Here is how Jim and I spent weekends in quarantine. And a Few week nights.
At first, the game was simply to watch a movie with an actor from the previous movie-IE Dianne Wiest is in Birdcage, so we chose Parenthood next, because she's also in that movie. We figured we'd do it two or three times and that'd be it. How long could we be in quarantine?
The issue became how many choices an actor can afford, and the need to choose a film that can connect to another actor.
We also added the addendum that they must be films we own, but at one point discovered films we used to own have been loaned out, never to be seen again. So we did have to Netflix one or two. BUT it had to be a film, not a TV show and nothing on the internet. And something we owned at some point.
Also, Jim decided somewhere that he opens his phone and reads all the movie trivia as we go along, which is an additional quirk to the game.
Then we decided, quarantine was ending, we should end this and start a new thread watching everything we thought of watching but didn't because it wouldn't connect. So we had to find a path back to the original movie, Birdcage, but not repeat any movies and choose a different actor.
We chose Robin Williams.
We started the Bouncing Ball the weekend of 22 March, and today (20 June) we are on for watching the final movie of the game.
This is how we got there.The game invited a lot of spirited conversations,and Jim spent time at work trying to connect movies. We also deviated a time or two to honor an actor who passed, or to double down realizing we'd made a connection mistake, or just announcing "We're off the bouncing ball, we're watching this." But whatever we watched was always connected, somehow, and with Patrick Swayze it was just...hovering. He made a lot of cheesy movies, man.
What we discovered is that Jim has a lot of movies and I do not. And most of his have Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis in them. Mine have John Malkovich or Gary Oldman. His movies connect more easily, but the actors double up and we got confused when we would try to choose the next movie while drinking. Which is a necessary element to the game as well: you must drink. We played a drinking game during Princess Bride with Harper and her friend and it was the best time we've had in a while.
All in all, to sum it, we had a great deal of fun.
The Birdcage we started here. We took the less obvious choice of Dianne Wiest to continue. She is in Parenthood with Leaf (now Joaquin) Phoenix. Joaquin is in Signs with Abigail Breslin. She is in Little Miss Sunshine with Steve Carell. This caused a moment of consternation, as I wanted to watch The Office episodes, but Jim said "No TV shows". I also couldn't figure out what movie he'd been in that had anyone else in it besides "Sunshine", 40 Year Old Virgin wouldn't take us anywhere useful. So we watched Despicable Me and did the only conscious double down by then watching DM2 to get Benjamen Bratt in Despicable Me 2 . He's in Miss Congeniality with Michael Caine, who then got us to Second Hand Lions, with Haley Joel Osment. We could have returned to M. Night Shyamalan with The Sixth Sense but we'd recently watched it. So we pulled Forrest Gump, as HJO is Forrest's son. We have choices here too, but decided that if we chose Sally Field, we'd get to one of my all time fave comedies Soapdish. We'd recently watched Silverado after the death of Brian Dennehy and that's the natural Kevin Kline choice, so we veered to Whoopi Goldberg acquiescing that neither one of us wanted to watch Ghost, but it would get us to Patrick Swayze and more choices. One must keep one's eye on the bouncing ball. It needs to bounce. Besides, she's funny. If you just watch her play Oda Mae and ignore the constantly leaky eyed Demi Moore you can make it through. Patrick Swayze is of course in Roadhouse which features Sam Elliot, and is also like Rocky Horror Picture Show for us; we know all the trivia and the lines and yell back at the screen. A Boon Time At The Martin Movie House.
We took a detour from here by watching a Patrick Swayze biography, and then The Outsiders, (which just made Jim start up with Tom Cruise again) but I said NOPE we're still bouncing, we gotta watch Sam Elliot in Tombstone -again, we had some choices here as we are Bill Paxton fans--but instead we went with Val Kilmer so Jim could watch Top Gun. I was hell bent on not going down a Tom Cruise rabbit hole, so we were struggling with the next actor. I had identified the only black pilot in the Top Gun program as the same guy who says "The quarterback is toast" in Die Hard, and figured we'd have to go there next- until the very end of the movie, when I started screaming "Hey, HEY that's Tim Robbins! He's Merlin!" Which meant we could return to an older fave of ours The Hudsucker Proxy. Because no, I'm not watching any baseball movies with Kevin Costner.
Many of our movie choices in this game, we discovered, would peter out if we did not plan carefully. Older movies or arty movies tend to have no actor connections, you have to use a director or a playwright. So when we chose "Hudsucker" and Paul Newman, we knew we only had one place to go that would keep the ball bouncing:The Sting, featuring Robert Shaw as Donnagan, and that got us to Jaws, where he plays Captain Quint. Again, in the name of not dead ending, we went with Richard Dreyfus as our next choice, who is in Red with Bruce Willis ,who is in Fifth Element with GARY OLDMAN FINALLY! Took long enough. So Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, so Jim can get to Pulp Fiction which was, I think, his agenda all along.Tim Roth is Pumpkin, the diner robber at the beginning and end of the film and an identification that made Jim,once again, tell me how unnerving it is that I can identify actors so easily. (Identifying Clarence Gilyard, Jr. in Top Gun was also pretty impressive). I wanted to use Steve Buscemi as our spin off ("I'm Buddy, I'll be your waiter") that'd get me Fargo, and a step closer to Three Billboards...and Sam Rockwell, but...then it'd end there, because we don't own any Woody Harrelson films. So, here we are in a Bruce Willis movie- at this point I'm beginning to think we only have Bruce Willis movies-so we choose Samuel L. Jackson who is in Unbreakable. Which counts as a double up--but doesn't mean anything, there are no prizes for a "double up"--since they were both in both movies, and we realized that this happens a lot,and is a possible future game, where you have to choose movies that double the same actors or actor/director. Which would land you in a weekend of Tarantino. Anyway... Robin Wright Penn is Bruce's wife and also in Princess Bride. ( I know she's in Wonder Woman, and that would have gotten us to the new Star Trek movies,which Jim was ALSO angling for,but we don't own Wonder Woman.)We then chose Cary Elwes and Twister and this was about the time we started thinking we needed to wrap up. Quarantine was being lifted and we the weather beckoned us to linger on our deck until 9pm. We decided we had to get back to the movie Birdcage, but to Robin Williams this time. J. Without internet searching, I found a path that was bit lengthy, but doable. Jim found the shortest path, one day at work, thankfully, as I knew if we took too much longer I'd be watching Tom Cruise movies all summer. So we picked up Bill Paxton from Twister and went to Frailty, with Matthew McConaughey who is in Dallas Buyer's Club. Jennifer Garner is the connection in that movie to Pearl Harbor, which we avoided watching for a week. Because we didn't want to. About half way through (approximately 3 hours) Jim said "We saw her in it, can we turn it off now?" I said "NO,if I can't count TV shows, we have to watch the entire movie." I'm also wondering why the hell he owns this movie, he clearly doesn't like it. I started yelling about Josh Hartnett and the Alan Rickman movie Blow Dry, but we aren't connecting anything any more, we're wrapping up. But I'd much rather watch Josh Hartnett In Blow Dry. Just sayin'.
We got Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor and we have one more movie to finish the bouncing ball: Good Will Hunting.
With Robin Williams.
You're welcome.
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