Well, we have a movie marathon first. One of the discs skipped like crazy. Big Trouble in Little China just finished, after an elapsed running time of 28 minutes. That's what I get for buying used CDs at the pawn shop. (Testament to my fatigue: it just took me four minutes to remember the words 'pawn shop.') Not a huge deal that the disc crapped out. Right now it's just me that's awake. (And Gunther.) Everyone else is snoozing. I won't judge though -- I was in and out of consciousness throughout all of The Conjuring. That's my deadly spot, 4am to 6am. Once light starts coming in the window, I'm fine.
Fun day, but we've had better lineups for sure. I think it was Chris who said last year that "it was fun, but there wasn't as much goofing on movies as usual," which was true. Because I'd stacked MM8 full of films nobody had seen, so there was a ton of concentration involved. This year has more familiar titles, so smart-assery is up at least 200%.
So we started with The Goonies, which has more swears and more bad acting then I remember. There's two strategies for that first slot -- something amazing that makes everyone pay attention (Unforgiven), or something familiar that everyone can chit-chat and get caught up over. Both strategies have their merits. Goonies was definitely the later strategy. The Magnificent Seven was next, which I think we all enjoyed. I like it because it's basically seven actors competing over who can have the coolest hat, and who can care the least about being in mortal danger. Bronson was my favourite, I think, and I'm pretty happy to have shared that with folks. I'm sure it was no one else's favourite, but it's the one everyone will remember years from now. The Thin Man tanked, and I knew it was going to bomb about two and a half minutes in. It takes patience (to get through the plot setup to the Nick and Nora parts), and attentive silence (to hear the banter), and we were really up for neither. Still a good movie, but a terrible choice on my part. Next was Mystery Team, which was probably the first comedy I've played in years that got actual laughs (rather than nods of amusement or confused half-grins.) Maybe also our best fan-film of the night, competing closely with Ip Man. Before that though came American Movie, which I chose just barely over Gimme Shelter because I thought it would be a better movie to riff off of. And it was, but I didn't account for the Grey Gardens-like sadness it would cause us all to feel. Then it was Ip Man next and that played well, but I think every martial arts film always lives in the shadow of Kung-fu Hustle. Dark City was a little divisive. Some liked it, some though it was weird. All though it was like a rough draft of The Matrix (which never occurred to me before but is totally true). Hellraiser wasn't scary, just gory, and occasionally very silly (there was a hobo-transforming-into-a-demon scene at the end that they must have just straight up run out of money for because it looked like something out of Coven). The Conjuring continued our streak of non-scary scary films this evening. It still played decently but was unanimously described as 'interesting.' And just now Big Trouble in Little China was fine (for how long it lasted), but pretty skipable. Like the martial arts films, everything we show in the second-to-last spot is living in the shadow of Roadhouse.
So now it's just Gravity left, which I have to wake everyone up for in about 30 minutes. Other than really needing to brush my teeth right now, I'm in pretty good shape.
Fun day, but we've had better lineups for sure. I think it was Chris who said last year that "it was fun, but there wasn't as much goofing on movies as usual," which was true. Because I'd stacked MM8 full of films nobody had seen, so there was a ton of concentration involved. This year has more familiar titles, so smart-assery is up at least 200%.
So we started with The Goonies, which has more swears and more bad acting then I remember. There's two strategies for that first slot -- something amazing that makes everyone pay attention (Unforgiven), or something familiar that everyone can chit-chat and get caught up over. Both strategies have their merits. Goonies was definitely the later strategy. The Magnificent Seven was next, which I think we all enjoyed. I like it because it's basically seven actors competing over who can have the coolest hat, and who can care the least about being in mortal danger. Bronson was my favourite, I think, and I'm pretty happy to have shared that with folks. I'm sure it was no one else's favourite, but it's the one everyone will remember years from now. The Thin Man tanked, and I knew it was going to bomb about two and a half minutes in. It takes patience (to get through the plot setup to the Nick and Nora parts), and attentive silence (to hear the banter), and we were really up for neither. Still a good movie, but a terrible choice on my part. Next was Mystery Team, which was probably the first comedy I've played in years that got actual laughs (rather than nods of amusement or confused half-grins.) Maybe also our best fan-film of the night, competing closely with Ip Man. Before that though came American Movie, which I chose just barely over Gimme Shelter because I thought it would be a better movie to riff off of. And it was, but I didn't account for the Grey Gardens-like sadness it would cause us all to feel. Then it was Ip Man next and that played well, but I think every martial arts film always lives in the shadow of Kung-fu Hustle. Dark City was a little divisive. Some liked it, some though it was weird. All though it was like a rough draft of The Matrix (which never occurred to me before but is totally true). Hellraiser wasn't scary, just gory, and occasionally very silly (there was a hobo-transforming-into-a-demon scene at the end that they must have just straight up run out of money for because it looked like something out of Coven). The Conjuring continued our streak of non-scary scary films this evening. It still played decently but was unanimously described as 'interesting.' And just now Big Trouble in Little China was fine (for how long it lasted), but pretty skipable. Like the martial arts films, everything we show in the second-to-last spot is living in the shadow of Roadhouse.
So now it's just Gravity left, which I have to wake everyone up for in about 30 minutes. Other than really needing to brush my teeth right now, I'm in pretty good shape.
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