Yes

Books - Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Watership Down, 1984.

In the Hitchhiker's Guide, nearly every sentence is a clever twist on something, or contains a subtle gem that you'll miss if you read it too fast or only once. But most of all, there is so much of Douglas Adams's personality in these stories that, as fun as the plot is, you mostly end up reading it just to be able to make a connection with the man himself. Sure, Shakespeare and Dickens were geniuses, but their writing has never made me desperately want to get to know them. When I read the Guide, I feel like I've just met Douglas Adams, and would give just about anything to have been able to meet him in reality.

Watership Down has a fundamental gender problem, but I find the story so compelling and the protagonists so sympathetic that I simply don't care, and couldn't possibly just read this a single time. Rabbits, you say? Every time I read this I find myself wishing I was a rabbit.

Come on Kurt, you want us to believe you've only read 1984 once? Not very likely.

Movies - Anything on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but that's mostly for the commentary, not the movies themselves. I've probably watched more bad movies repeatedly because of that show than good ones. But for a real answer: the LOTR movies, the Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, the Star Wars movies (4-6), the Christopher Guest mockumentaries.

I understand Kurt's premise, but once I start listing movies I find that it can't be absolutely true. Surely he, like every adult in America, has seen Oz and Star Wars several times. But Casablanca is the one that really stands up to repeated viewing. There's so much going on underneath the dialogue, and there's so much about the story that is wrapped up in history and wartime mythology, not to mention Bogie and the rest of the cast just absolutely clicking, that you can't possibly watch this, what most consider the 1st or 2nd greatest American film (with Citizen Kane), a single time.

By the way, has Studio 360 ever done an American Icons segment on Casablanca? If not, please consider that a suggestion.

Christopher

Portland, OR