Was I the fool?

I'm not going to use this April 1st to discuss famous April Fool's-themed movies (there aren't many), nor to perpetrate some long and elaborate hoax on you. But I do like to recognize the passage of the day, just as I try to wear green on St. Patrick's Day, red on Valentine's Day, and some kind of costume, however lame, on Halloween.

So I'm going to use today to introduce to you a new feature on my blog: "Second Chances."

A couple weeks ago, I re-watched Up after we got it as a present for Christmas. I liked Up when I first saw it, but I didn't love it, like most of you did. Receiving it as a present thrust it into my path again, a place it probably wouldn't have gotten again on its own, at least not for ten years or so. And I liked it better the second time.

So it got me thinking about other movies that I may need to give second chances, movies where I may have "been the fool" for liking them so much less than the average person liked them. In fact, I recently went through my list of movies seen, searching for movies that fit that criteria. I came up with a good list, and now -- possibly starting this weekend -- I'm going to begin the task of going through them, and hope that it won't feel like a task. (I wanted to have the first ready in time for this post, but I've had a busy week. Besides, I'll probably blather on for a couple hundred more words about nothing here anyway, so might as well introduce the series now, and write the first entry later on.)

I'm not going to present the list here -- that would spoil the fun. Instead, I'm going to write one "Second Chances" post a week, probably on Tuesday (don't hold me to that), and over the course of weeks and months, steadily examine this list to see if my opinion changes with a second viewing.

This is a big change for me. I've seen about 375 movies more than once, and I'd say that 370 of those were movies I liked -- "loved" might be a more accurate word in most cases. With so many movies to see -- movies I haven't seen, movies I know I love that I want to see again -- it has always seemed like a waste of time to re-watch movies that didn't work for me.

But this project is an attempt to cut out whatever environmental factors may have been in play the first time, as there were in Up, and really concentrate on the movie itself. In many cases, I will probably have my dislike of the movie affirmed. In others, though, the movie's reputation may be rehabilitated. Perhaps it will even become a movie I look forward to seeing a third time, just for pleasure.

So without making a short post even longer, I'll just say happy April Fool's Day. For me, it will be April Fool's Month, or perhaps April Fool's Spring, or however long it takes me to determine whether it was me who was foolish, or you all for liking these movies so much.