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Free Form Friday: Frankly, there’s nothing else on.

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The National Board Of Review Annual Awards Gala - Inside
Mama, box of chocolates, etc.
Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review

This is Free Form Friday. It’s not the weekend open thread you want. It’s the weekend open thread you deserve, sponsored by Petal to the Metal Florists, McRae and greater Telfair County’s home for fresh flowers delivered with a minimal adherence to traffic laws. Maestro, the music:

It’s hard to be a college football fan when there’s no college football to be found. Sure, there’s the NFL. Signing Day holds our attention for a little while. You could take up basketball, but Lord knows that only leads to heartbreak.

No, instead I suggest an avocation outside the world of sports. In my case, I watch a lot of movies during the offseason. But not just any movies. I watch the same damn movies over and over.

And over and over. And if those movies happen to come on television while I am in front of it, I will find them and turn to that channel and my wife will politely say something like “How many times have we seen _______?” The answer of course is “at least once fewer than we need to have at this precise point in history.”

This phenomenon has been made worse by the advent of video streaming technology. For a brief shining moment during 2017 both Animal House and Caddyshack were available on Netflix. It’s a wonder I remembered to eat and bathe.

So here’s this weekend’s utterly random point of reflection: what is the movie that you, without any thought or reflection, watch every time it comes on television? Or for you whippersnappers who cut the cord ages ago, your go-to streaming movie. Note, this is not your “favorite movie” or “the best movie you ever saw” or anything like that. I’m talking about the movie you half watch while doing other stuff or nothing at all because you already know all the dialogue by heart and can pick it up or put it down whenever necessary and pick up without missing a beat.

Mine is probably Forrest Gump. For starters I’m an irreverent history buff and Forrest Gump is about as irreverently pseudo-historic as it gets. There are moments of comedy. Moments of poignant reflection. But if Forrest Gump is on I’m choosing it over a rerun of Fixer Upper every single time.

Feel free to discuss your “always on” movie in the comments below, or diverge into any other hot topics that develop. Have a great weekend everybody, and . . . .

Go ‘Dawgs!!!