Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Netflix Movie Watching World Championship

I was making my movie news rounds for the day, when I happened upon a story regarding the Netflix Movie Watching Championships. Check this out: A glass box will be set up in Times Square from October 2nd - 7th, where participants will watch movies nonstop. The minute their eyes leave the screen, they will be eliminated. Competitors are racing to top the all-time world record of 120 hours and 23 minutes, set under these rules.

Now, you might be asking yourself questions like "How does the human body survive something like that?" or "Who in their right mind would do something like this?" The answers to those questions are, in order, I don't know and me. I fully intend to audition by putting my video on the Facebook page (at least, once I decipher this insanity that is New Facebook.) However, let's go back to that first question for a second.

How can somebody do this without a fuckload of Monster, methamphetamines or both? Sheer will power. With the proper training and lifestyle, a good 50-60 hours is very doable, and that will probably be enough to win the contest, if not the world record. Think about this: If you were to go to a movie theater for one day, from around ten in the morning until eleven at night, you've already hit over twelve hours. This contest wouldn't work for everybody, though. Only a dedicated film geek with a desire to do something this audacious and the proper training that can only come from years of spending whole weekends watching movie after movie could pull this off.

What interested me most about this contest is the thought of what movies would be shown. I doubt the participants would get to pick; if anything, one would assume that the Netflix people would throw in boring, unwatchable movies to try and break concentration. Now, and I'd love to hear my fellow writers' takes on this, if I were to try this, I'd have to be able to pick my own stuff, but there are very few things that could make me look away from the screen. Therefore, as I often do on here, two lists to that effect, to conclude today's post:

Movies I'd string together for an ungodly amount of hours:
The filmography of Kevin Smith, excluding Jersey Girl.
Anything that Judd Apatow has written, directed or produced in the past five years.
The filmography of P.T. Anderson, which alone would eat up about ten to twelve hours.
Really unnecessarily long stuff, like Lawrence of Arabia or whatever that Civil War movie was that came out when I was in 8th grade. The only thing I remember about it was that I got extra credit for seeing it.
Porn. Call me a terrible person, but if I'm in the 30-somethingth hour of this endeavor, I need something that'll wake me the fuck up.

Movies that I couldn't take:
The Hills Have Eyes remake. I couldn't watch most of it the first time, and disgust would likely win out.
Un Chien Andalou. Do me a favor. If you don't know what this is, Google it. If you do, you'll know the scene that would make me have to look away.
Even though I didn't factor in all the TV shows I could watch on DVD in the positives section, if that counted, all my mind keeps going back to is a forced marathon of The Hills. When considering that and the fact that my sleep-deprived ass would be on display in NYC, I think I just figured out what my room in hell would look like.

1 comment:

Jacqueline said...

Whoa Dude, Good Luck

And try to pace yourself.