I thought hosting a 'Bad Movie Marathon' was a good idea, but now there's a formal spreadsheet.
By @wesforsure · Friends
My friends and I decided to do a movie marathon where we watch the worst films we can find. It started as a joke, but one friend has turned it into a serious, highly-organized event with scoring and 'rules of conduct.'.
The full story
Here's the situation. A few weeks ago, my friends and I were reminiscing about some truly awful movies we'd seen. We joked that we should do a marathon and systematically watch a bunch of them. It was a funny, casual idea. I offered to host. I figured we'd order pizza, shout at the screen, and just have a laugh. That was the original plan. However, one of my friends—let's call him the 'commissioner'—has taken this concept and sprinted with it. First, he created a shared document to nominate films, which was fine. But then it escalated. He sent out a formal 'invitation' email with a detailed schedule. The schedule includes 'opening remarks,' a 'halftime report' between films, and a 'post-marathon awards ceremony.' This morning, I received version 2.0 of the plan. He has created a complex scoring spreadsheet. It has categories like 'Acting Ineptitude,' 'Plot Incoherence,' 'Dialogue Disasters,' and 'Special Effects Failure.' Each movie will be rated by each attendee on a scale of 1-10 in every category. There's also a tab for 'Rules of Conduct,' which includes things like 'no unauthorized pauses,' 'commentary must be relevant to the film's shortcomings,' and 'phone use is limited to scoring purposes only.' I'm now staring at a multi-tabbed a place nearby Sheet for what was supposed to be a dumb, fun night. Part of me finds it hilarious, but the other part is genuinely concerned that the fun has been completely engineered out of it. I wanted chaos and laughter, not a formal tribunal for 'Sharknado 3'. I need to decide whether to talk to him about chilling out, which might hurt his feelings since he's clearly passionate, or just accept that I am now the host of a serious cinematic symposium.
How people voted
- Facts — 30% (85 votes)
- Depends — 42% (121 votes)
- No Way — 28% (81 votes)
Readers say “Depends” (42%) — 287 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@karaliterally — let him cook
@daniyk — Has anyone else in the friend group said anything about the spreadsheet?
@kira — this is so much funnier let it happen
@ediekindof — Your friend is weaponizing his organizational skills because he's insecure about just having fun.
@finnkinda — I feel like you're leaving out the part where he does this with everything, not just movies.
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