Video Game Redux

The poor sap who watched 24 hours of video game movies has posted his experiences here. He was inspired by Eli Roth's 24-hour horror marathon idea (meh) and asked what others would consider for a 24-hour movie theme.

First of all, 24 hours of anything is a lot. 24 hours of movies is ... almost unthinkable. My mom used to do a Shogun marathon, where she showed the entire 10-hour saga in one day. That was craziness. I've sat through a few double-features in my day, but mostly short movies. (Two back-to-back Charlie Chaplins, for example, is a cakealk. I saw War of the Worlds and When Worlds Collide on a double-feature as a kid and that worked all right.)

The After Dark Horror Festival was a lot to endure (my recap here) and it was only eight movies (far short of 24 hours) spread out of three days! And with 40 minute breaks between each film, during which The Boy and I were pretty active.

But say one was going to inflict a 24-hour film festival upon one's self. I don't think I'd go with a genre theme. Too tiring. (The exception might be westerns, since there have been so many of them made, you could have horse operas, melodramas, musicals, romantic comedies, horror, and even sci-fi and porn.) But in general, no genre.

Instead, go with a person. I saw a great film series of movies shot by James Wong Howe (40 years as a cinematographer). Or Mel Gibson (action, comedy, drama). Hitchock would be easy. You could do a Judy Garland theme, but you'd want to watch them chronologically backwards so that you could end with high-energy optimism instead of increasing depression over what Hollywood can do to great talents. How about Jack Palance? (Shane, Batman (1989), City Slickers, The Professionals (1966), Without Warning, Cyborg 2, etc.) Get even more obscure, like using the late Charles Lane who was in over 100 movies.

Or go abstract. You could do a Kevin Bacon type thing and figure out what movies you wanted to watch, then connect them in improbable ways. You know, like, "24 Hours of Movies That Won't Make Me Homicidal By The Last One". Just a thought.