Let’s face it: daily life is stressful.
Take my life right now. One block up the hill from us, the local water utility is digging up the street. I work from home and every day 20 dump trucks go thundering up and down the narrow street outside our house. We had a mirror fall off the wall from the shaking caused by these trucks.
Then there’s the parking situation out front. The people on the street above can’t park on their street because of this construction—which is scheduled to continue until 2023!—so they are parking on our street and taking our spots! The other day, a guy who has been parking in front of my house accused me of throwing both coffee with cream and root beer on the side of his car. I’m not really sure how he determined it was coffee with cream and root beer, or why a person would be carrying both coffee with cream and root beer, but there he was at my front door, yelling at me for throwing this on his car. He was so annoying I kinda wished I had thrown coffee with cream and root beer on his car.
Then there’s the power outages. There’s a high risk of fire right now throughout California, so our utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, shut off our power for three days as a preventative measure. The power is on now for a day, but it will be shut off tomorrow again because it’s supposed to be windy. The power will be off for another three days.
Try to find a place in a coffeehouse around here to plug in your computer and work. They’re all jammed with other power outage refugees like me. One guy near me was an aging Berkeley hippie type who was “cool with the whole power situation, man,” but the rest of us were on knife’s edge.
I’ve clearly got problems. Maybe not ninety nine problems, granted. But still, I’m stressed out. You know what I need (besides coffee with cream and some root beer)? Movies that are either silly enough, joyful enough, or interesting enough to take my mind off of dump trucks, angry, accusatory neighbors, power outages, and jammed coffeehouses. You could probably use some of these entertaining films, too, to deal with whatever plagues are ruining your days. Here are my top choices.
Back in the 1960s, the Disney company was trying to figure itself out. The animation business was going okay (think The Sword in the Stone (1963) and The Jungle Book (1967)), but the studio wasn’t putting out any masterpieces. And what to do about the fact that the kids who watched The Mickey Mouse Club were now in their late teens witnessing a controversial war and a cultural revolution unfurling before their eyes. How do we appeal to them? Let’s make a movie about a VW Beetle with mystic powers and a mind of its own! And get that Dean Jones guy—the one who’s so popular with the young people! And be sure to add in some hippies who say things like, “Hey, chickie baby.” Yes, this is a stupid, mindless, tone-deaf movie. And yet it’s a lot of goofy fun. Hold off on the Ingmar Bergman for tonight, my anxiety-riddled friend, and pop this movie into the DVD player, put your feet up and just relax. See? You feel better already!
But wait, you say, I’ve seen this Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder comic masterpiece five times already. Why should I see it again? Because this spoof on 1930s horror movies just keeps getting funnier. “Put the candle back!” “Dr. Frankenstein, you haven’t touched your food!” “He vas my boyfriend!” There, you’re already smiling, aren’t you? The fact that you have a voicemail from the school principal about your child’s behavior isn’t quite as upsetting when you think about Dr. Frankenstein and the Monster tap dancing in tuxedos to “Puttin’ On the Ritz.” This movie is a motherlode of brilliant comic performances by Wilder, Cloris Leachman, and Kenneth Mars. Put it in your queue. You’ll thank me.
What?! I’m recommending you watch a schmaltzy melodrama about a girl and her cat set in 1912 rural Scotland to get your mind off your troubles? You bet I am! Patrick McGoohan plays a widowed veterinarian who’s become an atheist and a bit of a cold fish since his wife died. Is he going to learn a little something about going on despite life’s setbacks? You bet he is! Thomasina is the family cat that just keeps getting into deadly predicaments and miraculously coming back. Thomasina restores everyone’s faith in life. Hokey? You bet it is! Calming? Absolutely. This movie has all the right ingredients: cat adventures, a triumph of love and hope, and beautiful Scottish countryside. I loved this movie as a kid and it’s still delightful. If a bunch of your guy friends come over and say, “Dude. What are you doing watching this movie?” then just plop them down on your couch and watch it again with them. They will have no complaints and neither will you.
It’s 2:30 am and you’re lying on the couch and your mind is racing. That project you’ve been working on for about a month now is turning out to be the disaster everyone said it would be and any minute now you’re going to be exposed as the fraud that you know you are. And the company you’re working for will fail as a result and you’ll never be able to find another job again and...Stop it. Right now. You’re working yourself up. Everything is going to be just fine. There’s more to life than that stupid project and that stupid job and that stupid company. There’s the magnificent world we live in. Planet Earth is, quite simply, the greatest nature documentary series ever made. And it’s what you need right now—perspective. Made by the BBC Natural History unit and narrated by David Attenborough's kindly soothing but authoritative voice, this series has 11 episodes. The cinematography is just breathtaking. You’ll get swept up in the glory of our planet and pretty soon all your worries about that worrisome project will melt away. If caribou can migrate 2,000 miles through marshy tundra, you’ll finish your project and people will like it. If people start asking you why you are so preternaturally calm, you can turn to them and say, “The caribou can do it, man, and so can we.”
Believe it or not, this incredibly silly movie, which stars Jack Black as a Mexican monk aspiring to be a luchador (a masked wrestler), is based on a real story! Sergio Gutierrez Benitez is a Catholic priest who supported an orphanage for 23 years by working as a lucha libre in a red and yellow mask and wrestling under the name Fray Tormenta (“Friar Storm”). So now you feel even better, don’t you? It’s kind of a true story. Kinda. Well, who cares? This movie is just so much fun. I have friends who quote it constantly. Jack Black is fantastically amusing and the movie will have you giggling and cheering and forgetting your woes.
This French farce was remade in 1996 as The Birdcage, and starred Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, and Hank Azaria. And yet, despite all that talent, it was nowhere near as utterly and completely amusing as the original. This is the version of the story to watch. Albin is the most notorious drag queen in Saint Tropez, and his longtime partner Renato has a son who is getting married to the daughter of a conservative politician. So Albin and Renato need to hide their relationship for just one dinner with the prospective in-laws. What could possibly go wrong (other than everything)? Everyone loves The Birdcage, but I’ve found the American version to be ham-fisted and preachy. The original here is anything but. It’s a farce, and man, oh, man, do the French know how to make a farce. It’s just silly from start to finish. Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault are the bickering middle-aged gay couple and they’re just perfect. Tognazzi was one of the best comic actors in Italian film, and Serrault was a highly regarded French comedian. So you’re in good hands with these two. You’ve had a bad week? Put on your comfiest bathrobe and slippers, slip this movie in your DVD player, and enjoy. You’ve had enough troubles for one week. Take a quick trip to Saint Tropez and revel in this chocolate éclair of a movie.
David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC comedy “Roseanne.” His essays have been published by Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded by The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC World Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.