Which 3 movies would you pick?

 Movie Madness is a video store in Portland, Oregon, that has over 90,000 films that members can rent. The knowledgeable staff members display movies on their recommendation shelves. 

Cole selected a nautical theme for his shelf with Uninvited, Deep Rising, Anaconda, Death Ship, and Ghost Ship. 

Ben recommended Battle of the Valiant, Treasure of the Moon Goddess, Short Time, and The Applegates, all on VHS, no less.

Movie Madness also has a state-of-the-art, 18-seat screening room where the public can watch films for free. The employees pick the three different films that they'll screen on Sundays.

We went to see The Pagemaster when we visited Movie Madness, and I was really impressed with the screening room. I was also impressed with the other eclectic movie choices for the day. 

Ninja III: The Domination is about an evil ninja attempting "to avenge his death from beyond the grave by possessing an innocent woman's body", and in Hiruko the Goblin, "Hiruko is a goblin sent to Earth on a reconnaissance mission. He beheads students in order to assemble their heads onto demons' spider-like bodies."

I'm not saying that I want to see Hiruko the Goblin, but I am glad to know that such a film exists, and I'm impressed that someone thought the movie was good enough to share with others. 

Movie Madness cannot advertise on their website what movies they are screening each week due to legal restrictions. You have to sign up for their email newsletter to see what new releases they have acquired, what classes are being taught in the screening room, and what's showing on Sunday. 

I've been receiving the newsletter since May 2022, and I'm always curious to see what's playing each week. The only patterns that I see in the three selections are that the first film is usually a family film, the second film can sometimes be a classic movie like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, and the third movie might be anything, but it's usually rated R.

I think picking out three films for the screening room would be fun, so let's play pretend!

If I had to use my own collection of physical media, then what three films would I choose for the screening room? I went looking for films that I think my friends would approve of, and movies that I would want to see on the big screen. I picked out nine movies for each of the three ratings categories: 1) G or PG, 2) PG-13, and 3) R. Why nine weeks' worth? I'm a teacher, and I think in semesters. Also, I tried to pick movies that could fit a theme for each week. I'll keep my comments brief.

Week 1: Time Travel

Char and I had a surprisingly fun time with Cinderella III: A Twist in Time back in the day. It's also fun to watch Tom Cruise being bad at something over and over again in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Mick Jagger is good at being a bad/good guy in Freejack (1992).

Week 2: Going to School

Sky High (2005) is Harry Potter-adjacent with super powers replacing magic. Charlotte and I think it needed a sequel, but that didn't happen. The Skulls (2000) is an action and crime drama that takes place at Harvard, and this movie got two sequels, and that's not fair. The teachers really are aliens in The Faculty (1998).

Week 3: Going to Camp

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) is a physical comedy classic. If you don't agree, I will fight you. The characters in The Final Girls (2015) find themselves trapped in the fictional cult film, "Camp Bloodbath." This has a surprisingly touching ending. If you tour the real Alcatraz prison, you'll see a sign that reads,“Break the rules and you go to prison. Break the prison rules, and you go to Alcatraz.” In No Escape (1994), the prisoners who break the rules go to "camp" Absolom.

Week 4: Wheels

Napoleon Dynamite (2004): "Dang! You got shocks, pegs... lucky! You ever take it off any sweet jumps?" I know this is a stretch for a "wheels" theme. Hot Rod (2007): We bought Char a shirt that reads,"I'm jumping the public pool tomorrow. 2 bucks. Tell your friends." She wears her Hot Rod shirt with pride. I scoffed when the remake of Death Race came out in 2008. After finally watching it, I told a friend, "That movie was waaay better than it had to be." He wholeheartedly agreed.

Week 5: Trapped on an Island

I had a student who worked at a video store in 1998. He gave me a 26x40 movie poster for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island when the store was done displaying it. The poster has been displayed in my classroom ever since.  The Jurassic Games (2018) isn't rated, but since the violence takes place on an island in virtual reality, I'll give it a PG-13 rating. It's a low budget blast. Like The Jurassic Games, Battle Royale (2000) is a "last one alive wins" contest. Think of the first Hunger Games (2012), but on meanness steroids. 

Week 6: Character Development

In Rango (2011), Johnny Depp is a chameleon who becomes the hero he was pretending to be. In Billy Madison (1995), Adam Sandler is a 27-year-old man who acts likes he's ten. By the end of the movie, he acts like he's 15. (Char has a "Rirruto" tee-shirt, but none of her friends "get" it. Makes me sad.) In Avengement (2019), Scott Atkins escapes from prison to get revenge on those who turned him into a cold-blooded killer.

Week 7: M and M and M

My Neighbor Totoro  (1998) is a nostalgia pick. Exactly 12 years and one day ago I showed this movie to a feverish little girl named Charlotte who was tired of feeling sick. It was the right medicine then, and I'll always love this movie for that. Plus, Totoro is awesome, but most people know that. The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) is what a really good modern family movie looks like. The cover for Mindhunters (2004) makes it look like it's going to be a police procedural, but it's really a slasher film. 

Week 8: It's a Race to the Finish

Char and I saw Storks (2016) at Flix together when she was in 1st grade, but this isn't a nostalgia pick; Storks is legitimately funny. I like Breaking Away (1979) so much I wrote a literary unit on internal conflict just so I could show this movie to my English classes. At the climax, fists would be thrown in the air, and once a girl yelled, jumped out of her seat, and danced around in a circle. This story about townies competing against rich college kids won an Oscar for best screenplay, and it shows. The Tournament (2009) pits 30 professional assassins against each other for a ten million dollar prize for the last one standing. The Tournament deserves the R rating, and I deserve to watch this again tonight. It's been that kind of a week.

Week 9: Masks

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm actually had a theatrical release in 1993, but like most people I didn't see it in the theater. I'd like to fix that. This ranks as one of the best Batman productions ever. The Wraith (1986) is a supernatural revenge film packed with some of the most bitchin' cars, music, and fashions that the 80's had to offer. The killer wears a racing helmet with the visor down, so I'm counting that as a mask. The 5 Deadly Venoms (1978)  is a classic martial arts flick ranked #11 in Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time." That says enough right there... love that Shaw Brothers' "SB" logo in the opening of their movies. 

Okay, that's a wrap. It's time to take these movies down to the basement and put them back on the shelf. This was fun, though.

Still curious. Which 3 movies would you pick?

Sorry, Folks. The Theater is Closed.

They paved paradise 
And put up a parking lot - Joni Mitchell "Big Yellow Taxi"

In the garage, I feel safe
No one cares about my ways
In the garage, where I belong
No one hears me sing this songIn the garage - Weezer "In the Garage"

Sigh. The time had come. 

Daphne and I had already had three days of teacher in-service, and Charlotte's first day of fifth grade was only two days away. That would be our "first day of school" as well. None of us could afford to stay up late watching movies anymore. Our pandemic summer was over. 

It took less than an hour for our theater to turn back into a pumpkin our garage.

The garage door hadn't been opened since April 6. I took some pictures before I activated the button. I wanted to remember where we put everything. Our garage theater set-up keep evolving. 

The saw horse with extendable flaps made a great table. I eventually cut a piece of cardboard to size and set it on top to even out the surface. The bottom tray held the VCR and various cables.

My father-in-law gave me that red, roller seat. It worked well as a dinner tray and a foot stool.

For the image to be centered on the "screen," the DVD player would only fit on one side of the projector. The player faced away from me, and that made it hard to use the remote from the comfort of my folding chair.

I had a telescoping mirror in my toolbox, so I taped that to the freezer. It did a good job of reflecting the remote's signal to the player.



I forgot I picked up this folding picnic table last fall, and I slapped my forehead when I finally spotted it next to the freezer. Char liked using the table when we ate dinner and/or snacks during the films.

When she wasn't in her bungee chair, Char was on the carpet sharing the dog pillow with Ellie.

We kept the floor swept, and we picked up after ourselves every night, but I'm sure hanging out in a garage wouldn't appeal to everyone. I will say that when the lights went down, it was very easy to forget the stains on the concrete and the bikes hanging from the ceiling. 

The idea of the garage theater presented itself at a time when we needed something safe to look forward to each day. We are still living in scary times, but back in April the grocery stores shelves were empty and hand sanitizer was considered liquid gold. We couldn't go anywhere, but the movies would take us anywhere we wanted. Once we got the ball rolling, it was hard to stop. In all, Charlotte watched 78 films with us, and Daphne and I watched 36 more movies together. 

On a typical summer night, I would go to the basement and listen to music after Charlotte went to bed. Daphne would go to the living room to watch something British. Not this summer. This summer we watched Marvel's MCU together, Kill Bill 1 and 2, The Extended Lord of the Rings trilogy, four Indiana Jones films... 

It was nice to have the movies to talk about on our daily walks. When you spend months together at home, it is hard to have new conversations. Sometimes we wouldn't talk at all. We'd just walk in silence enjoying each other's company.

I also got some of my attention span back. Before covid season there is no way I could have watched Open Season 2 without my laptop open during the entire movie. Now I can watch a whole film without my phone near me. 

So, I felt a little depressed when I drove our cars into their assigned spots inside. I knew I was going to miss our evenings in the garage. Daphne tried to comfort me by saying we could put the theater together again at Christmas time. But when I think about it, I really hope we don't do that. 

By then I want to be too busy planning our lives outside of our house with a new vaccine and new, real places to explore. The theater helped when our lives were on pause. Now we're ready to hit play.