1. Project X
This movie is one big party. Yes, the kids are in high school, wrecking that poor boy’s parents’ house, but it’s got a great soundtrack and plenty of slow motion rager scenes that will pump you up just in time for the return of Home Bar Thursdays. Whether you’re trying to distract yourself from schoolwork or rally after a draining week of tests and papers, this is your film.
2. Legally Blonde
So maybe you took my advice up there and watched Project X and got a little too wild and now you’re dying, searching for the motivation to carry on. Legally Blonde is hilarious and entertaining enough to breathe new life into your hungover soul, and it contains perhaps the two best study montages in cinematic history. (Yes, two of them.) It is girly. There is a lot of pink. But no matter who you are, you’ll absolutely be inspired by Elle Woods’s go-getter attitude. Plus Luke Wilson is in it. Sometimes he swims at our on-campus pool. Boom. SMU connection.
“Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands.”
– The eternally wise Elle Woods
For our purposes, replace “exercise” with “watching Legally Blonde,” and “shoot their husbands” with “fail their classes.” Makes sense.
3. Your favorite Disney movie
When I’m feeling especially bummed and exhausted, I turn to my childhood favorites. Disney classics are funny, lighthearted, and you catch so many more jokes when you watch them as a more educated, corrupted adult. Good looking out, Walt. I recommend Mulan, partly because some of the best Disney songs were written for it. (Let’s get down to business to defeat the homework, right?) Singing releases endorphins, so don’t be shy. Belt out those lyrics, because I know you know them, and cheer up! Studying is probably easier than battling the Huns in an avalanche while dressed in drag.
WARNING: If you’re trying to avoid despair, apathy and/or procrastination, don’t watch Interstellar until after finals. And above all else, do not press play on that pilot episode of Friends, even though Netflix is throwing that shit right in your face.
