insanity
How To See Seven Movies In One Day At The Cinema
I’ve been at this blogging malarkey for nearly a year now, and in that time I’ve reviewed a heck of a lot of movies, been to various film events in London and other such places and underused fantastic words like malarkey. The blog, though, is partly just a result of my obsessive compulsive tendencies manifesting in word form, from the feeling that sharing my opinions in some way validates the ridiculously high number of films I see in any given period.
If I’m being honest with myself, though, there’s nothing that justifies some of the lengths that I’ve gone to in the past few years to see films, or some of the crazy stunts I’ve pulled, and there is little more insane than attempting to see as many films in one day as physically possible. (Other than doing it again, of course.) There is no rational reason why one person would want to sit for an entire day in the cinema, other than an absolute and total love of the cinema experience, or unless their name is an anagram of Collie Robbin and they’re being paid to do it. Love of the cinema in itself would justify seeing a handful, but to put in the commitment of a full fifteen hour day really requires an absence of logic and a stubbornness to see through a pointless exercise long past the point when others would have given up and retreated to the pub.
Movie-Con III, Chapter I: The Ballad Of Broken Dreams
I like to practice what I preach, so my movie philosophy is not only to encourage others into the cinema, but for me to spend as much time there as possible. Two years ago, I set a target of seeing 100 films in a year, which I hit in mid-December that year, but since then I’ve tried to be more sensible. As with any addict, that can only last so long before temptation sets in, so this year I’ve been swallowing up films again like they’re going out of fashion – as of yesterday, I’ve seen as many this year as I saw all of last year.
But what I’ve been looking to do this year is to enhance that movie-going experience. I’ve already had one trip to the IMAX (for Journey to Mecca), and have a double bill of Inception and Toy Story 3 coming up later this month. Every time I think about that, I can already hear Gary Barlow striking up Greatest Day in my head. So how to top it? Well, I’ve booked a week off work so I can do my local thing, the Cambridge Film Festival, but there still felt like more opportunities.
The Movie Evangelist 