Jovers

Thanksgiving this year was a bit different for me. I got the whole week of Thanksgiving off from school but I wasn’t able to head home until Wednesday because of my job. We spent the night at his mom’s so we could still visit with her since we were spending Thanksgiving day with my family. We ordered pizza and watched a couple movies (the Sixth Sense and Monty Python and the Holy Grail – both on our IMDB 250 list!).

Thanksgiving morning we drove to my parents’. My mom fixed the works: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, rolls, and pretzel jello salad (sounds gross, but it is delicious). My aunt brought homemade pumpkin and apple pies, my uncle brought corn casserole, and a cousin brought sodas. It was wonderful not having to cook!

We ate and laid around and then ate some more. It was good to see all of my cousins and aunts and uncles. We flipped through Black Friday ads but had absolutely no desire to go out and shop in that madness. The conversation turned to movies and we decided to go see something. Most of the guys took my dad to see Spectre while most of the girls (plus Andrew!) went to see Mockingjay Part 2.

This was a different experience, to say the least. We went to a Dine-in theatre, which I had never been to before, but I had heard positive things about. You are able to reserve your seats, so we figured we would try it and we wouldn’t have to get there early to beat the crowd. We arrived and found our seats, which had little trays that you could swivel over your lap. A server came and introduced herself to us and took our order. I just wanted a popcorn since everything on the menu seemed a little pricey to me.

It took probably twenty minutes to bring the popcorn (I honestly would have preferred just getting it from the concession stand myself). We split it and then needed a refill, so our server took the tub. The theater was full when the movie started. It was really distracting as they began to bring the food out. The lady in front of us argued with the server about what she got because it apparently wasn’t what she ordered. One of the servers stomped up and down the stairs, breathing so heavily that I was concerned that he was okay. Some servers were even taking orders still.

We never got our popcorn refill. My sister finally stopped the server and she said we never gave the tub back to her. After some more mild excuses, she brought out our popcorn. By now it was halfway through the movie and I was annoyed I was just now getting my $8 popcorn. I was really trying to get into the movie, but there were just too many distractions with the servers walking around and guests asking for another drink or another straw, people just eating (do people not know how to eat quietly?) etc. When there was probably 15 minutes left of the movie, another waiter brought a popcorn out to us. We were confused, because we didn’t order another one. They brought our bill out to us in one of the most emotional parts of the film and then when it was over, we had to wait in line to get our credit card back.

So overall, if you asked me what I thought of the new Hunger Games movie, I really couldn’t give you an honest opinion because I couldn’t focus on the movie. Andrew just thinks that the theater was understaffed – which I totally understand on a holiday, but the Dine-In still isn’t something that I would recommend. It was just way too distracting. (Also, is this just an American thing? Do movie theaters in other countries serve food and drinks?)

We slept in on Friday and my mom cooked a big breakfast for us. My sister and I headed to Kohl’s about 10:45am – late enough that hopefully all of the crazy shoppers would be done and out of the way! I found a Columbia coat that was originally $120 marked down to $80, and then with my coupons got it for $50. I was pleased with my purchase though because my old coat I have had since my freshman year of high school, so I was really past due for a new one.

We headed to Target afterwards “just to look” which we both knew would not end up happening. I bought a blue cardigan that was marked down to $13 which I was so excited about since normally the ones I find are twice that price! I also found a couple of movies that were only $4. And that’s the extent of my Black Friday shopping.

We met with Andrew’s dad for a quick lunch before Andrew headed back to Kansas City. He had to work over the weekend, but I stayed a bit longer to hang out with my mom and sister. It’s been really hard to come home and visit since I started my new internship, so this break was really needed.

To my American friends, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! To my Canadian friends, very belated Thanksgiving wishes to you! And to the rest: a wonderful weekend as well.

Growing up, my family didn’t really watch a whole lot of movies. My dad would occasionally take us to the theater to see the new, big action flick and I distinctly remember him taking me to see Princess Diaries (what a good dad), but other than the Disney movies and the ones we begged him to take us to see, we didn’t go much.

This is for several reasons, really. My mom doesn’t like movies – she only enjoys seeing very clean, “family-friendly” movies, and even then she’s really just not interested. Another reason is that we didn’t have a whole lot of money, and with a family of six people, going to the movies was expensive even on an early Saturday morning. It just wasn’t in the budget.

Andrew on the other hand, watched movies all the time with his mom growing up. We were recently talking about all of the movies that were considered “classics” or the “best of all time” that we (and by we I mean mostly me) have never seen. We both enjoy watching movies, and there were so many movies we wanted to watch that we just never have. So we thought it would be a fun challenge to watch all of these culturally classic movies by consulted the IMDB Top 250 Movies list.

If you’re not familiar, IMDB (Internet Movie Database) is a website which does exactly what its name suggests. Users can also rate movies, and I’m not sure what their exact algorithm is but IMDB puts together a list of the top movies of all time. We picked the top 250 list.

We saved a copy of the list to Excel and dated it, that way if any movies were taken off the list or added to it, it wouldn’t set us back. Our goal is to watch all 250 movies. We haven’t given ourselves a time limit – that is a lot of movies and if we watched a movie a week, it would take at least four years (we’ve crossed off movies we both have already seen). Some weeks we may watch three or four movies, and then there may be two weeks where we don’t watch any. We want to have fun with it and not make it a chore, so by not setting ourselves a “to be done by” date, I think we will really enjoy it.

Before we started the challenge, we had both seen about 45 of the movies on the list. If one of us had seen it, but the other hadn’t, we didn’t count it. We both have to have seen the movie to cross it off.

We’re still establishing rules – and by that I mean arguing about the rules. I think that we should each be allowed at least two vetos. 250 movies is, again, a lot of movies, and I can think of several that I have no desire of watching. I don’t like a lot of vulgarity so I know that I will absolutely hate The Wolf of Wall Street, however much I do love Leonardo DiCaprio. I think I should be able to use a veto. Andrew believes that we have to watch every single movie, otherwise when we say “We watched all 250 IMDB top movies!” we also have to provide a disclaimer that we skipped a few. I know of a few that Andrew really doesn’t want to watch, so I’m hoping I can persuade him that we don’t have to watch them if he uses a veto.

What do you think? Should we be able to skip a few movies, or should we watch every single one so that we can truly say we watched the IMDB Top 250?

Thanksgiving 2015

Taking on the IMDB Top 250