Why You Shouldn't 'Sleep On' Classic Movies

My mother tends to refer to me as “a 80 year old woman in a nineteen year old body. For one thing, she forces me to go out to college parties. Not kidding. I still live at home, and my mom had to push me out the door my first week of school to go to a frat party at an 18+ nightclub. To classify me as a home-body, it would be a thousand times accurate.

Along with me being a homebody, I have lots of time to delve into my pop culture safe haven of movies, television, music, etc. You name it, I am obsessed with it.

One thing that surprises a lot of people is that I am a huge fan of Classic Movies. Turner Classic Movies is on my Television 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I have Twitter notifications on my phone to make sure I record all the movies I want for the day so I don’t miss one. Every night, I sit down and watch one movie I recorded the previous night and it is my ultimate wind down routine that I have cultivated.

Casablanca is my all time favorite movie. I can recite the famous final scene of the movie, where Rick tells Ilsa to get on the plane. In November, for the 75th anniversary, TCM hosted a Big Screening Event at my local AMC and I dragged my father and my twelve year old brother who never saw the movie to watch me cry for the millionth time to “As Time Goes By”.

If you are not a Classic Movie lover like myself, you may not know about FilmStruck. FIlmStruck is Turner Classic Movies streaming service to bring audiences an easier way to watch Classic Movies. Recently, Filmstruck made an announcement that they have partnered with Warner Brothers to expand their Golden Age of Hollywood library and give access to titles such as Citizen Kane, Rebel Without A Cause, Singin’ In The Rain, Bringing Up Baby, The Thin Man, Cat People, and Casablanca.

Now, this news to me was very exciting. In the streaming age, it has become so much easier to watch all of our favorite content and find new shows and movies to be captivated by. Filmstruck is making it easier to get your movie fix, but most of all, get people my age to become educated on the classics and finally join me in my obsession.

You may be thinking, ‘Why would I need to watch all of those old black and white movies?’ Believe me, I know, but once I channel flipped to TCM that one night, I was hooked. I’ll give a couple reasons.

First off, most “old” movies have created the basis for what we know as “movie culture” today. Love horror? Find a Hitchcock film. Romantic comedies? Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night.

Second, there are many memorable quotes that have stayed around all the way back from the 1940s. “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” is from Gone With The Wind. "There's no place like home" is of course, from The Wizard of OZ.

Thirdly, it is an insight to what life was like during a certain time period. For example, World War I has a plethora of choices like The African Queen or All Quiet on the Western Front.

Certainly, there are many more reasons why you should delve into the Golden Age world that I live in. Filmstruck is a great way to get started or even easier, find Turner Classic Movies on your cable. “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.