Ape-ril Madness

Sometimes, things just synchronize in weird ways.

When I first joined Netflix, I was overwhelmed and overjoyed. Of course I put a bunch of unseen recent movies in my queue, but I also lined up a large number of classics I had never seen. There are tons of great documentaries on there, and it's also a great way to catch up on a TV series that you might have missed. Needless to say, my queue became huge pretty quickly.

One of the oddball ideas I had when first adding movies was, "Hey, I should do a marathon of every Planet of the Apes movie." So, with a few quick flicks, there it was.

I manage my queue pretty well, bumping up things that interest me and pushing back others that I'm just not in the mood for. I was very excited when I finally got the list under 100 titles, as if that was a major accomplishment, but it didn't last for very long. So, often when I saw that big block of ape movies coming up, I would find some other masterpiece to take precedence.

Sure enough, just the other day I was checking to see what was coming up, and Planet of the Apes is at the top of the queue. But here's the coincidence: that same day, my friend Paul sent me a link to this article, which talks about how great (and under-appreciated) the original movie is.

I'd like to say that I was immediately inspired to start my marathon, but honestly it took me a while to even read the article. It sat in my inbox for quite a while, taunting me. Finally, I did, and yes, it did get me excited. So, starting next week, I'm going to try to do a movie and post each day. Next week is Ape Week!

I loved the original movie when I was a kid, but I don't think I've seen it fully since then. I have only vague semi-memories of the other films as they appeared on Saturday afternoon television. I really have no idea what to expect from them.