Deciding entertainment isn’t always fun | News, Sports, Jobs

Ah, making decisions.

I would have thought figuring out what to eat or deciding where to eat would have been the hardest choices for me and Better Half as a couple.

But choosing a movie to watch at home becomes a terribly complicated process.

Now, not only do we run the risk of being hungry on certain days, but we could also end up being hungry for entertainment.

Generally, our movie night does not take place “school night” because I’ll never skip the opening credits, so Friday is kind of a movie night in the Kiaski house…that is, if we can pick one and watch something.

We leave quite optimistic, a state of mind quickly called into question, especially after the discovery that among the vast selection of works that there is to watch, there are nearly 4,000 free films accessible with a click of remote.

Four thousand movies??!! I start clicking on it, thinking I’m going to be impressed with the movie cover art – not the most productive process.

It’s quite an investment of energy to choose a single movie to sit down and hopefully enjoy, but we try to approach this like sensible adults, as logically as possible without losing our interest or our spirits in pursuit of a two-hour engagement on a Friday night, all in the name of relaxing and diverting from the normal pace of life.

We think of movie selection the same way we think of choosing a restaurant.

What are you in the mood to eat?

Chinese? Italian? Seafood? A burger?

What do you want to watch?

A comedy? Drama? A documentary? A musical?

One thing we generally agree on is don’t watch musicals, at least not as a couple.

While I appreciate a good musical, not everyone is a fan of a movie where its characters sing at the most inopportune times or start dancing among other strangers who start dancing themselves- same.

I tried to imagine what happens in real life, and in my weird little mind I can see it and even be a part of it.

Like finding a place to eat, a movie decision can be based on a recommendation from a family member or friend or a review to watch this or try that.

You will like it. It’s good. You’ll get a kick out of it. You won’t be disappointed – so the encouragement to watch this movie goes.

Unfortunately, sometimes the best movie advice we can find is that someone said something was pretty good, but we forgot the name of it.

We also agree that the movie we are going to watch must have subtitles, otherwise we will never know what is going on. What did he say? Did you catch this?

When we finally narrow down the choices, we see who’s in the movie and what the story is.

I’ve read the plot description provided, which is usually very vague and leaves a lot to the imagination — “a guy meets a girl and they fall in love and face challenges.” Quite original and captivating.

I hadn’t realized entertainment could be so painful.

Nine times out of 10 we end up watching a movie we’ve seen a hundred times before – maybe “Dreamer,” for example.

We’ll laugh at all the same scenes and recite the lines with heart while we eat popcorn.

Or I’m just reading a book, and Better Half is looking at news analysis programming.

Sometimes that’s enough entertainment.