Movie Marathon Theater Scheduling Tool

When I recently did an in-theater 24-hour movie marathon, I worked out my viewing schedule by hand, trying to maximize the number of movies I could see without overlapping them. It was labor intensive and kind of boring.

I guess I should have done my research first – Movie Madness.org could have done that for me automatically! This tool puts together every possible combination of viewing schedule, then sorts by schedules that are maximally efficient (i.e. most movies you can see, given the viewing schedule) based on your parameters (i.e. are you willing to overlap movie start/end times a bit? What movies should you include/exclude?).

I find the viewpoint behind the site kind of lame (“Stick it to the man and theater-hop for free! Its okay because big companies don’t deserve to make money because they charge us money for goods and services that we enjoy consuming! And that sucks! It should all be free because we say so! Blarg!”) But, they put together a simple and easy-to-use tool, so there you go.

Starting to plan our 2013 Movie Marathon

My wife and I are starting to plan out our 2013 Movie Marathon, to be held sometime in the fall. We are still just in the ideas stage. I wrote down a few ideas we had in the table below. The usual rules we follow are:

  1. Movies we haven’t seen before
  2. Movies that we want to see or “should” see.

We’ve had some good success in the past asking for ideas from friends (i.e. Run Lola Run). If you have some ideas, please leave a comment below!

Skyfall2012143 min.
Les Miserables2012158 min.
The Magnificent Seven1960128 min.
Inception2010148 min.
The Thing1982109 min.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind2004108 min.
Diabolique1955116 min.
Solaris1972167 min.
The Big Lebowski1998117 min.
The Legend of Drunken Master199499 min.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi201181 min.
The Treasure of Sierra Madre1948126 min.

Longest Movie Marathon?

UPDATE: This world record is unverified by Guinness World Records. Click here to learn more about the longest verified-by-Guinness movie marathon.

This 200-hour movie marathon seems completely impossible. I’m kind of tired after a 24-hour movie marathon, but doing eight of them in a row? That’s a brutal experience, and plain ‘ol dangerous. Sleep deprivation causes crazy neurological problems and hallucinations after just a couple of days. And these guys stayed awake for eight? Really?

I suppose the Guinness world record for hours awake is 449 hours, so these guys had some hours to spare. Still – the main point of a movie marathon is to have fun, not pretend you are in some kind of Ironman triathlon!.

 

Someone did it: James Bond Movie Marathon

So I mentioned a while back the idea of a James Bond movie marathon. The James Bond franchise has the distinction of being the only box set that you can easily purchase that would fill up an entire 24-hour movie marathon and then some (2.25 in fact).

But breaking up the franchise into 24-hour movie marathons is so awkward! What to do? Someone actually went out and had a 50-hour James Bond movie marathon. Ugh. Even knowing they had designated sleep breaks, this would be just too brutally long and repetitive to me.

The last line says it all:

We still love the 007 films, but perhaps a straight run isn’t the best way to tackle them. Like a shaken-not-stirred vodka martini, these movies are best enjoyed in moderation!

Want to try this yourself? The Bond 50 box set from Amazon has everything you need!
James Bond 50 - Complete James Bond movie Box Set

Movie Marathon Theme Idea: Marvel Comics Movies

While goofing around on the internet (is there another purpose to the internet?), I ran into this post from an undergrad at FIU that described her top 10 movie marathons. One idea I really liked was a Marvel Movie marathon. Marvel has been making some quality movies lately – why not cram the best into a 24-hour marathon?

Of course, some Marvel half-marathons have already been held, but is there enough material for a 24-hour marathon? Thankfully, the internet knows a thing or two about comic books: There are about 30 Marvel movies available. You could make a 24-hour movie marathon out of this without breaking a sweat.

Stay tuned for a sample schedule. Thanks dfox1992 for the idea!