Triple features in the background

The local movie theatre used to run triple-features on Sunday nights in the early eighties, and I was far too young to stay out that late, but always dreamed of sitting in the movies for that long on a school night. By the time I could stay up as late as I wanted, it was the era of the multiplex, and there wree no more triple features. 

Now I have a triple feature session three nights a week, even if I barely pay any attention.

I've been working form home this year, doing the graveyard shift and finishing at midnight. I miss the buzz of a newsroom - even if there's only a single other reporter there, there's somebody to spark off - but I have been remarkably productive without the office banter (along with the need to prove that I can do the job efficiently and effectively with very little direct supervision).

I can't handle the quiet, though. The silence after the rest of the house goes to sleep, after the rest of the world is tucked up and snoozing. I tried listening to local radio stations, but there's something about the subdued tone of late night radio that makes it even worse.  

I will not, under any circumstances, do talkback radio.

What I do have is a small mountain of DVD movies, films I love but have seen dozens of times each, and can have in the background while I work, because I don't have to pay attention to them.

So DVDs that haven't been cracked open in ages are getting another run. All the Coens, all the Lynch, all the Scorsese. I don't need to keep an eye on Raising Arizona when I know every line by heart, man.

And unless there are some three-hour films (and they're fucking unavoidable), I can blast through three films a night, and end up with some weird triple features. I usually start with something funny or exciting, (but not too raw, because the kids are still awake), get through the middle of the shift with something heavy, and finish with a proper mind fuck, because proper mind fucks are always good in the midnight hour.

Sometimes there is a theme, like a Terminator night, or an evening with Kill Bill, but it's mostly random, the less thought I put into things, the less trouble there is. Tonight it's been Goodfellas and Dunkirk and Eraserhead, tomorrow it's probably going to be Patterson and Raw and Goodbye Pork Pie.

I've watched more than a hundred films like this in the past couple of months, getting through them so fast that I've burned through all the ones I brought down, have started pilfering the library's collection, (they don't even charge anymore).

I can still work when I'm watching The Thing, but can always take a micro-break for the really gross bits. It's more than just background noise, and loud enough to keep the quiet away.