Movies Archives - Page 2 of 5 - 24 Hour Movie Marathon!

Video Game Movie Marathon Playlist

I mentioned in my last video game movie marathon post that you could spend 24 hours just watching video from the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy of video games. That got me wondering. What other video games “movies” are out there on YouTube? Which have stories worth watching? Which come with no annoying nerd commentary?

Lists of Video Games With Great Stories

The internet has some opinions on what video games have the best stories. Two sources seemed to be helpful the most helpful.

The first is the WatchMojo video embedded below. This video takes you on a visual tour of video games recognized as having great stories.

The second was this article from geek.com. It not only identified video games with great stories, it provides YouTube videos directly in the article. Nice!

The Video Game Movie Marathon Playlist

Based on these two sources, I created a YouTube playlist containing the “movie editions” of 23 unique video games, clocking in at 114 hours of content. That’s 4.75 days of video game movie watching. For reference, Breaking Bad is 2 days and 14 hours. That’s just half the time of this playlist.

Factoring in a good eight hours of sleep per day, that is seven days of video game movies! Now there’s a movie marathon!

I’ve embedded the playlist below for your clicking pleasure. I’ve already started with the first movie, The Last of Us, and have been enjoying it. Good luck, and happy watching!

Scott’s Sci-fi Movie Marathon Recommendations

Scott Riblet sent me an excellent list of sci-fi movie marathon recommendations. They are below for your viewing pleasure. If you want to get picky, not all of them are technically sci-fi (i.e. Desk Set), but they are all arguably at least sci-fi adjacent (i.e. a big computer is involved in Desk set).

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Action | Adventure | Family – Rotten Tomatoes score 98%

A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet’s colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has.

Blast from the past (1999)

Comedy | Drama | Romance – Rotten Tomatoes score: 58%

A romantic comedy about a naive man who comes out into the world after being in a nuclear fallout shelter for 35 years.

Desk Set (1957)

Comedy | Romance – Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Two extremely strong personalities clash over the computerization of a TV network’s research department.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Drama | Sci-fi | Thriller – Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

An alien lands and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.

Exam (2009)

Mystery | Thriller – Rotten Tomatoes score: 63%

The final candidates for a highly desirable corporate job are locked together in an exam room and given a test so simple and confusing that tension begins to unravel.

Cube (1997)

Mystery | Sci-fi | Thriller – Rotten Tomatoes score: 62%

7 complete strangers of widely varying personality characteristics are involuntarily placed in an endless kafkaesque maze containing deadly traps.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Adventure | Horror | Sci-fi – Rotten Tomatoes score – 83%

A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.

The Mummy (1932)

Horror – Rotten Tomatoes score – 92%

A living mummy stalks the beautiful woman he believes is the reincarnation of his lover.

King Kong (1933)

Adventure | Fantasy | Horror – Rotten Tomatoes score – 98%

A film crew goes to a tropical island for an exotic location shoot and discovers a colossal giant gorilla who takes a shine to their female blonde star.

The Blob (1958)

Horror | Sci-fi | Thriller – Rotten Tomatoes score – 66%

An alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows.

7^th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Family | Fantasy | Action – Rotten Tomatoes score – 100%

When a princess is shrunken by an evil wizard, Sinbad must undertake a quest to an island of monsters to cure her and prevent a war.

Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Adventure | Family | Fantasy – Rotten Tomatoes score – 100%

After being tricked and cast out of Bagdad by the evil Jaffar, King Ahmad joins forces with a thief named Abu to reclaim his throne, the city, and the Princess he loves.

Dracula (1931)

Horror – Rotten Tomatoes score – 91%

The ancient vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the virtuous young Mina.

Frankenstein (1931)

Horror | Sci-fi – Rotten Tomatoes score – 100%

An obsessed scientist assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses.

Photo by Masked Builder

Movie Marathon 2014 Planning Kickoff!

I’m kicking off planning for Movie Marathon 2014! This will be the sixth movie marathon my wife and I have hosted at our house (since 2009) and the tenth I’ve co-hosted in my lifetime (since 1999!). The working title is: Movie Marathon VI: The Undiscovered Country.

First order of business – potential movies! I think I have a good starter list, but I need your help in getting more ideas! I’ve had great success in the past from suggestions from friends and family. The movies below are just what I’ve come up with on my own. Please comment in this post with your ideas!

We’ll be bringing back kid-friendly zones, so I’ve divided up the potential movie list into movies aimed at adults and those aimed at the kids. Enjoy!

Movies for the Adults

The Wicker Man (1973)

Horror | Mystery | Thriller – Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

A police sergeant is sent to a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl whom the townsfolk claim never existed. Stranger still are the rites that take place there.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Comedy | Romance – Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard “Baby.”

The French Connection (1971)

Action | Crime | Thriller – Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a drug smuggling job with a French connection.

Notorious (1946)

Drama | Film-Noir | Romance – Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

A woman is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friends in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?

Hannah and her Sisters (1986)

Comedy | Drama – Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%

Between two Thanksgivings, Hannah’s husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Drama | Film-Noir – Rotten Tomatoes score: 98%

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

The Crow (1994)

Action | Fantasy – Rotten Tomatoes score: 82%

A man brutally murdered comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée’s murder.

Kid Friendly Zone

Bolt (2008)

Animation | Adventure | Comedy – Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%

The canine star of a fictional sci-fi/action show that believes his powers are real embarks on a cross country trek to save his co-star from a threat he believes is just as real.

Tarzan (1999)

Animation | Adventure | Drama – Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%

A man raised by gorillas must decide where he really belongs when he discovers he is a human.

Mulan (1998)

Animation | Adventure | Family – Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%

To save her father from death in the army, a young maiden secretly goes in his place and becomes one of China’s greatest heroines in the process.

Lilo and Stitch (2002)

Animation | Adventure | Comedy – Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%

A Hawaiian girl adopts an unusual pet who is actually a notorious extra-terrestrial fugitive from the law.

Ella Enchanted (2004)

Comedy | Family | Fantasy – Rotten Tomatoes score: 50%

Ella is under a spell to be constantly obedient, a fact she must hide from her new step-family in order to protect the prince of the land, her friend for whom she’s falling.

I love Godzilla!

As a childhood fan of Godzilla films in all of their mid-twentieth century hokeyness, I immensely enjoyed the new American Godzilla film.

I had always hoped for a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster version of the Godzilla films. But even as a 17-year-old, I could tell that the putrid 1998 Godzilla film wasn’t it. A small version of Godzilla that runs away from everything, doesn’t have fire breath, and eats tuna? Please. It was so bad, the Japanese had to kill him in a real Godzilla film (see below).

I think the biggest reason I liked this year’s Godzilla film so much is that it felt like one of the best representations yet of what Godzilla is. He’s a force of nature. You can fight him if you want. You can bomb him if you want. But for what? You may as well be Xerxes ordering his troops to whip the ocean.

In the original Godzilla film, Godzilla was Nature mutated by the power of the atomic bomb. Over several more movies, his image improved to be a “good guy” – a general protector of Earth. In this movie, this idea is successfully blended in by introducing Godzilla as the alpha predator among ancient monsters awakened by modern man’s activities. Godzilla fights other monsters because that’s what he does to survive. That’s the most coherent explanation I’ve seen yet to reconcile his indifferent-yet-protective nature.

The film nails this idea visually multiple times. My favorite were the images of Godzilla swimming along, surrounded by an entourage of Navy ships. He doesn’t attack them, because they are insignificant. The ships follow him so that we humans can feel as if we are in control of the situation. Sometimes we attack him, with no effect.

Of course, being true to the Godzilla source material is only half the fun. The other half is some rollicking monster fights. This film offered some spectacular fight scenes, even if it did leave me wishing for more.

Well, if I want more, the internet informs me that a prequel graphic novel and a movie art book are out there for my consumption (thanks Internet!). They are on my Amazon wish list already!

Anyway – I had a lot of fun watching this movie, and it was satisfying to see such a great incarnation of my childhood’s favorite monster.

What does this have to do with movie marathons? Not much! What can I say? I was inspired by this film!

Best Picture Oscar Movie Marathon Checklist

Can you believe there are 86 movies that have won the Oscar for best picture? If you wanted to watch them all, it would take you almost 200 hours to do it! That would be an eight-day Oscar movie marathon! At that length, you’d better enjoy the best Hollywood has to offer more than sleep, or sanity!

Unless you are looking to break the current movie marathon Guinness world record, I don’t think a single mega-oscar movie marathon is feasible for us mere mortals. So what do we do? The first question to ask is: “Do I want to watch all of the ‘Best Picture’ films, or just the best ones?”

It’s a pertinent question. I compared the list of best picture winners with the American Film Institute’s top 100 American films, and came up with a grand total of 27 films that appeared on both lists. That means that less than 33% of Oscar best picture winners are on the list of the top 100 best American films ever made. Combine that fact with a few opinions on the internet that not all Oscar films have aged that well, and you’d be right to conclude that maybe some of the “best picture” films are better than others.

However, even if you choose to go after only the 27 best films, that’s still about three straight days of movie watching. That is still too much for a single Oscar movie marathon. I think a different approach is needed with the Oscar winners. What about slipping them one-by-one into other movie marathons until you’ve seen them all?

In other words, I think your best bet is to treat the Oscar “best pictures” as more of a bucket list than a movie marathon schedule. At least, that’s what I think I’m going to do. I have seen 21 of these films – less than 25%. I have heard of a lot of these films, but I just haven’t gotten around to seeing most of them yet. I’m going to find them homes in my future movie marathons!

That these films don’t all appear on the critics’ lists doesn’t bother me so much. Living on a diet of only critics’ choices can lead to a severe case of pretentiousness. I like the idea of seeing what America thought was important, or inspiring, or moving, for a particular year in history. It is like watching the video diary for America, one year at a time. I think it’ll be fun!

So, here is the complete list of best picture Oscar winners, along with their length and whether they made it into the AFI top 100. Let’s start checking them off!

Your Oscar Movie Marathon Checklist

Year	Title	AFI Top 100?	Running Time
1927-1928	Wings	No	141
1928-1929	The Broadway Melody	No	100
1929-1930	All Quiet on the Western Front	No	152
1930-1931	Cimarron	No	123
1931-1932	Grand Hotel	No	112
1932-1933	Cavalcade	No	110
1934	It Happened One Night	Yes	105
1935	Mutiny on the Bounty	No	132
1936	The Great Ziegfeld	No	176
1937	The Life of Emile Zola	No	116
1938	You Can’t Take it With You	No	126
1939	Gone with the Wind	Yes	220
1940	Rebecca	No	130
1941	How Green Was My Valley	No	118
1942	Mrs. Miniver	No	134
1943	Casablanca	Yes	102
1944	Going My Way	No	130
1945	The Lost Weekend	No	99
1946	The Best Years of Our Lives	Yes	172
1947	Gentleman’s Agreement	No	118
1948	Hamlet	No	155
1949	All the King’s Men	No	109
1950	All About Eve	Yes	138
1951	An American in Paris	No	113
1952	The Greatest Show on Earth	No	152
1953	From Here to Eternity	No	118
1954	On the Waterfront	Yes	108
1955	Marty	No	94
1956	Around the World in 80 Days	No	183
1957	The Bridge on the River Kwai	Yes	161
1958	Gigi	No	115
1959	Ben-Hur	Yes	212
1960	The Apartment	Yes	125
1961	West Side Story	Yes	152
1962	Lawrence of Arabia	Yes	228
1963	Tom Jones	No	121
1964	My Fair Lady	No	170
1965	The Sound of Music	Yes	174
1966	A Man for All Seasons	No	120
1967	In the Heat of the Night	No	109
1968	Oliver!	No	153
1969	Midnight Cowboy	Yes	113
1970	Patton	No	170
1971	The French Connection	Yes	104
1972	The Godfather	Yes	175
1973	The Sting	No	129
1974	The Godfather Part II	Yes	200
1975	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Yes	133
1976	Rocky	Yes	119
1977	Annie Hall	Yes	93
1978	The Deer Hunter	Yes	183
1979	Kramer vs. Kramer	No	105
1980	Ordinary People	No	124
1981	Chariots of Fire	No	124
1982	Gandhi	No	183
1983	Terms of Endearment	No	131
1984	Amadeus	No	161
1985	Out of Africa	No	161
1986	Platoon	Yes	120
1987	The Last Emperor	No	160
1988	Rain Man	No	133
1989	Driving Miss Daisy	No	100
1990	Dances with Wolves	No	180
1991	The Silence of the Lambs	Yes	118
1992	Unforgiven	Yes	131
1993	Schindler’s List	Yes	197
1994	Forrest Gump	Yes	142
1995	Braveheart	No	177
1996	The English Patient	No	162
1997	Titanic	Yes	194
1998	Shakespeare in Love	No	123
1999	American Beauty	No	121
2000	Gladiator	No	164
2001	A Beautiful Mind	No	135
2002	Chicago	No	113
2003	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	Yes*	201
2004	Million Dollar Baby	No	132
2005	Crash	No	112
2006	The Departed	No	151
2007	No Country for Old Men	No	122
2008	Slumdog Millionaire	No	120
2009	The Hurt Locker	No	131
2010	The King’s Speech	No	118
2011	The Artist	No	100
2012	Argo	No	120
2013	12 Years a Slave	No	134

* Ok – technically The Fellowship of the Ring is what made the AFI list – but c’mon! They’re all the same movie!