#519 Glue movies

Neil Pasricha

What’s your glue movie?

For me, I’m completely sucked in anytime I accidentally stumble on A League of Their Own while flipping channels. Yes, watching Tom Hanks and Geena Davis scratch out wins on the ball diamond always hooks me like a fish ’til the credits roll.

See, glue movies are any movie you can’t stop watching whenever you see them on TV.

Nope, don’t matter how many times you’ve seen ’em, don’t matter if you own ’em already — just forget the laundry, skip the dishes, and make your lunch tomorrow, people. You’re stuck in a glue movie so start popping corn and pouring Pepsis because you ain’t going anywhere.

Now, I was chilling in my friend Nick and Julie’s basement apartment the other night when we started chatting about glue movies. After I spent five minutes spilling potato chip crumbs all over my T-shirt while describing Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell’s on field chemistry, Nick started up a rant of his own.

“You know, you would think my glue movie would be The Usual Suspects,” he began. “I can pick it up anywhere and knowing the twist makes every scene more interesting. Like, what’s true, what’s made up? I’ve seen it twenty times and I still don’t know. But then again, it’s completely unwatchable when edited for television. In the police line-up scene they say something like ‘Hand me the keys, you giant cockroach.‘ It’s awful. So… now that I think about it my glue movie is definitely Heat. Long movie, understated performance by Deniro, the best bank robbing scene in history, and enough relationship stuff so Julie gets into it.”

It was a good argument and Nick was satisfied with it. He took a long swig of his drink and nodded his head a little bit as he came to terms with his glue movie selection. Then I performed a classy Thumb & Index Finger Pre-Lick, we let a minute pass in silence, and Julie went off like a rocket:

“My movie is definitely The Mighty Ducks 2,” she started, excitedly. Nick and I looked at each other but she ramped up. “Look, I’m smiling just thinking about it. I had a crush on all the boys from the first movie, but I can only responsibly love them closer to the legal age of consent. Plus, they had a girl on the team and I always dreamed of being that female hero. And I generally love movies with kids because they remind you of actors before they were big. I mean, I loved Joshua Jackson in Dawson’s Creek because of the ducks,” she finished.

Nick shrugged and nodded, I furrowed my eyebrows and gave a dramatic thumbs up, but Julie wasn’t quite done.

“Oh yeah!” she beamed. “And the movie taught me everything I know about hockey which can be summarized in three words: Ducks fly together. This is what I yell whenever Nick’s watching hockey.”

We smiled and laughed because it was clear these movies really do hold a special place in our hearts.

Maybe you’re glued to the screen waiting for the redemption in Shawshank, nervous for the courtroom drama in My Cousin Vinny, or eager for the trip home in Adventures in Babysitting.

But no matter what, watching your glue movie is like hanging out with an old friend who pops by for an unexpected visit. After pouring a drink and settling into your couch dent, the memory pops and nostalgia drops start sparking and sizzling in your brain. Suddenly you’re reminded of drives to the movies in mom’s minivan, crashing on the couch with friends, or sharing an old fave with a new flame.

So stick with your glue movies, everybody.

They’ll be yours forever.

AWESOME!

— Email message —

“Hi Neil, I think toilet-top literature is awesome. It’s the casual games of reading. You can pick up where you left off… read it short bursts. Hello old friend… Come here often? An important consideration is whether the book has natural breaking points because sometimes we need cues to get up and rejoin society. Toilet-top literature is also a window into the lives of your friends. What are they going to have in there for you? Ikea catalog? Mad Libs? Or if you’re lucky The Book of Awesome?” – Ryan
Photos from: here, here, here, and here

359 thoughts to “#519 Glue movies”

  1. Heathers. def can not pass this by if its on. I have seen it a good 20 times and still I sit on the edge of my seat through the whole thing.
    Of course Harry Potter(s), Princess Bride,The Breakfast Club and Grease

    1. Excellent choice.. I was talking to my wife the other day, and it came out that she’d never seen Heathers.. I felt like I barely knew the person I’d married..

      As my first choice of quote doesn’t seem appropriate for a family blog (it involves the gentle use of a chainsaw), I’ll have to go with:

      Dad: Will someone tell me why I smoke these damn things?
      Veronica: Because you’re an idiot.
      Dad: Oh yeah, that’s it.

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  3. all really great movies!!
    maybe its just me being a big tim burton addict but every time edward scissorhands is on i simply need to stop and watch. i love it.

  4. I have found that my glue movies are exclusively comedies. The kind I know word-for-word and can drop in during any scene and enjoy watching it through to the end (and, strange as it seems, I usually enter into the film at the same points when channel flipping… I rarely catch them from beginning to end.

    Ones that immediately leap to mind are Little Miss Sunshine, The Sandlot, Clue, and Young Frankenstein. I reference them on a daily basis and will never tire of them.

  7. The Great Escape

    This amazing WWII movie is loosely based on real people and actual events. The bravery, ingenuity, and perseverence shown by these US and British POWs is so inspiring—these guys DO NOT give up! I grew up watching this movie and still love it today. Plus, this is Steve McQueen at his coolest!

    The Usual Suspects
    Airplane!
    Rebecca—handsome, tortured Laurence Olivier
    Any Christopher Guest Movie—the man’s a genius
    The Others—deliciously scary even when you know the ending
    Animal House—who can resist?

    2. Agreed – this movie is amazingly cool.

      I own the DVD and used to watch it a lot, but whenever I did, I’d get that little army tune that they play through a lot of the scenes stuck in my head, and I’d literally whistle it for days… seriously, DAYS… eventually my wife “suggested” that I not watch that movie anymore.. :)

      Ditto goes for The Sting.

  8. I forgot!

    Desperately Seeking Susan – love it. 80s dancing
    hahahahahhahahahahaha

  9. The Sandlot…I watched this so many times with my kids. It’s such a great story of friendship and the carefree days of summer vacation.

  10. I love that this post appeared today. Yesterday I spent hours watching Father of the Bride (part 1 & 2). My other glue movies are Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory and Mean Girls (even though my roommate and I BOTH own it on DVD. I still watch it whenever it’s on!)

    I love that so many of us have the same glue movies. That’s pretty AWESOME!

  17. Stand By Me, Remember the titans, mighty ducks 2. we are the championsssss! and certain lifetime movies that are rarely on.

  19. “Die Hard”

    I know it down to the very decision as to why the camera angle and the lighting is such and such in scene A and B.

    I miss good action movies like this one.

  20. The first Pirates of the Carribbean is my ULTIMATE glue movie. I’ve seen it waayyyyy too many times, but I still HAVE to watch it if I see it on anywhere.

    Others include:
    Benny and Joon (LOVE a young Johnny Depp!)
    Mulan (I can pretty much quote the entire movie)
    Willy Wonka
    Remember the Titans
    Princess Bride

  21. 28 Days with Sandra Bullock. I usually manage to catch the start of the movie just as I’m thinking it’s time to go to bed and two hours later I’m still in the same spot!

  22. my can’t change the channel…must see the rest of the movie….no matter at what point I have come across it are:
    1. Pretty Woman
    2. Notting Hill (anything with Julia Roberts almost)
    3. Shawshank
    4. A Few Good Men
    5. Bridges of Madison County
    6. Step Mom (more Julia)
    and finally
    7. Legally Blonde 1 and 2

  23. I don’t think anyone said it, but I love While You Were Sleeping. It used to be on a lot more, guess it’s a little old now… Classic Sandra Bullock, though!

  24. I have many “glue” movies. Serendipity, Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Breakfast Club to name a few.

  25. I know what it’s like! The movies i’ve seen so many times, and will still watch them again and again, are the “Home Alone” movies :) I have all 4 and i still love watching them <3

  26. I own all these movies on dvd, yet I stop and watch them when they are airing on tv with commericals?!?!

    The Wedding Date
    Bring it on
    The Goonies
    The Karate Kid
    Pretty Woman
    Sweet Home Alabama
    Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion
    Rumor has it
    Top Gun

  27. For me, hands down it was any of the Back to the Future movies…gotta love the Doc, the Delorian, and Marty McFly

  28. For me it will always be ‘Hope Floats’ with Sandra Bullock. The cheating husband, going back home with far less luster than she left with, father abandoning daughter, mother dying, the little nephew who lives in halloween costumes – it all seems too much until Harry Connick Jr. shows up with the flowers and the pick-up truck in the final scene. I swear I go through a box over kleenex every time I watch this movie!

  29. Finally, someone mentioned Airplane. My now 18 yr old daughter can recite it verbatim, and has been able to for likely 10 years. And Monty Python and the Holy Grail gets added to the list. :)

    1. Despite many people telling my that I’d love Spamalot, I’ve never gone.

      I simply think my relationship with the Holy Grail is perfect and don’t want to mess with it.

      ….wot, behind the rabbit?

      2. I love The Holy Grail, it’s my fave movie of all time!
        Saw Spamalot… I don’t know why, but I wasn’t a huge fan. I guess nothing beats the original.

  31. The Breakfast club! I love it! I watch it every time it comes on TV… and of course my all time fav, Gone With the Wind… but it’s so long that sometimes I have to tear myself away to go be productive.

  32. Just One of the Guys.

    About a girl who dresses up as a guy to hide from her ex-boyfriend, but then falls in love with a guy who thinks she’s his male buddy. It’s a mediocre movie that seems to get played on Comedy Central several times each year. I have no idea why it gets so much airtime, but it has not only grown on me, but become a required watch, whenever it’s on. I probably know every line.

  33. A Few Good Men is definitely mine. And the Matrix. I own it on DVD and can watch it unedited without commercials, but I can’t help watching it anytime it’s on.

  34. Two words: ROAD HOUSE

    (And come to think of it, Dirty Dancing, too. Must be a Swayze thing.)

  36. Wow reading thru this list I see that I have lots of glue movies but one I haven’t seen listed is “Dirty Dancing”. I love that movie. “No one puts Baby in the corner.”

  37. We call them Default movies at our house. Glue makes sense too.

    Mine is Two and a Half Weeks, Days of Thunder, Shawshank, Princess Bride, and Clueless.

  40. Stand by Me. Hands down.
    “I don’t shut up I grow up. And when I look at you I throw up. Then your mom goes around the corner and she licks it up.”

  41. Haha that might be my favorite thing so far… glue movies are the best kind of movies, better than the “always make you laugh no matter how many times you’ve seen it” and the “always make you squeeze the pillows with tension on the climax scene” ones… the “always make you forget everything and just lay back and enjoy it” ones are the best, no doubt! Mine would be Groundhog Day and Superbad, probably. And I’m always overcome with a feeling of extreme joy when I’m flicking through the movie channels late at night and I find that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is on (: That should be considered an Awesome Thing itself!

    1. Serious question:

      Vinny clearly says “does that theory hold water?” to Mona Lisa encourage her to figure out that the tiremarks were wrong.

      I don’t know anything about cars. What does the hint refer to?

      1. Certain tire treads are designed to “hold water” so that traction is increased in wet conditions.

  43. My glue movie is The Money Pit, if it’s on I’m watching and laughing my butt off because it is the best movie I’ve seen on a house remodel.
    The basement was our family room and everybody was either on the couch or laying on pillows on the floor with the popcorn and soda. We all had our favorites but family and friends watching movies together is the best.
    Thanks for the great postings, keep it up and I’ll keep reading.

  44. “The Princess Bride”. If I am flipping through channels during commercials, and I see it, I’ll watch it even if I was in the middle of another program. Love every single scene in that movie!

  46. so many….

    A Bronx Tale
    Almost Famous
    The Big Lebowski
    Rocky
    Hot Rod
    Home Alone
    School of Rock
    Oceans 11
    Braveheart
    Employee of the Month
    Undercover Brother

    I could be here all day

    Awesome site!

  49. Haha, before I got past the first paragraph, I said to myself, “My glue movie is definitely My Cousin Vinny.” And then, bingo, there it is further down the post!

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