A Descent Into Movies and Madness | Culture Features | Bend – The Source Weekly

Idont go stir crazy, get cabin fever or enjoy the company of most people, so this self-quarantine is mostly business as usual for me. Being alone is my normal. Im newly dumped, so I was already looking at this time as an excuse to love myself a little better and maybe stop being such a sad bastard all the time.

My lungs are trash, so Im attempting to avoid risk altogether by not grabbing the mail or grocery shopping and just staying inside and writing or watching movies and shows. Oh, and Im fasting while trying to lose 100 pounds and on day nine of quitting smoking, so each day is a bit of an adventure for me.

Sorry if all that is too personal, but what Im getting at is, Ive been curating a lot of film festivals in my living room for me and my cat, Oy, who doesnt seem to appreciate them as much as I do. I put a lot of work into them, each day selecting movies that I think will be fun, enlightening and make my cat (and I to a lesser extent) better people through empathy and understanding.

Id Like to Thank the Police Academy: This one is self-explanatory. We watched all seven Police Academy movies, hoping to just have some nice innocent laughter. I forgot these movies are hot garbage though, leaving me with a headache and a deep dislike of all things Guttenberg. For future reference, the order of quality goes Six, Four, Two, Five, the Original, Three and Seven.

Caged Heat: Were watching all the films starring Nicolas Cage and rating them based on the intensity of his performance instead of the quality of the film. I think his best performance is Raising Arizona but roomie thinks its Adaptation. Sadly, I sometimes think were both wrong and its Face/Off. Were only 45 movies into this project, so we probably havent even watched his best yet.

Bava Dont Hurt Me, Dont Hurt Me, No More: Were also watching the entire oeuvre of the late, great Italian director Mario Bava, responsible for such seminal horror films as The Whip and the Body, Planet of the Vampires and A Hatchet for the Honeymoon. Almost all of his films are streaming across Kanopy, Hoopla and Prime, so if you want to watch Christopher Lee whip a stunning Italian actress into a frothing orgasmic frenzy, now is your chance. Yeah, my cat thinks Im weird too.

Houses of the Holy Moly This is Terrible: I thought it would be fun to pick a random horror franchise I wasnt familiar with and watch each of them, ranking the series from best to worse. I love haunted house movies, so I picked the Amityville Horror franchise. Little did I realize, they are 21 films deep, only two of which are halfway decent. I dont recommend this festival to anyone, but boy howdy it sure did eat up a lot of time.

Holmes for the Holidays: The idea was to watch every single Sherlock Holmes movie I could get my hands on, but there are like hundreds. My cat checked out after four of them. I dont blame him, but Im persevering. I can do more, I know I can. I just have to stop falling asleep during every single one of them multiple times. Theres something very comforting about these movies and since so many great British actors have played the role, I like to imagine Holmes is like the Doctor, regenerating every few years to take on new bad guys. Well, it makes sense to me.

Anyway, this is how Im coping. Im lucky that I get to stay inside and I worry for each and every essential one of you. I know it must be scary to step into it every day, but we appreciate you and love you and youre not alone. Neither am I.

My cat keeps side-eyeing me like hes waiting for me to fall asleep before he eats my face. If you dont hear from me in a week, send help.

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A Descent Into Movies and Madness | Culture Features | Bend - The Source Weekly

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero