Big tub of ice-cream. Just one spoon.
Of all of the days in the year, Valentine’s Day seems especially cruel.
All those (okay, fine, us) poor single folk have to make do with the world suddenly exploding into a pink hurricane of love, and just like every other holiday, it seems to have begun to bled out from just one day to almost an entire week.
Thankfully, your similarly painfully single friends here at JOE have picked out ten movies for you to enjoy on your own, mostly because they also involve people getting by on their own.
Sometimes being on your own is better.
You don’t have to share your ice-cream, for one.
CAST AWAY
Tom Hanks is a Fed-Ex guy who survives a plane-crash, washes up on a tropical island, and spends years there by himself. He does make friends with a volleyball, and his bod gets pretty ripped in the process. Plus, when he gets back home, he finds out he no longer has to marry Helen Hunt. Win winning win win.
GRAVITY
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney go into space, but only Sandra makes it back down. She does spend a lot of time talking to herself, but to be honest, some of my best conversations have been to myself. Haven’t they? Yes. Yes they have.
I AM LEGEND
Will Smith gets to run around Manhattan, without having to worry about paying bills on his huge apartment, or things like rush hour traffic. The movie fully proves the point that dogs are amazing and all other people are monsters.
LOCKE
Tom Hardy wears a nice jumper and tries on a less-nice Welsh accent, as we sit in a car with him for 90 minutes and he talks to people over the phone. Not much more too it than that, but Tom Hardy is pretty cool, so that should be enough, really.
127 HOURS
James Franco gets his arm caught under a big rock for five-and-a-bit days, and before he chops it off, he starts to go a bit mad, but also reflects on his own life and how he has lived it. It may or may not be based on that scene in The Simpsons when Principal Skinner gets trapped in his basement under a mountain of newspaper, we’ll need to look into that.
MOON
Sam Rockwell is on the Moon, doing science-y stuff, until he dies… except he doesn’t, but then he meets another Sam Rockwell, and they team up to solve a sci-fi mystery. The movie fully proves the point that sometimes the best company you can keep is your own. Isn’t that right? Yes. Yes it is.
ALL IS LOST
aka Bad Things Happen When You’re At Sea Alone: Vol.1 – starring Robert Redford
LIFE OF PI
aka Bad Things Happen When You’re At Sea Alone: Vol.2 – starring a tiger
BURIED
Ryan Reynolds wakes up in an already buried coffin in Iraq. Not ideal, to be fair. But on the other hand, he’s Ryan Reynolds. God already dealt him a pretty good hand, so this is just karma’s way of balancing that out.
THE SHALLOWS
Not to be outdone, Ryan Reynold’s wife Blake Lively is alone on a rock out a sea, with a constantly circling shark and a seagull called Steven (Steven Seagull, geddit?) for company. See above, re: karma.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
