“transformers: look at the moon” is on netflix – definitely new background noise movie for #amwriting

— Brian Spaeth (@brianspaeth) July 12, 2012

I don’t like a ton of background noise when I write, but I do like some. Music doesn’t work for me, so if I can’t find a mild crowd to my liking, I’ll often turn to movies, as noted in the above Tweet.

One has to be selective when going this route, and find a film that’s what you might call “look-at-able”, as opposed to “watchable”.

You need something you can look up at for 30 seconds to a minute, and nothing more. This gives your brain that occasional pause/break you need from writing, but at no time will the movie engage you enough to keep you from getting back to work.

At the same time, it needs to have something interesting enough to take your mind away from whatever you’re typing at.

These are my five go-to movies:

1) Batman and Robin This is the all-time great. It’s completely unwatchable, while also being completely watchable.

2) Spider-Man 3 Same.

3) Mission: Impossible 2 Yep.

4) Transformers: Look at the Moon This is already in the rotation, and has a shot at hitting number 1 on this list by tomorrow. I’ve replayed it 3 times since late yesterday, while also finishing two novels and a screenplay.

5) Limitless This is that movie with Bradley Cooper where he takes all the smart pills and becomes a magical charisma man. For some reason this became a go-to in my early days as a Netflix subscriber. I’ve played it probably 50 times, and actually watched it once.

Now, when Netflix froze up lasterday and robbed me of Transformers, I used it as an excuse to not write, and flipped on Vanilla Sky, which is free on Amazon Prime.

I hadn’t seen this since it was in the theater, and all I really remembered was that I’d found the end ludicrous at the time.

This time I teared up a bit, but I’d also stubbed my toe earlier in the day, so that was probably just a delayed reaction. Do you have suggestions for other movies that may work for this.