AMC Theaters Best Picture Showcase: My (Entire) Saturday At The Movies

12 hours of movies in one day. That is Day 2 of AMC's Best Picture Showcase. It's kind of a nationwide thing and they do it in Rockford. So myself, my wife Kate and her friend Cortni headed to AMC 16 and sat through hours upon hours of movies.

When we got to theater the 3 of us were greeted with a pretty rad bow-tie lanyard. But we needed to hustle to make the first movie. WE SKIPPED THE CONCESSION STAND!

Here's my day in a nutshell popcorn kernel.

12 p.m. NEBRASKA

We were late. 10 minutes late actually. So I didn't know exactly why Bruce Dern's character was on a quest for his million dollars. It didn't matter much either because we eventually got clued in as to why Dern's Woody Grant has to make the pilgrimage from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska. Most of the movie was filled with family members asking Woody a question more than once. The first time there was no response, then after being asked again Woody would answer. It's how I feel when I'm talking to my 3 year old son.

SNACKS: None. I ate breakfast on the way in and I couldn't eat popcorn that early in the day. I'd get an awful stomach ache.

2:15 p.m. CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

I wondered if Tom Hanks was nearing Meryl Streep's "he/she is so good in everything, so let's just nominate him/her anyway" category. Tom Hanks was good as always but I wasn't a big fan of "Captain Phillips". If they were looking for an alternate title to "Captain Phillips", I thought of a few while watching like "Total Utter Chaos" and "Gun To Your Head". Run time was 2 hours 15 minutes and I felt every single minute of it. If someone asked me what I thought of "Captain Phillips" I would reply back with a "it's fine", and move on.

SNACKS: Nachos. I ate them in between both movies. My wife, Kate seemingly hears every "crunch" and "pop" when watching movies. I could feel her blood boiling when someone behind us was eating popcorn like she had missed a meal...or thirty. I wanted to avoid the disapproving glances so I ate and ate quickly.

4:45 p.m. HER

I wanted to hate "Her" very badly. At times I did. The music and the vibrant colors of the movie really helped out. Joaquin Phoenix was pretty good too. Problem is I disliked his character. He was a pretty unlikeable guy while watching I thought "even if I was an A.I., I'd still dump him". The movie was sloooooowwww. "Her" is one of the you either hated it or you loved it. I would like to see "Her" again. After the movie was over I tried to talk to Siri on my iPhone to see if I could make her fall in love with me. I said "Siri, tell me you love me". She replied back with "Here's the number to Papa John's". We broke up.

SNACKS: Popcorn. It was time.

7:15 p.m. AMERICAN HUSTLE

The 3 of us have already seen "American Hustle", so we drove around looking for somewhere to eat dinner in the middle of a March snow storm. Good times. We ended up at Chili's. Good times indeed.

10:30 p.m. GRAVITY

Full disclosure: I had already seen "Gravity" but I knew it was worth checking out again in the theater. They were also showing "Gravity" in 3-D. "Gravity" is the reason 3-D was invented. All of the floaty space things are even better. I did close my eyes for a moment or so during "Gravity" (hey , I already saw it, and it was getting late) but I managed to fight on for the remainder of the flick. About 10 minutes in to "Gravity" I overheard someone from the audience say "The movie looks a lot better when these are on." She had to be talking about the 3-D glasses but it was kinda fun to think she may have been talking about something else altogether. All told, "Gravity" was just as good the 2nd time around. Sandra Bullock was great and after seeing it once already, it gave me the opportunity to just check out how well made "Gravity" really was.

SNACKS: Another round of popcorn. I ordered up a refill and ate maybe a handful.

I walked out of my Best Picture Showcase on now Sunday morning really tired and little bit fatter. The ride home was fun (in the snow, of course!) and after that many movies I really didn't care to talk about what I just witnessed. I only cared about analyzing the back of my eyelids.