Since COVID-19 has put everything on pause this spring break, my main source of enjoyment has been watching a movie with my sister every night. We’ve taken turns picking the film, and we have yet to watch something we didn’t enjoy.
Here’s our list starting from night one to present:
Night 1: “Coherence”
My sister is taking a film studies course, and “Coherence” was one of the movies in her curriculum. Honestly, this has been my favorite movie thus far. My brain is still reeling from trying to piece it together. It’s about a group of friends who have a dinner party the night that Halley’s comet passes over.
The comet causes “decoherence,” meaning that the main characters are in the same plane of existence as countless versions of themselves from alternate realities. When people leave the house and end up in different versions of their reality, things go south quickly.
By the end of the movie, even the viewer isn’t sure what character the film started with and where it ended. The coolest part about the movie, though, might be the fact that they operated on a $5,000 budget with only one week to film. If you love psychological thrillers that lead to hours of pondering, this is your movie. It’s available for free with Amazon Prime.
Night 2: “Como caído del Cielo”
I happened upon this movie after I exhausted all my sad English rom-com options over winter break. This film, set in Mexico, follows a famous mariachi singer and his quest to get into heaven. In order to escape purgatory, he must possess the body of one of his impersonators.
The catch, though, is that he must stay faithful to the impersonator’s wife, a task that proves to be more difficult than he expected. While the fact that this story is told completely in Spanish may be intimidating to some viewers, by the end of the movie, my sister and I both forgot that the movie was even in Spanish, and we were hooked on every line of subtitle. This Netflix original film will make you laugh, and it will certainly make you cry.
Night 3: “Rocky Horror Picture Show”
My sister couldn’t settle on anything for night three, so we decided to go with a classic. I’ve never watched “Rocky Horror” all the way through, but I loved the soundtrack and was excited to see my favorite songs contextualized.
Although I knew it was going to be a strange movie, I was not prepared for the absolute roller coaster of a plot that is “Rocky Horror.” There was not a single instance in that film where I was able to predict what would happen next. While I wouldn’t classify it as one of my favorite movies, it was definitely worth the $3.99 it cost to rent it on Amazon.
Night 4: “Escape Room”
By night four, my sister and I were craving the same satisfaction that “Coherence,” provided , so we sought out another psychological thriller. “Escape Room” is, naturally, about a group of strangers who go through an escape room together. In this movie, however, the escape rooms seem to go on forever, and pose deadly obstacles for the characters to navigate. This film, free on Prime, was not as engaging as “Coherence,” but it was still definitely an enjoyable watch.
Night 5: “Inception”
My dad happened to be watching this Christopher Nolan classic on night five. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the movie about the dream within a dream with Leonardo DiCaprio starring as the hunky main character, Cobb. It had been a while since I had seen it, and I had honestly forgotten how intricate the plot is. Many have pondered whether or not the majority of the plot takes place in Cobb’s dream, but I never wanted to subscribe to that interpretation. However, after a rewatching, I’m convinced due to subtle details that appear halfway through the movie (here’s a hint: always pay close attention to Cobb’s totem.) “Inception” is currently available on Netflix.
