Bedside Blogging: Your Next Movie Marathon

Hello loyal readers,

Now that you know a little about me and have clearly fallen head over laptop (we are on date #3 after all....) I thought I should begin using my power to enligthen and influence: hope you are wearing oven mitts cause I'm about to drop some knowledge, and it's HOT! Remember that time you and your friends got together and thought, "hey, we should totally watch a Jack Nicholson film from every decade, that way we can track how well he's aged. And we'll watch two from each decade, so we can have a more complete picture, and perhaps pinpoint when exactly things started to go south for him physically." So you talk about how great it will be, how you can start in 1960 with his bit part in Little Shop of Horrors, then on to the great stuff like Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. Do you watch Chinatown, the Passenger, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest or Tommy because they are all done about 1975 (amazing right?) Clearly The Shining is on there, Batman obviously, A Few Good Men, maybe Mars Attacks, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, The Departed, and maybe Something's Gotta Give if you want to end on a happy note, though that will ultimately mess up the age-tracking idea, since it was done three years earlier than Departed. Oh yeah, and Anger Management would be a good one, though same year as SGG. Despite this being hypothetical, I am kind of thinking about doing this marathon, however back to the point. So you've gotten together and decided on this awesome marathon, next Friday, Brad's house. Then next Friday comes around and things don't work out: you couldn't get a lot of the movies, Tammy can't come, Jake wont come if Tammy wont (Brad, Tammy and Jake? Sorry, apparently it's 1991), etc. etc. Movie marathon cancelled. Brad watches The Shining by himself because that's the only movie on the list he owns, and is then afraid to go to sleep. It doesn't have to be this way! The most important thing about having a successful MM, other than the theme, is sufficient planning. Make sure you tell people about it well in advance so they can clear their schedules-Good MMs should take an entire day, if not two. Have a discussion about the movies and then get a working list going that can be amended over the course of the month, yes month. When the MM is about a week away, you can start rounding up all the neccessary films. Also make sure you have the food situation handled, I like to have everyone bring a movie from the list and a snack to share. Actually I have never done that, and now that I see it sounds like I am running a kindergarten class, I know why. I hope this helps you plan out your next MM. I currently have one in the works, but I'll save that for another time. Next week, we are having a guest blogger as part of the point-counterpoint series. Topic: Holiday television specials. Until then, your most humble servant, b.