The COARD: Prologue

Cody Potter:

This is going to be our first blog post on The Cinematic Odyssey: A Running Diary.  The format of this post, and every subsequent post, will be a back and forth discussion between myself and Roy Johnson.  This feat we are about to undertake is something that is both right up our alley and more absurd than anything we have ever done.  We regularly have ideas that most would describe as somewhere between quirky and asinine.  The thing is, we actually go through with a lot of these ideas, and we absolutely have a ton of fun along the way.  This time around we are trying something different; we are going to attempt to share the fun and the journey with others via this online blog.  We usually aren't much for credit, but this was Roy’s idea from the beginning.  I will let him explain what we have gotten ourselves into here.

Roy Johnson:

As these things usually go it was quite an organic situation. We both saw the same YouTube clip that was inspired by the book 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. From there it snowballed rather quickly. Within minutes we were both on Amazon looking for this book. Within hours we both had purchased the book. Within a few more hours we decided we would watch every movie on this list. The plan quickly formed from there. We made a spreadsheet with every movie title from the book, randomized the list, and were immediately intimidated at the scope of our ambition. However we were also extremely excited about this too, and as much as I would like to take credit for this blog, sadly I cannot. That belongs to one Lauren Rudichuck, who is a mutual friend of mine and Cody’s. Lauren, along with my wife, hold a special place in our lives. As Cody and I fill them in on our schemes they shake their heads as they find themselves stuck somewhere between amazement and pity. As I showed Lauren our spreadsheet she said, “This is CRAZY. I wanna watch some of these with you guys, but I am NOT watching a thousand movies…. I would however really like to read about you two watching a thousand movies. You should blog this!” I immediately called Cody and we agreed this was would be a vital part to the COARD experience. This allows us to record our thoughts and feelings about all of these films. So as Cody said, we figured the best way to blog this experience is to record our conversation about each movie. One of us will email the other and the back and forth will be posted. Please understand. We are not Wesley Morris, we are not Siskel and Eibert, we are not even Ebert and Roeper. We are Roy and Cody. Two guys who love movies and have decided to spend the next decade of their lives or more slowly going through a comprehensive list of important films. These reviews will be from your average movie fan and will be written from that perspective. There is an old question, How do you eat an elephant? The answer is one bite at a time. This COARD experience is our elephant, and we will conquer our elephant one movie at a time.

PS. My wife deserves a medal for supporting me in my quest for greatness by not allowing me to have the same fate as that of Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather: Part III Who slumps over in his wheelchair and dies. Alone.