Movie Marathon

[AZ]

Yeah, me and my pal have thought about this for a considerable time and now it's finally time to perform it. We're going to watch several movies in a row in a so called "movie marathon". (We've actually done this before, back in February 2005, but then we "only" watched 7 movies and we even had a 1-2 hour of pause.)

 

We'll start 08:00 (Swedish time) on the morning of the 26^th in my pal's apartment and we'll (hopefully) stop watching approximately 30 hours later, 14:17 (or 2:17 pm) on the 27^th. Before we start watching the first movie, we'll eat a massive breakfast.

 

We'll be served two meals: Pasta, cheese & ham sauce and Pizza. Our parents will deliver the food to us so we'll be able to eat during we watch the movies. Since none of us really drinks coffee, we've bought ~10 litres of Coca Cola. Along to that we've bought some Red Bull, plenty of chocolate, ice cream, bread and many dextrose-pill packs.

 

All movies that we are about to watch during this marathon (all are DVD's) the discs have been double checked by us so that none of the DVD's will stop functioning. All together there is 15 movies and one short film we are going to watch during this Movie Marathon. We have watched half of the movies before, so the other half of the movies we are about to watch will be new to us.

 

We've also tried to vary the type of films a bit so that we don't only watch films made in the 1990s or just only Comedy movies etc. Our selection is pretty varied e.g. there is at least one movie from each decade from the 1930-2000 and we've also tried chosen films from different genres (of course we could have increased the variation of the movies, for example, we're not going to watch a single Western movie or any Swedish film, but our variation is pretty good anyway imo.)

 

Here's the schedule with some information of each movie we're gonna watch:

 

26^th December:

 

08:00 - "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" - 1939 - 117 min - Black & White - 7.9/10 on imdb

 

This adaption of Victor Hugo's famous novel is considered the best by many film                  critics. Starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, Maureen O'Hara as Esmeralda and Cedric Hardwicke as the evil Frollo.

 

09:57 - Break

 

10:02 - "Miller's Crossing" - 1990 - 111 min - Color - 8.0/10 on imdb

 

A tribute to old gangster movies; written, produced and directed by Joel & Ethan Coen.

 

11:53 - Break

 

11:58 - "Big Fish" - 2003 - 121 min - Color - 8.0/10 on imdb (#227 on top 250)

 

Directed by Tim Burton. Starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange.

 

13:59 (1:59 pm) - Break

 

14:04 (2:04 pm) - "The Battle of Algiers" - 1965 - 117 min - Black & White - 8.2/10 on imdb (#174 on top 250)

 

A pseudo-documentary-alike film about the bloodiest revolution in modern history, the Algerian revolution.

 

16:01 (4:01 pm) - Break

 

16:06 (4:06 pm) - Fitzcarraldo - 1982 - 151 min - Color - 8.0/10 on imdb

 

Directed by the German Werner Herzog, this is a very unique film about an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. To accomplish this he must, among other things, haul an enormous river boat across a mountain.

 

18:37 (6:37 pm) - Break

 

18:42 (6:42 pm) - Corpse Bride - 2005 - 77 min - Color - 7.5/10 on imdb

 

Animated feature directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson.

 

19:59 (7:59 pm) - Break

 

20:04 (8:04 pm) - Whisky Galore! - 1949 - 81 min - Black & White - 7.6/10 on imdb

 

Scottish islanders try to plunder 50,000 cases of Whisky from a stranded ship. It ranks among the best of films that the British company "Ealing Studios" produced in the 40-50's.

 

21:25 (9:25 pm) - Break

 

21:30 (9:30 pm) - The Plank - 1979 - 28 min - Color - 7.3/10 on imdb

 

(Originally we had this as our last feature on our Movie Marathon, but it was replaced by "The Simpsons Movie".)

 

This is a British comedy classic and also a tribute to old-style slapstick. We choose this one to have on the Movie Marathon because we both remember watching it multiple times a decade ago. We both look forward to watch it again.

 

21:58 (9:58) - Break

 

22:00 (10:00 pm) - "The Devil Wears Prada" - 2006 - 109 min - Color - 6.8/10 on imdb

 

A naive young woman (Anne Hathaway) comes to New York and scores a job as the assistant to one of the city's biggest magazine editors, the ruthless and cynical Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep).

 

23:50 (11:50 pm) - Break

 

27^th December:

 

00:00: "The Godfather: Part 2" - 1974 - 194 min - Color - 9.0/10 on imdb (#3 on imdb top 250)

 

This sequel to "The Godfather" is considered the best sequel ever made by many. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, Talia Shire and Diane Keaton.

 

03:14 - Break

 

03:19 - "Dial M for Murder" - 1954 - 102 min - Color (3D) - 8.1/10 on imdb (#205 on imdb top 250)

 

This may very well be my favourite Hitchcock-film. An extremely suspenseful and entertaining film about an ex-Tennis player who tries to murder his wife for having an affair with another man. When things go wrong, he improvises plan B.

 

05:03 - Break

 

05:08 - "The Decameron" - 1971 - 107 min - Color - 7.1/10 on imdb

 

The first of the notorious Italian poet and director Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Middle-age trilogy" (the other two are "Canterbury Tales" (1972) and "A Thousand and One Nights" (1974).

 

Pasolini was brutally murdered under mystical circumstances after completed the infamous "Saló - or the 120 Days of Sodom" in 1975.

 

06:55 - Break

 

07:00 - "Se7en" - 1995 - 122 min - Color - 8.6/10 on imdb (#33 on the top 250)

 

"Se7en" at 7:00 am. Police drama about two cops, one new and one about to retire, after a serial killer using the seven deadly sins as his MO.

 

09:02 - Break

 

09:07 - "Fargo" - 1996 - 95 min - Color - 8.3/10 on imdb (#116 on the top 250)

 

Jerry Lundegaard's (William H. Macy) inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen's bungling and the persistent police work of pregnant Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand). Directed by Joel & Ethan Coen.

 

10:42 - Break

 

10:47 - The Last King of Scotland - 2006 - 121 min - Color - 7.8/10 on imdb

 

Based on the events of the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's regime as seen by his personal physician during the 1970s.

 

12:48 (0:48 pm) - Break

 

12:53 (0:53 pm) - "The Simpsons Movie" - 2007 - 84 min - Color - 7.7/10 on imdb

 

14:17 - THE END

 

To be continued…  

[wishiwasfamous]

If it's a movie marathon, shouldn't it technically be 26 hours, 12 minutes long?

[AEB]

Cool, good luck!

[rshepherd1000]

Fitzcarraldo is epic

[Time was untied when set.]

Fargo? Hahahahahaha.

So you like movies are lot, are you gonna try and become a director or something?

[dragondragon18]

Most people SHOULD be able to finish a marathon in under 26 hours, wiff Especially since the winner is around 2.

[RWG]

LOL! This is epic, but it should have been done the same time we do the 100 posts contest in 2 months from now

[wishiwasfamous]

You'd better make it 26.2 miles of video tape then!

[Quiet Bol]

Part of me wants to be there and part of me thinks it's going to be brutal after only a few movies. For my part, I've seen 11/15 of the feature films, and though I haven't seen The Decameron, I have read it in its entirety!

[youseinthehouse]

I'm thinking somewhere in the middle of GF II, as it draws on and on, things will start to become pretty difficult!! Good luck!

[Nindif]

def have to agree with Quiet Bol here, that's an epic amount of film for one sitting!
hitting the red bulls and coke may keep you alert/awake a little longer, but it will also increase energy levels substantially making it very uncomfrtable to sit around for that long - even fat lazy people need some sort of physical activity (be it a brisk walk around block or something), i predict about half movies watched before one of you needs a break for at least 15-30 min and staying awake for that length of time is going to be tough! esp being in the one (probably dim-lit) room the whole time.

 

nevertheless; wish i could be there, sounds awsome. great mix of films and it would be massive achievement imo. good luck!
predictions anyone?

[Quiet Bol]

I do think they'll finish all the movies, but they'll start struggling when the Battle of Algiers plays, and then again when Godfather II drags on for 3+ hours. It looks like it gets easier after that, with the possible exceptions of The Decameron and to a lesser degree, The Last King of Scotland.

[RWG]

I think The Devil Wears Prada is going to be the breaking point. 10pm to midnight on the first day. That movie is boring as fuck. Anne Hathaway is good looking but damn, that seems like a poor time slot to watch that movie. Getting to the point you might normally go to bed at watching a boring movie after sitting on your ass all day. Not a good idea. Good luck.

[AZ]

Thanks a lot guys! Only 15 hours to go as I type this.

As we've never really done this before we really don't know if 30 hours is too little or too much. Our target will be 30 hours however. Both of us are pretty good in being awake, I don't know my record, but my pal's record is 60ish hours or something.

Yeah, we've also thought about "Godfather part 2" to have that one earlier on the schedule since that is a very long movie. But none of us have watched it in like 3 years or something, so I think it'll be quite interesting for us to watch it again. Same with "Se7en" and "Fargo", We really look forward to re-watch these movies.

 

I forgot to mention: during the breaks we'll go out in the freezing, cold Swedish weather in just T-shirt's and pants and do some running and stuff (cold is very good if you want to stay awake, I have heard). Also we must have time to take a piss and stuff, that's why we included the breaks. Otherwise this would've been insaniny (it still is a bit insane), but without the breaks, I don't think we ever could pull this off.

To QB and Ngamer: Do you know about the site http://www.250films.net/ ? I don't know what happened to twofifty.org, but that page just stopped working somehow. 250films.net is, however, much better than twofifty.org. So I Suggest that you create an account (if you haven't already created one) and check all the movies you've watched

[Ngamer]

Just signed up. Logged in and started clicking my movies I've seen, and after I climbed past 100 the site broke. Clearly they weren't prepared for a movie buff of my magnitude!

I'll go back and click the rest of mine once they bring the site back up.

[Cyberwrath87]

Good luck with the rest of your marathon!

I knew that twofifty.org recently died, which makes me sad... but once this new site of yours starts working I'll make an account.

[Quiet Bol]

Oh cool, I was hoping another site would step up and fill the void.

[AZ]

It's been almost one day since we stopped watching movies now, me and my pal. We didn't really make it the whole way through, though.

We stopped watching after "Fargo", almost 27 hours after we sat down to watch the first movie on this marathon, "Hunchback of Notre Dame". All together we watched 25 ½ hours of film! The reason why we quit after "Fargo" was..well, you probably know the reason. We got very sleepy while watching "Se7en" and "Fargo". We thought of giving up after "Se7en", but we struggled a bit more and watched "Fargo" and broke the 24-hour barrier simultaneously. After "Fargo", we had like zero motivation to start the next film, "The Last King of Scotland". Biography pictures can be a bit boring sometimes and this one had a running time over 2 hours + our eyes and brains were like completely dead and we almost got to sleep at the end of "Fargo". So we decided to quit out marathon here. We're not that disappointed though, 25½ hours is still a great amount of time!

This was a bit harder then we expected, we really thought we would manage 30 hours, instead, we "only" finished 14/16 features. The first trend of fatigue came while watching "Battle of Algiers" After that, we somehow got alert again and from "Fitzcarraldo" to "The Godfather part 2", none of us got sleepy a single time.

We were most tired during "Battle of Algiers", "The Godfather part 2 (it's just a bit too long)", "Se7en" and, of course, "Fargo". We manage to be quite alert during "The Decameron", surprisingly enough. "The Devil Wears Prada" was not "boring as fuck", we found that one to be pretty entertaining (I gave it 6/10).

Best film of this Marathon?
I would say "Dial M For Murder and Se7en" (Fargo is also good)
My pal says "Se7en" and "Fargo".

 

Worst film:
"The Decameron" or "Whisky Galore!" (5/10), though none of the films were really boring.

We'll definitely do this again! During next summer we WILL break this record!

[Thiradell]

Yeah, Se7en is good stuff, man. Too bad you only had two left and you couldn't finish, though that's still very impressive.

[Time was untied when set.]

Fargo is a pretty good movie (havent seen se7en in ages). The woodchipper scene is just classic lol.

[Quiet Bol]

Whoa, I give myself an A+ for that analysis.

[youseinthehouse]

(You seemed to steal my GF II analysis, chump! Cheaters get F-'s)

[Cyberwrath87]

Looks like that 250films.net site is up and running. Just made an account, and it seems that this'll work just fine to track my progress through the top 250.

Not sure if I can link directly to my list, I'll try www.250films.net/list/bcuts
Up to 171. Any recommendations on what to see is welcome

[Quiet Bol]

^ This thing is working great in posts but I can't get it to work in my sig for the life of me. I just watched Slumdog Millionaire but it looks like I still have some catching up to do.

[AZ]

http://www.250films.net/list/AckeZ1989

that's my list. Everyone seem to have watch "A Christmas Story" from 1983 but it's like impossible to get a hold of that one here (will soon go out of top 250 anyway I think). Other than that, the  movies I haven't watched all of them are from 2008.

[Darth Vader]

The World Record is 121 hours 56 movies. Go for untied. Go go go

[AEB]

Good luck Axel!

[Ngamer]

Please don't bump 7 month old topics, Inky.