Recently Rated Movies #36: Hoppy Nude Ear!

It has become something of a tradition for myself, and sometimes my significant other, to spend all of New Year's Day at the movies. Why? One, everyone (well, not everyone, but "everyone") is hung over, so nobody goes to the movies (at least, early in the day). Since I rarely drink, and never on holidays, this leaves me awake and not suffering a headache in the a.m. Two, I am not much of a football fan, and I especially cannot stand college ball. Three, parades are only fun if you are actually there, and sometimes that is pushing it.

So, I go to the movies. I started doing this on January 1, 1987, and while I can't quite recall all four titles that I saw on my not intentionally inaugural New's Year's Movie Marathon, I do remember that two of them were Little Shop of Horrors and King Kong Lives. I can also tell you that my sneaking in to the Kong flick was the last time that I did so at a feature film, installing my code of movie ethics just following this robbery of the theatre system. The New Year's Movie Marathon was an inconstant event during the run of my late and unlamented marriage (it became hard to convince her I wasn't having affairs with all of the countergirls and usherettes, or just random people in the seats. Apparently, I was an outright whore... if only I was having that much fun in those days; it would have made sitting through Top Gun far more bearable...)

Post-marriage, the Marathon returned with a vengeance, and I have spent all but two of the ten years at flicks on New Year's, usually three movies, sometimes four, and one year, through the sheer luck of choosing some rather short films, five in one day. This is difficult to do nowadays with the amount of cleanup time that theatres tend to have between showings, but I did it. The participants in Anchorage were stocked from my usual cast of characters, generally myself, often Jen (at those moments when she didn't have to work), and people would come and go depending on their interest in the film and their personal approaches to time expenditure.

Many people make all holidays family time, and I understand this, but I don't have to agree with it. Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Easter are all fine for family, that I will give you. Whether or not I agree with the reasons for meeting is not important; one takes the opportunity to strengthen family bonds and catch up with the siblings and whatnot. Plus, the food is awesome. Halloween? Unless you are a kid, Halloween is not really a family thing, which I am thankful for since I am far too busy and fidgety to sit and around and discuss the weather. Halloween is about parties and revelry and letting go; easy to do with a pack of friends, hard to do with a family judging your every move. And then there is New Year's Day -- for me, it is the chance to start the year off perfectly, and that is with a day at the movies. Certainly it is not about dealing with a drunken father-in-law who likes to yell racial epithets at Bowl games, even at the players that are winning the game for his alma mater.

But this year, there will not be a marathon. We planned one, but then we found out that a dear friend, Petra, would be in town, and like always, we jumped at the chance to hang out with the old gang from back home. New Year's Eve in California Adventure last night was a good time (Disneyland was at capacity by 11 in the morning and much of the spurned crowd, including ourselves, headed over to the less popular but growing park). My back went out Saturday morning, but we were still planning a trip for today to the San Diego Zoo, where we are annual pass bearers, but now Jen has a migraine, and when those hit her, they hit fast and hard. As Jen said on Saturday, we are quite the pair. I doubt the zoo is in our future today, which is sad since we had been talking about pandas and okapis all weekend. For now, who knows? Maybe a movie might be in the works for later tonight.

Does it still count as a "Marathon" if you only make it to one film?

The List:
Undead (2003, Showtime) - 5; The Comedians of Comedy (2005, Showtime) - 7; Madhouse (1974, TCM) - 6; Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979, TCM) - 7; AVP: Alien Vs. Predator (2004, DVD) - 5; The Amityville Horror (2005, DVD) - 5.