The Premise.

It's been a couple years now that I've been watching a movie Saturday and Sunday mornings with friends online.  Perhaps it began during the lockdown, but I have a thought that it might have started before that.  We never recorded when we watched them, just that we watched them.  

We are currently up to 136 movies and I have had family and friends ask for suggestions, but there are so many really amazing movies- it's hard to remember them all. 

We try for both popular movies, but also ones that are obscure.  One of my favorite moments in the marathon so far was when we went after Pre-Hays code movies.  Keep in mind the people involved in this undertaking are Film enthusiasts with  study behind our choices.  We've taken college courses, read books, we devour studying directors and trends in society.  

Our movie list, while mostly American has branched out to different cultures.  Needless to say our want to watch list tends to grow with every week.  Our full list has over 260 films.  I believe we started with 10.  We watch online- pulling up the movie on a streaming channel or Criterion.  We start together with a ready set go, and chat throughout about what we're watching.

I'd like to say that we watch every week, but the truth is- Life gets in the way.  We squeeze it in between bursts of life and it is a simple joy.

How it started: Well like I said it started with 10 movies and a chat about oh you haven't seen it?  You need to watch it.  As I recall the absolute beginning happened by accident. One of us had started watching a movie- chatted about it, and one of us joined watching.  The next time we sat down to watch a movie we'd talked about one of us mentioned it- and the other was free.  So we watched it together.  And then the tradition stuck.  

Personally I find that this Marathon which has gone on over two years now- has made me a better film enthusiast.  I have expanded my view and appreciation of movies.  I can only hope that my contributions to the list have done likewise.

I find myself like Kate Winslet in  "The Holiday" after Eli Wallach hands her a list of old movies, which she watches, remarking that they are all amazing.  I'm paraphrasing, of course, but her general joy in discovering all of these old Hays Code and Pre Hays movies and the splendor and the joy of them are absolutely how I feel about this list.

It's going to take me a while to blog about each of these.  I'll have to do several of them within Genre specific posts to get caught up to where we are. Hopefully this list will inspire people to watch these Great and some... .Not so great movies.  :)  In a time when Hollywood has the creative spark of a Xerox machine- I am amazed at how much really good cinema can be found hiding beyond the Blockbuster hits.

Kat