The Wednesday Column by Jessica Weston: The sisterhood of the traveling movie night – Taft Midway Driller

Silver linings can appear where you least expect them. Case in point, with my sister Leah in town a lot more lately she, my mom Dorothy and I have embarked on a new pandemic ritual of sorts: family movie nights.

This is something we did quite often in the early days of VCRs and video. We even had matching enormous monk-style bathrobes that my mom picked up somewhere that we would wear for the occasion. I can't remember why it may have had something to do with the fact that we were frequently watching movies directly after sitting in my parents' prized hot tub and just threw the robes on over our swimsuits because we didn't want to bother to get dressed.

At some point we dropped the habit and now with most people watching movies on a computer screen we never picked it up again.

The pandemic changed all that. We decided to embark on a series of themed movie nights. The only rule for the first set was that they had to involve Haagen-Dazs ice cream. My sister offered to provide this the first night. I asked my mom if that would be OK.

"Just make sure she knows how much to get," Dorothy replied, the correct dose being one pint per person.

My mom's favorite flavor is Rocky Road. Mine is Vanilla Swiss Almond and Leah likes Vanilla Swiss Almond and Rum Raisin.

I can't remember why we decided on classic movies in black and white, except they are as far removed from our current full-color pandemic as possible. Our choices were also sort of dark.

Our first feature was "Casablanca" which I wrote about in a previous column.

Up next was "Sunset Boulevard," which is my favorite movie. I have seen this one so many times that I can recite the dialogue by heart.

"Frightening," was my mom's verdict, although she said she was impressed by the acting.

We rounded out the classic film series with "Gilda" starring Rita Hayworth. This I actually found kind of dark and gross this time around. I did watch to the end. The Haagen-Dazs helped.

For Leah's last movie this trip, we went with a favorite of both of ours, "Queen of the Damned." This one dates from the early 2000s and is an adaptation of two Anne Rice novels, "The Vampire Lestat" and, yes, "The Queen of the Damned." Stuart Townsend plays Lestat, who in this movie is a rock star. I would argue that this film set the tone that was later expanded on by the wildly popular "Twilight" series of films. In any case it's a goth classic.

Dorothy, however, was less than enthusiastic about this one; I think she hung around for the ice cream.

I would actually argue that this is a really good film. The soundtrack is one of the better ones of the era and the movie features a series of black and white "videos" for Lestat's band that pay homage to classic horror movies such as "Nosferatu" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." It seems like everyone involved in the production was an Anne Rice/horror fan and they were trying to make things as artistic and authentic as possible.

"That wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting," my mom said after we were through. Given the subject matter this was high praise.

My family's movie-viewing habits are not of vast importance in the scheme of things, but there is a moral here. I know from talking to other people that many of us are looking forward to and cherishing family visits. It may be that the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic makes us take nothing for granted, or it may be that we are all just really bored. But in either case, this hard time can lead to us nourishing relationships and that's a good thing.

And the movie tradition will continue the next time Leah is in town. I am thinking of suggesting 1980s off-beat classics for our next theme. I am looking forward to my mom's reaction to "Repo Man."

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The Wednesday Column by Jessica Weston: The sisterhood of the traveling movie night - Taft Midway Driller