Your Date Tonight Is With Pacino And DeNiro.

You're a single or divorced guy.  25-60.  You're miserable and lonely.  You want to meet somebody nice.  Maybe somebody attractive who wants your soul and body for some unexplainable reason. Your mother and well-intentioned female friends remind you to keep trying.  You're nice looking, smart and a good person.  While no part of this is even vaguely factual, who are you to argue?

So you go to bars.  Singles Events.  Author Readings.  You try Match.com and  eChemistry.  You try singles ski weekends and share houses at the shore.  Reality: you either meet nobody or worse, somebody too fat, too thin, too dumb, too smart or already dating somebody.  Worse, if you take a liking to somebody, they think you're too fat, too thin, too smart, too dumb.  They won't think you're already dating somebody.  They know you're not.

Try this instead.  Tonight, you are your own man.  You're not shaving.  You're not bathing.  You're putting on your oldest and moldiest tee shirt - the one you used to clean your own vomit around the toilet - and yet you still hang onto it.

Tonight, you will drink cheap beer and inhale junky snack food.  Peanut butter pretzels followed by Drakes' Yodels followed by M&M's washed down by YooHoo and Blatz Beer. Tonight, you stoke up a DVD you've seen at least 341 times.  Heat with Pacino and DeNiro.  The DVD costs maybe $10.  The food and beer another $20. So for a great time, with no pressure and no stress, you will save yourself at least fifty bucks.

By the end of the night, no, you will not have met somebody  But you did enjoy yourself.  You were able to burp, fart and better yet, not waste any time wondering if you looked okay to somebody.  (You knew you didn't anyway.)   

What you did do was watch a movie you love and felt so familiar with, it's like you personally know the characters.  That may sound psychologically bad, but there is nobody around to care, so why should you?  Better still, you have that nice guy feeling of being in control of a situation.  Of being good to yourself.  Any shrink would say that's got to be a good thing.

Eventually, you'll find somebody who will want to watch some of these great movies with you.  Stay open to it.  For now, though, you're going to enjoy your nights watching DeNiro have a tense cup of coffee with Pacino.  

To find lots of other great stay-at-home dates, 191Movies is a new website that lists movies you can be watch and enjoy a zillion times.  The site is not officially against dating,  romance or marriage.  (Not officially, anyway.) 191Movies simply thinks there are at least 191 movies that let a guy be who he is and be happy with who he is.  

If you like, think of 191Movies as match.com, only you get matched with a great movie to hang with for a night.  A great movie you will love to watch 10 days from now and even 10 years from now.  Hate to say it, but that's probably longer than most marriages last! 

How To Be Your Own Best Movie Critic.

There are a million reasons critics have when they love or hate a movie and you've likely heard them use each reason a million times. 191 Movies would like to share with you an easy way you can be your own movie critic - maybe a better critic than the people getting paid to do it!

Here's how it works.   If a movie sounds at all interesting, you watchit.  See it in a theatre or rent the DVD.  Then you ask yourself one question:  

Would I watch this movie again?   

In other words, do I like this movie enough to own the DVD? If the answer is yes, this is a great movie.  It seems obvious, maybe too obvious, but think about this for a second:

A great movie is a movie you can watch over and over again.  If you can't watch it more than a few times, it's not a great movie. You can argue about the acting, editing, script, photography, director.  You can even argue about the popcorn.  

But, in the end, all you really need to know is whether or not this is a film you want to see again. 

Look at it this way.  Do you buy a DVD with the idea you're going to watch it once and throw it away?  Of course not.  You buy a DVD because the movie is a keeper.  It's something you can count on to entertain you 10 days or10 months or even 10 years from now!

That's how you determine the value of owning a movie.  No matter what kind of day you're having, there's this great experience waiting for you to come home to.  Newman and Redford in Butch Cassidy.  Or DeNiro and Grodin in Midnight Run.  How about Uma in Kill Bill One and Two!

Nobody at 191 Movies is a film critic.  We simply watch movies and when we find ourselves watching them a lot of times, we figure that's good enough for us! 

Josey Wales. Keep It Simple. Make It Great.

Clint Eastwood has proved over and over that a great story, simply told, is still the best way to connect with an audience. With The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood keeps the central story simple and draws you in with the little stuff.  This is, after all, a revenge movie, top to bottom.  Once that gets set up, Eastwood simply lets you enjoy a ton of great stuff - like amazing action sequences.  Crisp, beautifully framed cinematography.  Razor sharp editing that keeps the story headed in one direction and doesn't waste a single frame getting there.  All of which is why Josey Wales is a 191 Movie - one you want to keep handy.   

Shoot To Kill. There Is No Pause Button.

If you've been following the other entries to this blog, you've probably already noticed that the word "chase" applies to a lot of 191 Movies. We're not offering any apologies. When a moviemaker knows how to stage a chase, it's a talent he or she should use as often as humanly possible.  Shoot To Kill is a great, great chase movie.  When you add that you care about the characters and are rooting for them, there isn't much else to be said.  Other than, give in, buy the movie, watch the movie again and again and again.  You can thank the great cast, in particular Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger - and the director Roger Spottiswode, but frankly, you'll be too busy enjoying the chase.  By the way, this chase isn't just on highways.  It's in the woods, on ferries, in lakes, cities, towns - everywhere.  And like we said, you can just forget the pause button.

To Live (Fast) And Die (Faster) In L.A.

It's not enough that Secret Service Agent Richard Chance protects the president of the United States from mad bombers and fights hand-to-hand with with rotten, murderous counterfeiters.  In his spare time, Richie base-jumps off tall bridges.  Which is probably more than enough to explain why To Live And Die In L.A. is a great 191 Movie you can watch again and again.  Agent Chance's exploits are only the beginning.  This movie is loaded with good stuff from frame one and you can't blink an eye (or go get a sandwich) without missing some very cool scene.  The Blu-Ray is more than worth it L.A. has never been photographed better.  Last time we looked, the Blu-Ray is about a buck more than the DVD.  One way or another, you'll get your money's worth watching a great cast, including Willem Dafoe in an effortless performance as the bad guy and a really good John Pankow as another secret service agent who isn't exactly sure how far is too far.  William Petersen as the vengeful Chance never shows any doubt for an instant.

No Movie Is Perfect. Dave Comes Very Close.

191 Movies doesn't throw around the term "classic" all that often.  Mostly because we're pretty much convinced that classic movies are accidents.  What are the odds that a whole bunch of things happen all at once - great story, script, director, photography, editing and most of all, cast.  And, everybody has a different opinion.  One person's "Citizen Kane" is another's Gigli.  But, having said that, we'll step out on a limb.  Dave is a classic 191 Movie you can't help but want to watch again and again.  Strangest of all, it's not at all like many other 191 movies.  No car chases, bullets flying, explosions, fistfights.  No pratfalls or dorm humor.  In fact, how Dave works so well is a bit of a mystery. The canvas is big - Washington D.C., the presidency - but the story itself is kind of small. Rather than defining something so hard to define, we'll just say:  you can't go wrong with this one.  Literally.  It isn't perfect.  But it's close enough to say that every time we watch it (80 and counting)  Dave makes us laugh out loud, feel good, patriotic - even hopeful that people are capable of great things.  OK, a little envy as well.  These are incredibly talented people:  Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Dunn, Frank Langella, Ving Rhames, Ben Kingsley and Charles Grodin.  The truly great script is by Gary Ross and it's expertly directed  by Ivan Reitman.  To get an idea of what we're talking about, take a look at this scene from Dave.  

Internal Affairs: Shockingly Great, Time After Time

A great movie is a series of shocks.  Some minor.  Some 220 volts.  All of them leave you uneasy. Internal Affairs has dozens of small shocks and at least five really big ones.  191 Movies is dedicated to no spoilers, you'll just have to watch the film again.  But after seeing it (for at least the 50th time) the other day, we realized that it's always better to shock an audience in a low-key way.  Like when an actor does something unexpected and makes it work.  You're not manipulated.  You simply get sucked in - and you keep watching. From the get-go, Dennis Peck, the Richard Gere character, shocks you.  The question you keep asking yourself is: how far will this guy go?  The answer is, way, way further than you think possible.  What makes his performance so astonishing is that it's so quiet.  Right away, you understand who Dennis Peck is as a man, a police officer, a father - and many other things.  And you know he'll never stop upping the ante.  Even after you know the whole movie - you watch it again just to see how far he'll go.  Everybody else is good, including Andy Garcia, Laurie Metcalf, Nancy Travis and Billy Baldwin - maybe even better than they've been before or since.  No small feat by the great director Mike Figgis.

STUDY SHOWS MEN PREFER MOVIES OVER PROZAC OR ALCOHOL

Phil Gondolo, in line for a promotion and raise after 22 years, was told instead he was  terminated. That afternoon, his wife Nancy found an old boyfriend on Facebook. One thing led to another and they drunkenly totaled Phil's previously cherry 1967 Camaro in the motel parking lot.

Phil cleaned out his desk, headed for home and promptly fired up his "Roadhouse" DVD. "Right about when Sam Elliot smashes this ugly bruiser in the kneecap, I began to unwind - even relax!" Phil adds, with a contented smile, "I've seen Roadhouse like 220 times and it always works!"

While men still rely on an endless array of televised sports to blot out the ugly realities of life, social scientists have noticed a new trend. Cal Tech Sociologist Meers Prufrock (not his real name) claims to have interviewed 300 men while they watched Marathon Man, The Transporter, Stakeout and Internal Affairs. Most men told Prufrock to shut the hell up and watch the movie, but he was able to get a bead on a new phenomenon. "Women have Paxil and Wellbutrin. Men turn to Clint Eastwood."

Sensing Nobel Prize potential, Prufrock lets his verbiage get somewhat fanciful. He writes "Patrick Swayze can rest comfortably in heaven, knowing that 20-30 viewings of Red Dawn so eases the sorely damaged spirits of millions of men."

Fred Van Dyne, a 37 year old systems analyst agrees. "We were getting ready for her cousin's wedding when Donnie Brasco with Pacino pops up on TNT. I've seen it 94 times, but I gotta watch it again." His wife Rose ended up going to the wedding alone. Fred didn't show at the divorce hearing as he was in the middle of In The Line Of Fire (148 times). Fred lost the house, but reports he has snagged the 60" hi-def flatscreen Sony and his entire DVD collection.

Some guys have torn themselves away from these movies long enough to create 191Movies, a website that lists films men watch billions of times. It offers scenes, trailers, quotes and hours of wasted time. The site actually encourages users to scream at the website for not listing idiotic movies they watch a zillion times. The site is not at all scientific. Instead, it ironically relies on woman to correctly identify 191 Movies, If a woman says, "Are you watching that stupid thing again?", they know it belongs on the site.

A Little Movie You Need To Watch A Lot Of Times

Mad Dog And Glory hardly ever makes any "greatest" or "top" lists, but it's still one of those films you got to watch whenever and wherever you get the chance. It's the small stuff that brings you back. David Caruso proves what a great, great actor he can be. There is a scene in a bar that shows how toughness is all attitude and has very little to do with physical action. The scene barely involves DeNiro or the other main characters, but it's key to why this movie works so well. It sets up what DeNiro's character, Mad Dog, must eventually face. Credits to director John McNaughton for his expert staging and understanding how to bring the best out of a set of actors with hugely different styles. And, as always, none of this would be possible without a truly unique story and script by Richard Price, who created the surprises throughout the film and keeps every word true to the characters, the city and the story. It's simply fun to keep watching - time after time. If you love to watch movies again and again, you might want to check out the 191Movies website at 191movies.com

These Guns Stay Loaded

191Movies.Com likes this movie for so many reasons. You've probably watched The Guns Of Navarone more times than you can remember. It's one of those movies that shows up a lot on television, lately these days on Turner Classic Movies and a few turns on Cinemax. The Guns Of Navarone is a 191 Movie because the sheer level of craftmanship keeps drawing you back time after time. Every scene, especially the one shown here, is a ticking clock. Beautifully photographed and expertly cut, frame after frame. The great cast includes the always-terrific Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn, not to mention David Niven, Stanley Baker and Irene Papas. If you may be interested in other movies you can watch time after time, please visit 191movies

A Great Movie Waiting To Be Uncovered

Switchback is one of the least known but one of the best "watch a zillion times" movies out there! 191 Movies has heard time after time that people see this movie on TV - and they're hooked instantly. Why? It's made by people who can tell a great story, in particular writer/director Jeb Stuart and producer Gale Ann Hurd. It's a great plot tightly wound with lots of solid performances by Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto and Lee Ermey. How come you watch it more than once? You just keep getting surprised by the tension created by this story of a serial killer being tracked by an FBI agent with a personal interest in finding him. It doesn't matter if you know the killer - you learn that right away. What matters is that the movie never stops to let you breathe for a second. Amazing photography and stuntwork helps too! If you're interested in seeing other movies you can watch again and again, take a look at 191 Movies.

Black Sunday: The Engine Is Always Cranked Up.

191 Movies has identified a word that we use for every film we list. It's "engine". What that basically means is that each of these movies gets watched time after time because they all have a great engine pushing them forward. From the first frame to the last fadeout - you can practically hear that engine. Black Sunday is an almost perfect example of a movie "engine" that just hums along. As this opening scene proves, this movie starts at full tilt and never stops. No matter how crazy the plot is - blimps and Super Bowls and terrorists and Israelis, you watch this movie time after time and you let yourself just enjoy the ride. Based on a great novel by Thomas Harris, the people behind Black Sunday (particularly director John Frankenheimer) make you suspend disbelief all the way through. It all feels pretty real, throughout the entire movie. We hope you'll check out more films that grab you as much as Black Sunday. They're listed at 191 Movies and we hope you'll pay a visit to enjoy finding more movies you'll have a great time watching many, many times.