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It’s Sunday around noon and the sun doesn’t look like it will be making an appearance in the sky today. On the couch, you wallow in self-inflicted pain from one too many domestic light beers and an ill-advised shot of rail tequila towards the end of the night.
Alcohol seeps out of every pore in your body. Too hungover to make yourself food, you scroll through a list of Postmates options on your phone while a light pitter patter of rain hits your living room windows. You set your phone on the couch and pick up the clicker on the coffee table. Food doesn’t look palatable yet.
With surgical precision, you fly past several options searching for three letters on the left side of your screen. There are no premiere sports happening just yet, with bowling, airplane racing, and that nerd Bob Ley hosting another abysmal episode of Outside the Lines. Three letters are all you’re looking for at the moment.
People in show business often say that TNT, a popular network across this country, knows drama. And boy, do they. The Dark Knight Rises is about to begin, and it’s going to play for damn near the whole afternoon. From 12:15 all the way until 3:45, the last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman series will be shown on TNT, and your hungover ass is going to sit there and watch the entire thing.
TNT is known for this type of programming on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Outside of the fabulous pregame and halftime analysis with Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, Chuck Barkley, and Shaq, dramatic movies with super long runtimes being played during peak hangover hours have become TNT’s calling card.
It matters not that you’ve seen these movies approximately one million times beforehand. This could be my imagination playing tricks on me, but it seems like Braveheart, one of the three Nolan Batman movies, or one of the two Hayden Christensen Star Wars movies are most commonly played on Sunday afternoons on TNT.
All of those options listed work for TNT on Sunday because each of them have very long runtimes and higher-ups at the network know that most people are only half-watching them. You can scroll Instagram or Twitter with ease while those movies are playing in the background, and, if you feel like actually devoting all of your attention to them at any given time, it’s easy to pick up on where the plot is. With Netflix or HBO, you’re going to be sitting there for twenty to thirty minutes scrolling through mediocre movie after mediocre movie and not be able to pick anything. TNT takes the option to choose out of your hands, and when you’re hungover, that is music to the ears.
I would argue that the best part about these movies being played on TNT is that they include the commercials. I know that in 2018 it seems like cruel and unusual punishment to have to sit through paid advertisements when you could just as easily stream a movie online without them, but in a hungover daze on a Sunday as the weekend slowly but surely comes to a close, you need those commercials like you need to air to breathe.
You can get up to pee or grab a glass of ice water. You can pack up a bowl of leafy greens and you can look at Postmates for the millionth time to see if there is anything worth the outrageous delivery fees. A three-hour movie on TNT and a hangover are a match made in heaven. There’s something soothing about hearing Christian Bale say, “I’m not wearing hockey pads” one moment, and then listening as your television’s volume inexplicably gets louder once the commercial for a Swiffer wet jet comes on immediately following that. .
Image via YouTube
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
If I need to pee or something I’ll just hit pause. No way am I paying a cable company to dictate my break times for me.
I don’t understand why, in the age of Netflix, Hulu and HBO GO, anyone would watch a movie on cable TV.
Agreed. I can watch Forest Gump, Grandma’s Boy, and Remember the Titans in the time it takes to finish Forest Gump with commercials
Don’t forget all the cutting of explicit content. Totally ruins the experience.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit how many times I’ve stayed up until 2:30 am watching Forest Gump / Shawshank Redemption.
Because when I’m really hungover, and my brain is barely working, I don’t want to put the effort into finding something to watch. Road House in on CMT? Fuckin’ a. I don’t have to move for three hours. And if doze off during a commercial? Doesn’t matter, I’ve seen this movie more than ten times. It’s really the only situation justifies watching a move on basic cable.
I will stop for Armageddon every single time it’s on cable.
We have agreed on this previously. Throwback sup?
TLDR;
“TNT takes the option to choose out of your hands, and when you’re hungover, that is music to the ears.”
Nailed it. Anyone who disagrees isn’t as hungover as they want to claim.
This is my Sunday ritual, ignore the haters
Anyone hating on this take missed the entire point
One of the Fast and the Furious movies is ALWAYS on TNT. And I am not complaining.
I killed an hour and twenty minutes on the elliptical because Fast Five was on at the gym and I had to finish it.
I watch the office like crazy on Netflix… yet whenever I turn on my TV I always find myself watching re-runs with commercials on Comedy Central… WHY WHY WHY
Maybe Netflix needs a shuffle button so I don’t have to pick a random episode.
Netflix having a shuffle button is the most genius suggestion I’ve ever heard
Casino and Con Air are my two other favorites.
You fall asleep for two hours on the couch just after they start, and wake up with an hour plus to go.
Nothing like waking up to two men, naked, getting beaten alive and buried in a cornfield
This wouldn’t be such a trash take of the commercials weren’t so loud
You….want things to interrupt your movie without your consent??? Why not just pause at your own leisure.