24 Hours of Movies; gone after 12 hours

A friend, in parallel with a local effort to raise funds for charity, hosted a 24-hour movie marathon, beginning at 5 pm last night. Knowing how quickly I fall asleep in movies, I had no illusions that I'd manage to make it all the way through, and given that I've been getting little sleep lately, wasn't going to torture myself to try to stay away for the entire event. Besides, I knew going into it that I wasn't going to be able to participate for the entire event anyway.

The wife and I missed most of the the first movie, but made it for the sandwich buffet and the start of the 2nd movie. After the movie was over, the wife went home (as per our original plan). I watched the next movie, but from that point forward (midnight), I alternated between watching through half-closed eyelids and flat out snoozing. The wife texted me at 6:30 this morning to see if I wanted her to come get me. As it turned out, I did.

So, physically, I was there from 6:45 pm to 6:45 am - 12 hours. Not bad (for me anyway). There were three other people in attendance (apart from the host and hostess) who committed to the entire 24-hour movie orgy. As I left this morning, they had managed to stay away for the entire 12 hours (thus far), and were planning on seeing it through to the bitter end.

Here's how the movies rolled out:

1. White Heat - Caught the last 15 cheesy minutes. Not disappointed to have missed this one.
2. The Cowboys - Not a big John Wayne fan, and not a fan of Westerns, but this was pretty good. Robert Carradine's movie debut and a fairly significant role for A Martinez.
3. Jaws - Great movie, but I've seen this plenty. A little dated, but great performances. Continuity issues plague this movie in ways I'd never noticed before.
4. Coming to America - Lame when it first came out. It hasn't aged well. Eddie Murphy's ego run amok.
5. Club Dread - One of the worst things I've seen in ages. Avoid at all costs.
6. The Muppet Movie - Awake for the opening and closing numbers; asleep through the rest. I think that was probably the right call.
7. The Princess Bride - The wife forced me to watch this once. I just don't "get" it, and I'm OK with that. I had the wife come and rescue me while this was being shown.
8. The Fighting Sullivans
9. Disney's Robin Hood
10. Weird Science
11. Oklahoma

To keep the suspense going, the host wouldn't even tell us what we were about to watch. We just had to wait for the credits to roll, so I have no idea what the remaining movies were.

I don't intend for my critique of the movies selected to come across as critical. The host has movies he likes, and chose them in the hope the rest of us would like them as well (or at least expose us to movies we'd never seen before. I'm hard to please and the host knows that. I appreciate the effort he and his wife put into this event, providing more than enough food and munchies, and opening up their home to everyone. They are always very gracious and generous. Thank you guys for putting on a really cool event.