You've got to hand it to the Children's Leukemia Foundation of Michigan. Not only do they do provide a staggering level of much-needed comfort and support to families of children and adults affected by leukemia, lymphoma, and other related blood disorders, but they also know how to throw one heck of a fundraiser. While other charities focus solely on physical activities - fun runs, marathons, and so on - the CLF very, very wisely realized that there's a market for organizing fundraisers targeted towards the lazy, out of shape, and pop culture obsessed. (Just because we're pasty-faced, our bodies have atrophied due to lack of use and nutrition, and we can quote Caddyshack in Klingon, that doesn't mean we don't care about the world around us.)

That's why the editors at MovieRetriever.com absolutely love the CLF's annual Hollywood Nights 24-Hour Movie Marathon at the Emagine Novi in beautiful Novi, Michigan. (For more information, click here.) We've participated in the event for the past four years and every year it gets better and better. This year, with our newly established web presence, the MovieRetriever editors decided to (hold onto your hats) LIVE BLOG from this year's event to both a). give you insight into the warped minds of individuals spending 24 hours straight watching House Bunny and Death Race and b). continue to solicit even more donations during the event. If you'd like to contribute - please, please contribute - just click here.

What can you expect from our first live-blogging experiment? Well, we'll give you our impressions, opinions, and pure-bred punch-drunk snark about every movie we watch as we run out of the theatres to immediately upload our updates to you...provided that we can keep pirating the wifi signal from the Hooters across the street. We have three editors attending the event this year - Mike (a.k.a. Turk182), who's known for his deadpan optimism and withering sighs after he realizes that the movie he just watched wasn't directed by David Cronenberg; Tom (a.k.a. CoolerKing), who's known for his unbridled belligerence and tendency to yell at the screen (he almost had a conniption during X-Men 3 two years ago); and, last but not least, Jim (a.k.a. LongLivetheD), who's known for his unceasing passion for the Smokey & the Bandit films and his unnerving ability to eat mixed-berry jelly packets continuously throughout the duration of the marathon. (We're not kidding. It's grosser than you think.)

The festivities start at 10:00 am Friday the 22nd and go through all the way to 10:00 am Saturday morning, so keep checking back because we'll be here all night. Hopefully, you'll get some laughs, learn some stuff about the movies at your local multiplex, and help out a truly amazing local charity that's bending over backwards to help some real people in need. So, take your places, couch-jockeys! The Marathon begins! 

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9:36 am - We're arrived at the lovely Emagine and are currently trying to decide whether to start the day with Death Race or Pineapple Express. Any opinions?

12:36 pm:

Tom - OK, Pineapple Express is one of the best movies I've seen all year.  So funny, so violent, so much fun to watch.  James Franco deserves a best supporting actor nomination for Saul.  A good way to start the movie-a-thon, much better that XXX: State of the Union 2 years ago.  For those keeping track - at the Gale offices, at least - Jim has not had access to any jelly-packets yet. 

Mike - This was a great movie to start off with. I agree with Tom that it's definitely a better start than XXX 2! Although the film's violence might not be for everyone, the audience that embraces it will be plenty happy.

We're off the see The Rocker now. Back in a few.

2:13 pm:

Tom - OK, finished The Rocker, or, as I like to call it, a bunch of stuff that happens while I wait for SNL's Jason Sudekis to get back on screen.  Seriously, the movie is OK - it's derivative, the music so-so, the conflict generic - but Sudekis steals the entire movie as the manager from Hell.  Honestly, every word of his mouth kills, and if I was Rainn Wilson, I'd put a contract out on Jason's life for stealing my starring vehicle.  Anyhoo, Vicky Cristina Barcelona next.  (Hi Annie and Charley!)

Mike - I really liked the ensemble cast until about midway through the movie, then, as Tom points out, Sudekis steals the show. It's a charming movie that killed an hour and a half. Nothing brilliant but it was fun. Just realized that Tom's sending shout outs so - "Hi Nikki!"

Jim - Sudeikis is the new Carell, you know, from when he was stealing movies instead of having tem lifted...So anyway. take School of Rock, throw it in a blender with Spinal Tap and That Thing You Do, and you have Rocker. Not bad, but I'm glad I didn't pay to see it...you paid for me! Thanks!

4:25 pm:

Mike - You know what I like about narration in movies? Nothing! Actually, this movie came to life when Penelope Cruz is onscreen but sadly she's only there for a third of the movie.

Tom - The best, best, BEST part of Vicky Cristina Barcelona was the moment when, while Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Scarlett Johannson were in the middle of a threeway, the 70-year-old woman sitting behind us whispered VERY loudly to her husband - "Oh, Harold, THAT's the way to live."  Biggest laugh of the whole movie. I think I dug Vicky more than my compatriots.  It's a legitimately sexy movie, full of emotional life and honestly... yeah, it's too ambiguous for my tastes and the narrator sucked, but Cruz and Bardem were fantastic.

Jim - Well, at least I got to see Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz make out. Thanks, Woody!

7:44 pm:

Mike – Okay, two years ago at the Movieathon we saw X-Men 3 and last year we saw Rush Hour 3. The Mummy: Something of the Whatchamacallit. While The Mummy 3 is the best of those three it still keeps our record of seeing awful three intact. This is not a movie to see. This is a movie to be set aside and avoided. I remarked right after I wished I had seen Death Race though that might come back to haunt me later. Well, gotta go eat some dinner.

Tom – During Mummy 3, I got a cell-phone call from my 21-month-old daughter who was very proud about having just gone to the potty. Rob Cohen, director of Mummy the Third, also went potty recently, except he evacuated his bowels all over this crappy, crappy excuse for a movie.  It’s pretty bad when you think, “Wow, this might be the worst movie of Brendan Fraser’s career.” This is BRENDAN FRASER we’re talking about.  I will say, however, that Mummy 3 is at least bad in a very, very hysterically funny way, which is way more than Rush Hour 3 had going for it.

Oh, and speaking of things terrible, we’ve had to watch the trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua like 4 times already today.  May God have mercy on our souls.

Jim – Maria Bello should fire her agent then destroy her cell phone so she can’t take calls from people offering crap like Mummy Curse of the Emperor of the Dragon Guy. The most believable emotional connection was between Uncle John and an airsick yak. I must commend Rachel Weisz and Oded Fehr for passing on this piece of crap. My tummy hurts.