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January 28, 2007
How Many Movies Can You Watch in a Day?
“Badly's an adverb. Who taught you grammar? Get out.”
-Perry in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Once every six months or so, Jason and I attempt to catch up on our movie watching with an all-day movie marathon. Our latest effort was a week or so ago, and I thought I should report. We watched:
The Wicker Man (2006)
I am sorry to report how very disappointing this film is: no song and dance numbers, very little nudity, and no glaringly inappropriate sex scenes. Add to that the fact that they gunked up the whole story trying to add complexity to Nicholas Cage’s character, and, well, watch the original.
The blooper reel on The Phantom Menace
Not worth the trouble of hitting all the buttons to find it.
“Twelfth Night” from Shakespeare: The Animated Tales
The only exposure I’ve had to Twelfth Night was when I read it (and fifteen other plays) for Shakespeare class when I was an undergrad over a decade ago, and I’ve never seen it staged. This half-hour abridgement was nicely animated and retained Shakespeare’s language, but I had to keep pausing it and asking Jason, who knows the play well, what the heck was going on. Perhaps some of the others are a little easier to follow.
She’s the Man
We watched the animated version of Twelfth Night to get us ready for this teen flick adaptation of the play. I have a soft spot for teen movies, and I enjoyed this one tremendously. I laughed, I cringed, I got a little misty. Nice.
Feast
Ew.
An Inconvenient Truth
Jason’s answer to my, “If we’re going to watch movies all day, I want at least one of the movies to be good.” This was well-produced and interesting. It was nice to watch this at home instead of in the theater, since it gave us a lot of opportunities to stop the DVD and talk about whatever it was we’d just seen. Of course, this is something of a disadvantage when you’re trying to fit as many movies as possible into a short period of time.
Slither
Oddly enough, the obligatory teen actress in this film, Tania Saulnier, also appears in The Wicker Man and She’s the Man. What are the odds that you grab a random bunch of films and a minor actress appears in all three? I enjoyed that weird bit of serendipity, and I enjoyed seeing Nathan Fillion, but, overall, this didn't turn out to be a good day for horror.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The funniest film I’ve watched in a long time. I love Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, and the dialog here is rewind-and-watch-again wonderful.
“Perseus & Medusa” from Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Greek Myths
Fun. I’d watch more.
Another interesting bit of trivia from movie day is that a whopping four of the films we watched – She’s the Man, Feast, Slither, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – had blooper reels in the special features. Special features aren’t all that special without a blooper reel as far as I’m concerned, so it was a nice addition to the day. Again, though, those special features were slowing us down, so we wound up running out of time to watch Transamerica (which I have subsequently watched) and season 4 of Home Movies (which I have started watching) – even so, it was a pretty good day….
Posted by adrienne at January 28, 2007 07:59 PM
Comments
Good lord that's a lot of stuff you watched! I'm just getting round to watching the 2004 World Series!
Posted by: Jeffrey Lee at January 28, 2007 09:48 PM
Yet I was deeply disappointed that we hadn't managed to fit more in....
Posted by: adrienne at January 28, 2007 10:06 PM
This weekend we watched:
Emma which I watched alone. I know that I had seen it once before, and I don't think I need to see it ever again. I forgot how terrible it was. Yuck. I have a soft spot for movies like this, but this was just putrid.
Better Off Dead If you are ever in a foul mood, you need to watch this movie (or 16 Candles). Both are hysterically funny and absolutely silly.
The Blob This one was actually much better than I thought it would be. Plus the "hero" of the movie was a female high school senior (and a cheerleader too).
the first half of Gone with the Wind with my in-laws. Good grief is it a long movie.
and right now I'm watching The Big Store with the Marx Brothers.
At some point I really want to watch Pan's Labyrinth and An Inconvenient Truth.
Posted by: Cathy at January 28, 2007 10:17 PM
wow... i've only seen one of those. that would be the phantom menace. are there any requirements for a movie marathon day, besides lots of movies? (like rain, or junk food, or... i dunno?)
Posted by: ruth at January 29, 2007 04:00 PM
Better Off Dead is one of my favorite movies ever.
It's an interesting question, Ruth. I'm not sure that movie marathon day has rules per se, but I don't like to have movie marathons during the summer, since I'd much rather spend my days outside when it's nice. Actually, I don't normally believe in turning my TV on when the sun is up, but I have to make an exception to that rule for marathons. Other than that, we spend the week or so leading up to movie day gathering up movies we think we want to watch, and then when the big day arrives, we alternate who gets to pick what we watch. We also eat ice cream, but we're just as likely as not to eat ice cream on a normal day. (I just finished some a bit ago, in fact.) It's all very loosey-goosey.
I imagine you'd have a hard time getting your hands on some of those films being out of the U.S. and all. I love movies, but I could do without them. Books are what I absolutely require.
Posted by: adrienne at January 29, 2007 07:40 PM
I think I have to wait until the children go to my parents for a weekend or something so I can do a movie day. although the first snow day, if global warming doesn't screw that up for me. Lucas and I are wearing pjs and watching movies and playing games all day.
Posted by: tonderdo at January 29, 2007 08:31 PM
well, Tammy, you were supposed to be a part of our movie marathon...
And Feast had some overly gross parts, but on the whole it was an enjoyable movie. It had some amusing meta-horror moments that put it above the ranks of your usual slash-n-gore fare.
Posted by: jp at January 30, 2007 03:52 PM
Some of us do not get random Fridays off and there for exhaustion takes over in the evening.
Posted by: tonderdo at January 30, 2007 06:37 PM