#8 THE MUSIC MAN (Erika's Choice)

This post has been a long time coming, Dave and I finished The Music Man all the way back on July 18th. I say "finished" because we started it a week earlier and then got "distracted"—which we all know is code for "started making out and turned off the movie".  Needless to say TMM, didn't hold Dave's attention the way I thought it would, and come to think of it, it didn't hold my attention the way it did when I saw it as a kid.  I should also mention that July 18th also holds a special significance because it was our one year anniversary and while we may have grown bored with Meredith Willson's songbook, we still haven't grown bored of each other.  After the jump I'll explain the better movie story from our anniversary and why I've put off writing this entry. 

#7: PALINDROME (Dave's Choice)

Woo boy. I've actually been putting off writing up this one because it means reliving this film, but inorder for this dear project to continue, I must persevere.  Dave and I knew going into this that eventually there would come a time when one of us would present the other with a film we—well, I'll say "strongly disliked", but we all know that what I mean is "hated".  This experience can be compared to cooking up an old family recipe and serving it to Dave, only to have him (as politely as possible) spit it into his dinner napkin. But going on with the food analogy, it's always not a mismatching of flavors or the way a meal is cooked, sometimes it's your own taste buds that cause your gag reflex to go into effect. Watching Palindromes for me was as if director Todd Solondz took a pepper shaker, unscrewed the cap, and dumped the entire contents into a soup.  And let's just say that I have a very sensitive stomach.

#6: THE DINNER GAME (ERIKA'S CHOICE)

It's always nice when things happen to come full circle, especially in a relationship. It gives an illusion of order to the chaos and randomness of a world full of millions of that could possibly bring two total strangers, like Dave and me, together.  Such is the coincidental case of The Dinner Game. Last summer, Dave was courting me, wooing me, romancing me. He was "lovesick" (as he puts it) over me. And I, well I was being an idiot. When I wasn't being an idiot, I happened to tell him that he simply had to watch The Taking Of Pelham 1  2  3 before the surely horrible John Travolta remake came out later that summer. And when I heard that the upcoming movie Dinner For Schmucks was a remake of an old favorite of mine The Dinner Game, well, history was about to repeat itself—only this time around (as I write this days before our one year anniversary yikes!) I think it's safe to say we're both pretty lovesick.

#5 BODY DOUBLE (Dave's Choice)

Dave is on a Brian De Palma kick lately.  On his own time he's been watching Sisters and Carrie, so as soon as I got caught up with this blog, he bumped Body Double up to the top of his list.  We settled in to watch last Sunday after a Non-Father's Father's Day that felt like we'd been on really great day trip. As I've said before, the timing and the mood I'm in before I watch a movie is just as important (if not more important) to me than the movie itself.  Unlike Black Book, the events surrounding BD have turned the film an emotional bookmark in my mind that I will flip back to for years to come anytime I hear any mentioning of Brian De Palma.  As for my opinion on the movie itself, wellllllllllll...

#4 SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER (Erika's Choice)

Clearly, I'm still on a "Films Of '93" kick. Much like Manhattan Murder Mystery, Searching For Bobby Fischer was one of those films I saw as a kid that I thought would bore me, but didn't. All I knew about chess at the time I saw SFBF in the theaters was that Screech on Saved By The Bell was excellent at it. The reason I wanted Dave to see this film was not for its great structure or for the excellent child actor Max Pomeranc who I'm sure (forgive me Dave) grew up to be quite a babe. I wanted to show my bf Searching For... because this movie deals with something Dave and I do a lot: try to give the other an out.

#3 BLACK BOOK/ZWARTBOEKZ (Dave's Choice)

Man, there's nothing like spending a Sunday afternoon following an early morning 10K race like curling up on the couch with your boyfriend to watch a two hour and 15 minute Dutch movie about World War II...in subtitles. I know it sounds like I'm being a jerk about Dave's selection. And while there was nothing I wanted to do more than to scratch another hash mark into the wall of this long movie experience Dave and I have signed up for, I also know that part of the process of this little experiment is going to be the challenge of seeing a great movie at the wrong time.  Such is the case of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book.

#2: MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (Erika's Choice)

Two Down 98 More To Go: 

Before I go into why I chose Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery as my first movie in this project I'd like to take a moment to talk about why I decided to start this blog in the first place.  I write this in the hours before the Lost series finale (I'm sure one day I'll look back on this post and think, "Man, that was ages ago and boy were we wrong about that smoke monster."). I started watching Lost in the sixth season with only recaps and Dave's Lost knowledge (and incredible patience) to guide the way.  I finally decided to watch not out of curiosity, but because it was a huge pop culture event that I wanted to be a part of and because it would give Dave and me a scheduled time every week in our busy lives that we knew we would see (or at least really try) to see each other.  It was our first relationship ritual.  I am not sad that Lost is going to be over, but I am sad that our first ritual is coming to an end.  Which is part of how this whole idea was born. I wanted a new relationship ritual.

#1: JURASSIC PARK (Dave's Choice)

FIRST OFF---WAIT, WHO HASN'T SEEN JURASSIC PARK? You're probably asking yourself, "Why Jurassic Park?" Why would my boyfriend pick a movie that everyone in the civilized world has seen at least three times as his first Netflix to watch with his girlfriend? Well, I'll tell you. Brace yourselves: I had never seen Jurassic Park.  Okay, so maybe that's a lie.  One afternoon in 7th grade, we came back from a field trip early and their solution to kill time with pubescent tweens was to screen Jurassic Park.  Well, I got a little too scared, but couldn't leave so I think I just put my head down and tried to sleep and the next thing I knew the bell rang we were dismissed to go home.  Needless to say, I never attempted to finish my JP experience—until now