We Spent All Day at the Movies
An all day movie marathon of epic proportions.
When I was in college, I used to sneak into the movies. Yes, a dishonest thing to do. I would go see one movie (that I had paid for) and once I was beyond the ticket-taker, find my way into another screening. Theaters often try to stagger showtimes in such a way that this is not possible, but I became pretty good at it. I did it upwards of 25 times, I think.
Yeah — a pretty rotten thing to do.
Double features could be hard enough. And in the middle of the afternoon, they can really tank your day. I love a well-programmed double feature, but back-to-back screenings of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi and Dirty Grandpa aren’t exactly that.
So when the opportunity arose to spend all day (12pm-12am) at a movie marathon, I was intrigued by the idea. Could we pull it off? Our local Cinemark was doing a triple feature — the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Taylor and I had never seen any of them so we figured we might as well do it big. They’re definitely “big screen” movies and with Taylor’s tendency to avoid long movies and my aversion to silly fantasy flicks — we figured this would sort of “force” us to finish. We grabbed our roommate, some blankets, some water bottles and hit the road.
The first film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, started at 12:30p. We arrived around noon with our bellies full with breakfast hoping it would give us some energy. I love movie theater popcorn but wanted to avoid it until later as I didn’t want to be munching on it all day. Unfortunately, my distaste for fantasy crept in at only about the hour mark and my eyes began to close. I knew I needed to keep busy to stay awake, so I ran out for some popcorn and a Coke. We all know Cherry Coke is the movie theater soda, but they were out, so I compromised.
We made it through the first movie after its three hour runtime. With a little under an hour before the next movie, The Two Towers, we grabbed some burritos to put some real food in our stomachs. We also took a lap outside in the parking lot to get some fresh air.
The second film also clocks in at three hours, but at this point we had settled in and I was significantly less restless. Taylor was having a blast as she enjoys wizards and warlocks much more than I do (see our experience with Dungeons & Dragons), so the concern here was me — my idea and yet I’m the one doing mental gymnastics to stay awake.
I want to make one thing clear — I was having a good time! I was enjoying myself, the experience, and the company. I would even venture to say I was enjoying the films, they’re just not really my thing. I was a tad sleepy and this is no easy feat. Cut me some slack.
Before the final installment, we ran out to get some fresh air again. I grabbed a tall coffee and got myself pumped up for the final installment.
My favorite of the bunch, The Return of the King, boasts a run time of nearly four hours. That time flew by, however, and we coasted to the end of the movie — and the end of the day, as the clock ticked past midnight.
We peeled ourselves from the theater’s recliners and chatted about the epic for the entire drive home. In fact, we’re still talking about them. She’s gonna pick up the books and I’m excited to dive into the numerous behind-the-scenes features on the DVD. You could say our marathon is still going…
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