Fall Movie Excitement!

Fall is officially upon us. The leaves are going to start changing color, falling off trees, and becoming the bane of every homeowner's existence as they dig wet, leafy muck out of their gutters before the snow starts to fall. Unfortunately for me I don't get to enjoy any of the great weather that happens in this lovely time between October and December since I live in Florida where the weather comes in three flavors: hot, gross, or just OK.

Thankfully, aside from 2 months of weather that is just OK, Autumn is bringing with it a bunch of movies that I'm chomping at the bit to plop my fat ass in front of in order to judge them mercilessly. While my list isn't chock full of movies expected to clean up at the Oscars, almost all of them will be awesome in their own special way. Most of what I'll list you'll be able to easily get your hands on come release date, but there are a few that will only pop up limited so if you're lucky enough to be in a city like LA or New York then you won't have any problem taking in every movie in here.

The list will be in release date order, and if more than one movie comes out that day, I'll list them in the order in which they appear on my excitement scale.

                                                                                                                                   LET'S GO >>

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 

Who said marathons have to be run?

Nothing beats the sense of accomplishment you feel after months of aches, pains, and soreness all getting you 26 miles, hands raised as you crash through that ribbon and collapse from exhaustion yelling "I DID IT!" Right? I disagree. I feel much more accomplished when I pull 3 or more DVDs off my shelf, stack them on my entertainment center, then watch every minute of them without moving from my couch for anything other than a piss break, a beverage run, or to switch the movie out. Putting that last DVD back in alphabetical order after a 12 hour day of cinematic debauchery feels way better than going to the gym and running on a treadmill for 8 hours. Who needs muscles? Not this guy.

Sitting down with a group of really good friends for a movie marathon is the ultimate social experience for me. I'm not a partier unless it's just a bunch of people I know, and I'm a big movie person, so having a bunch of people over to watch countless movies, bad or good, is always a treat. Movie marathons have been around since the dawn of time, or at least since the dawn of the VHS tape, which started to take off at about the right time to supply one trilogy to the masses and start EVERYONE'S marathon experience right, mother fucking Star Wars.

Watching the original 3 Star Wars movies all in a row with all of your closest friends is like a right of passage. Pubes shouldn't grow on you until you've sat down, 5 or more sexually frustrated 13-years-olds, no less than 70 instances of acne among the group, making lightsaber sounds, talking like Jabba the hut, and sitting silently, pillows in every lap, watching Princess Leia in the gold bikini. You can't properly enjoy life until you can reflect on this exact experience with those same buddies 10 years later.

There's an art to it, however. Sure, grabbing 5 random movies off your shelf will still finish the job, but having a movie marathon with a mission is exponentially better. It's like buying a 5 dollar hand job versus spending $1000 on an escort for the night. McDonalds vs. Chilis burgers. You can't measure the difference. Putting in Fellowship of the Ring with the clear goal of watching the entire series will surely pay better dividends than watching 3 randoms.

Best experienced as a group but for the first time together, movie marathons give you the freedom to really get into the movies. You can quote along, cheer at your favorite scenes, point at your teary eyes and say "look how gay I am for this movie". There's bound to be trivia flying around too, creating a deeper understanding of the films you already love. Marathons are all around a great time.

In preparation for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Kristin (who is a tremendous cook by the way, which I am definitely NOT saying so she will cook me delicious food later), Wil and myself geared ourselves up for a day filled with magic and wonder. Starting off with a late breakfast to power our quest, we took the five DVD stack, laid them out, and dove in around 1pm. And at 1am, our 12 hour marathon was fulfilled and we parted ways smoking our proverbial post-coital cigarettes and fell asleep knowing we had accomplished more that day than we had in the past month, regardless of how many other movies we watched.

Movie marathons are a great way to get through a day, weekend, week off, whatever. Watching movies is our past time, and watching dozens in a row is better to me than slamming beers with a bunch of idiots and yelling about bullshit. So next time anytime someone tells you that watching all the Harry Potter movies in a row is dumb, you tell them it made you a better person, and that they're stupid, and then punch them in the face.

Movie Theater Etiquette, or SHUT THE FUCK UP!

So over the past few days I've been spending a bit of time at the movie theater. I really enjoy going to movies during the day in the middle of the week because generally it's when the people who go by themselves venture out of their caves and find their way to the theater, meaning that they won't have anyone to talk to therefore they won't interrupt my viewing.

Not this week though. Seeing Iwo Jima was fine. We went to a later showing, but it was Monday and almost everyone else was alone. Yesterday we saw the Good German though, and before the movie even started I knew I was in for a bad time. During the whole "Regal First Look" thing they do, this lady behind me was chatting up a storm with her husband who definitely just wanted her to shut her flapping lips for 2 seconds. Her voice was like a fucking pterodactyl. Fucking screeching and clawing. Christ it made me want to hit her harder than I've ever hit anything in my life. Then we got to the Cingular "Shut your fucking cell phone off and shut your mouth screen" which stayed on screen for an awkwardly long time, and this old man a row down and 4 seats over with his wife cups his hands over his mouth like a bullhorn and says "Is everyone gonna shut up once the movie starts?!" obviously just putting it out there that this bitch needed to shut her damn mouth. But she responded "the movie hasn't even staaahted yet! (long island accent = cunt) Have a clue, have a clue!" And then they went back and forth for a minute until awkwardness was finally cleared by the starting previews. I'm pretty sure the projectionist saw what was going on and was like "this is gonna be good" and just sat there to see what developed.

THEN, that same fucking banshee behind me cleared her throat about 47 times throughout the film and yawned loudly. Like she made noises while yawning, instead of just, ya know, BREATHING. On top of that, behind us on our left was an older couple and the husband was just calling everything 4 seconds before it happened. Granted, I was having a hard time following the story and sometimes it helped. Most of the time though, it was just him talking and relaying shit to his wife. Hey, Clarissa explains it all, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

And finally today, we saw Notes on a Scandal and the people behind us just don't know what a fucking whisper is. Dude 6 inch voices, go back to preschool and learn what that is.

Dear assholes,
I go to films during the week to avoid crowds and avoid idiots talking in the theater. Please stay home and fuck off there while I enjoy my film.
Love,
Will

What year is it? There have been films since 19 fucking 10, and 100 years later people still can't be courteous in a movie theater. Here's a few pointers:
1. If you have a comment, keep it short and fucking whisper
2. If you yawn, dont go "AHHGHGHGGH" while you're doing it. You're fucking gross, shut up.
3. Don't predict the movie for the whole theater to hear. You're annoying.
4. If you see me get a ticket, listen to what I'm going to see, and pick something else.

On a lighter note, there was a couple behind us in line at the box office. The girl says "Does this movie have subtitles?" I assumed she was expecting to see Iwo Jima, in which case I was still ready to deck her because she said it like she might as well have said "I have to reeeadddd?! Ugh, waa waa waa cry cry cry I'm a cunt". The boyfriend says "no" and I am curious again.

"Oh what movie are we seeing again?" she inquires.
"Notes on a Scandal," FUCK ME I say to myself as I know that she is going to be a talker. I thought the conversation was over, but I was wrong.
"Oh" she said, "But don't they have British accents?"
...
...
Think it over for a second.
...
...
YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON!!!!!!!!!!! "British" otherwise known as "English" is the same as the language we speak, which is, you guessed it, FUCKING ENGLISH!! Why are these people alive? You would think that someone that stupid would forget to look both ways at age 5 and meet the business end of a city bus. What is even more baffling is how her boyfriend doesn't just punch her in the face for saying something like that.

Anyway, it's been real.