[Thor Joachim Haga]

Yet another is – as I alluded to above – because I love the mood. It’s a fictional universe where I can just stay and absorb and experience the surroundings. This is, in fact, one of the most important aspects for me when it comes to filmic experience. It can be “cozy”, like the opening of LOTR, set in Hobbiton, or it can be “unsettling”, like in ALIEN. But even in ALIEN, there is a familiarity with the unsettling surroundings that I find comforting.

And then there is a different type of use as well. A fairly mundane form of reuse is watching a film when I’m inebriated, at the end of an evening, before I go to sleep. That’s why JURASSIC PARK is so useful, up until the appearance of the T-Rex. Or films like 2012 and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, when the purpose is to “live inside the acts”, and the expectations of what’s to come. Or films like THE MARTIAN or CAST AWAY, that are both calm and tense at the same time, but with plenty of time to just ‘stay’ at the place. I’ve seen all of these films countless times.

I thought about doing a thread on “comfort movies”, but then realized I pretty much said all I had to say on the subject in this thread already, in the quote above.

Anyone else have “comfort movies” like this, whose quality is less important than the function they serve for you? And THAT’S the primary reason for why you return to them over and over again?