Thursday, 23 January 2003 | Replay

If there's a song you like, or an album, do you play it over and over again, until you kill the feeling it gave you the first few times you heard it? Is it to get the original feeling back (kind of like what is said about a first high), or is it to stamp the feeling out, because it's too overwhelming? Is it so that you can memorize it, master it, defeat it? Or is it just because you have it stuck in your head already, and it's so satisfying to finally hear something that's been stuck in your head?

This weekend I saw Carrie for the first time, which is one of those movies that, whenever it comes up in conversation, inspires the incredulous question, "You've never seen that?!" A few of the other movies that I'm told I must see before I become a whole person: Full Metal Jacket. St. Elmo's Fire. Caddyshack. Mad Max. Easy Rider

Then there are the movies that, when I was younger, I saw repeatedly; they consumed me, and they changed my speech and my sense of humor. I could quote them almost flawlessly, and they fully stopped surprising me: Real Genius. Nightmare on Elm Street. Back to the Future. Dirty Dancing. The Breakfast Club. GoodFellas. Platoon. Some Kind of Wonderful. A Fish Called Wanda. Fletch.

They almost seem like part of my childhood, as if they happened to me. I don't watch movies the same way anymore. But music is different.