Watch. Repeat.

I was thinking yesterday about movies I have seen multiple times in the theater. I don't know why I was thinking about this. Often my blog ideas pop into my head while I'm driving, which is useless because I can't write anything down and I can't blog and I can't even blog when I get out of the car because I'm with Romy and I'm usually listening to a kid audiobook at the same time as I'm trying to hold onto this idea (Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is probably my favorite reading). I may have even blogged about this before, but since I've been blogging for six years (dang! Time well spent?) that's bound to happen. So here is the list of movies I remember seeing in a movie theater more than once:

• Popeye - This was my first multiple-viewing movie (that is such a clumsy phrasing. I was up way too early with Romy this morning because of a thunderstorm. Therfore, the phrasing stays). My Grandma Bess took me, and I was so enamored with this bizarre flick and its music (I remember the sensation of feeling "cool." I was five.) that immediately after watching the movie once, we walked back into the theater and watched it again. I always wonder if my grandma paid for two viewings. I'm guessing she did. She was a very classy lady. Who had to sit through Popeye twice. Ha!

• The Neverending Story - If I recall correctly, I saw this four times in the theater. And if you recall correctly, I still love the dang thing. I think I used to imagine having a child-like romance with Atreyu back in fourth grade, when this movie was out. You can relive the moment I finally met him at last summer's Chicago Comic-Con here.
• Ghostbusters - I was going into fifth grade, and this movie was huge. I saw it with the family and with my summer camp. My favorite part of the movie is still when Rick Moranis asks if anyone wants some lox from Novia Scotia.
• Dirty Dancing - Junior high. I don't remember much more. Who didn't love this movie?
• Rattle and Hum - What can I say? I was a huge U2 fan in junior high and early high school. 
• Heavenly Creatures - Quite disturbing, but I was a brooding college film major at the time. Peter Jackson still remains one of my absolute favorite filmmakers. I will argue that Dead Alive is one of the best horror movies of all time. And he made those little Lord of the Rings movies, too.
• Romy and Michele's High School Reunion - I saw this with some friends and then decided I needed to see it with more friends. Such a great, happy movie.

For some reason my brain keeps needling me to say I saw Showgirls multiple times in the theater. Did I? What was wrong with me? The only reason I may have, and I'm not saying I did, is that I was working at a video store at the time it was out and we had a reciprocal thing going where the people who worked at the indie Madison movie theaters got free video rentals, while we video store clerks got free movies at the indie theaters. But, really, I don't think I saw this more than once. I feel dirty. Maybe I should go see Magic Mike a couple of times to cleanse my soul.

Someday, Romy (my Romy, not the one in the movie) will discover her own Atreyu, and that will mean a new generation of multiple movie viewings. I'm just grateful that moment did not come after Chipwrecked.