The Only Type Of Marathon I'll Complete
If I was Philippides you know my ass would have given up after mile 1
Marathons suck. While I will forever be in awe of anyone who completes or even trains for one, I could never do it. I maintain that they are a marketing opportunity created by anti-chafing companies. Nothing, even a literal, non-metaphorical, gun to my head, could convince me to complete or even train for one. I am not a sicko. No offense to my friends and family members who have completed them, but you all have problems. Read a book! Drink a beer! Do literally anything else. I’m begging you.
I will concede one point here. Not all marathons suck. Movie marathons, for instance, rule. I’d wager that somewhere north of 98% of the people in the world would rather do a movie marathon than run a real marathon. So, for this newsletter, instead of discussing the various benefits and tactics needed to complete a real marathon, I’ll talk about what goes into making a great movie marathon.
Why movie marathons? A few reasons. One, which is self-explanatory, is that movies rule. A great art form, far better than TV, and a close second to reading. Not much beats a movie. Two, it feels better than binging TV. Why re-watch whatever sitcom you always re-watch when you could check out some films? A no-brainer in my humble opinion. Three, if you have some cool friends, it’s much easier to convince people to come to hang with you for a movie marathon, than it is a real marathon. At least in my experience. Also, what’s better than chilling, eating some snacks, and watching some cool stuff? Hard to beat.
Planning movie marathons is one of my great pleasures in life. It’s also a great conversation starter if you need something like that. It is important to note here that a movie marathon is NOT a movie festival. Movie festivals often have multiple screens and show dozens of movies over a period of days. A movie marathon, for the sake of this post at least, is three movies, four max, shown back-to-back-to-back(-to-back). Other than that, there aren’t a lot of rules. It can be fun to make a genre-based marathon, so like three heist movies for example. Or thematically linked, so three movies about love. Or by director, actor, whatever! But three movies that are connected are much better than just like the first three things you see on the Netflix home screen. Also, I just remembered one rule – no trilogies. Sorry, everyone who wanted to just do all three Lord of the Rings movies.
One thing that I like to do is also make sure they’re in the correct order. That is, thinking about in which order you show the movies, and providing a reason why. The more thought and effort you put into this, the more fun it will be. It could just be by release date, but not necessarily. I’ve seen people do themed snacks and drinks for these things too. That’s a little too Pinterest-y for me, but feel free to do whatever you want.
Of course, so far this has all been theory. Time for some practice. Here are a few examples of potential movie marathons for you. Feel free to make your own, switch these up, whatever you want to do. That’s praxis.
Old-Timey Musicals:
Wizard of Oz
Sound of Music
West Side Story
Jonah Hill-verse:
Superbad
Booksmart
21 Jump Street
Heist Movies:
Logan Lucky
Mission Impossible
Ocean’s 11
WTF?:
Videodrome
Eraserhead
Mandy
Movies That Make Hackers Look Cooler Than They Actually Are:
Swordfish
Hackers
The Matrix
Movies To Make You Hungry:
Ratatouille
Chocolat
Big Night
These are just a few examples obviously. Something to get you going. If you do end up doing a movie marathon, please let me know. Would love to hear about what movies you ended up with and the reason/order behind it. Also, what snacks you went with.
Happy watching!