, or movies in general?

[Taknakhan]

I have a great one.

When it comes to mine (OUR.) collection, my wife and I have very different takes. I love Asian cinema, the classics, silent films, basically anything that is well-made and usually with a great script or pedigree. And of course the occasional stupid blockbuster or comedy. I guess there's no accounting for taste.

My wife, on the other hand, likes anything with sparkly, sullen man-boys, a bodice being torn to shreds, an impromptu dash for any international boarding area, a woman clinging to some driftwood, a director named Emmerich or Bay or anything starring Katherine Heigl or- you get the idea. She's not really one for transgression, or horror, or anything that pushes the boundaries of taste or thought. She watches movies for the love, or the escape. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

So one night I come home from my first job, to find my wife watching TV. I ask her how her day went, yknow, the usual. She tells me, quietly, that a friend had come to visit. That's nice, I said. What did you do? Well, we decided to watch a movie. Awesome. Something like Twilight, I surmised? No, we picked something by its cover. Something we hadn't seen before. OK. Something from your collection.

Oh. This could be interesting.

Well, they put the disc in, and settled down. Within 5 minutes neither had said a word. Within 10 minutes awkward glances had been passed, for neither knew if the other wanted to hit stop, like they so desperately wanted to. Within 15 minutes, the film had been removed from the player, packed in its case and placed back on the shelf, never to be spoken of again. My name lost a good bit of its lustre then: just what kind of movies was Adam into? Why on earth would someone want to watch films like that?

What film could this have been, that caused so much discomfort? The film in question, randomly chosen, was The Rules Of Attraction.

Oh man, what I would give to have had a camera set up to catch that priceless moment. You could never manufacture a response quite like that. I mean, you tell someone to watch something but don't tell them what it's about, they're automatically on guard, the jig is up. You make them watch it, same deal. But a clean, straight viewing without prior knowledge, and with both expecting a light rom-com? Magical.

I asked if they had gotten to the notorious date-rape sequence. Yes, she informed me. Yes they did. That was when they both gave up the ghost on that particular film.

A very important lesson was learned that day, one that has stuck with my wife from then on: never touch Adam's movies without prior knowledge, unless you're willing to risk your mind's eye being burned forever.