The first week of March is known as National Procrastination Week, and I am guilty of marking this occasion all 52 weeks of the year. And nothing is a better testament to that than how long my Netflix and Amazon Prime queues are and how full my DVR is. Well, maybe my laundry hamper would say otherwise.
But this column is all about movies and not household chores. There are several movies I have been dying to see, but I keep putting them off. There’s a laundry list (there go the chores again) of reasons why I won’t watch them, and there are times in which I want to set aside a time when I can just veg out on the couch and see as many of them as possible. Then I don’t get around to it. Many of these are also on my “List of Shame” — movies I have already seen by now at my age and for having a reputation as a walking Internet Movie Database.
I present my mountain of evidence.
Movie: “Doctor Zhivago” (1965)
Location: DVR, Watch TCM app watchlist, sometimes my Netflix queue.
Procrastinating since: 2010
Reason: 200-minute runtime; the Russian Revolution.
The epic story about two lovers (Omar Sharif and Julie Christie) who reunite after years apart has won multiple Oscars and Academy Awards. There have been times where I just shout aloud, “OK, I’m watching this today,” only to retreat to watching classic cartoons or watching YouTube videos. I have long blamed the runtime for why I don’t watch it, but I have sat through the miniseries “Carlos” for 5½ hours and Terrence Malik’s three-hour drama “A Hidden Life,” both in theaters. “The Irishman” was 3½ hours which I watched at home with little interruption. T fear of investing so much time into a movie that I may find boring has stopped me from seeing “Doctor Zhivago” so far.
Movie: “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” (2014)
Location: My bookshelf.
Procrastinating since: 2015
Reason: I have too many movies to watch right now; broken Blu-Ray player.
Keeping up with streaming services, television channels and theatrical releases can be difficult. My major problem these days is that I follow nearly all of them. There’s a movie at the local cineplex that will only be out for six days. Another is an awards contender, but it’s only playing in Allentown or somewhere in New Jersey. Netflix is purging a bunch of titles you must watch before they expire. These things lead me to neglect my own collection.
“Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” stars Rinko Kikuchi (“Pacific Rim,” “Babel”) as a woman who believes the lost money featured in the movie “Fargo” is real, and travels from Tokyo to North Dakota to find it. I remember the real-life case on which the movie is based, although the validity of that has been contested. I bought the movie on Blu-Ray thanks to a deal at Best Buy, but I have yet to remove it from the plastic wrap.
Movie: “Amadeus” (1984)
Location: On demand, any remaining video stores out there
Procrastinating since: 1986
Reason: The movie poster
Whoever coined, “Never judge a book by its cover,” never met 6-year-old me. When I was a kid, every Saturday afternoon meant a trip to the video store with my parents. I remember entering one where there was a large poster for director Miloš Forman’s “Amadeus,” the Academy Award-winning drama based on the life of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Instead of the lavish, pastel-sporting men and women appearing on the poster, there is a towering dark figure wearing scary headgear with his arms reaching out for something. To me, that was the boogie man, and he haunted my dreams for years. Amadeus was terrifying me before Freddy Kruger had the chance.
“Amadeus” is one of 38 movies that have won the best picture Oscar that I have not seen. It is, however, one of two that are linked to childhood trauma. I will never watch “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.”
Movie: “The Five Heartbeats (1991)
Location: DVR.
Procrastinating since: 1991
Reason: It has a good soundtrack, and my parents saw it without me.
My parents also liked to visit the cinema without me, so there are dozens of titles that I have never watched. “The Five Heartbeats” is a drama on a fictional R&B group starring Robert Townsend and Leon in the same vein as the Temptations and the Dells. My parents also had the soundtrack, and radio stations played its theme, “A Heart is a House of Love,” in heavy rotation. For a while I felt like I had seen the movie, but I was wrong.
Thanks to streaming and my DVR, I have played catchup over the last three years. I will get to the point where I will watch this one.
