A few years back my friends and I attended the AMC Best Picture Showcase, and long story short, we cheated. The theater gave us special ID lanyards to go in and out, and we skipped Benjamin Button to go have dinner and run errands. Then we returned for the final two films. Nothing against Brad Pitt, we’d just all seen the movie already, and even though we were excited about a marathon, five movies with little break time is arduous. Ten movies sounds miserable. As such, AMC has decided to continue the twenty-four hour tradition in select theaters but also provide a two day option for interested parties.

According to AMC, the dates in question will be two consecutive Saturdays: the 19th and 26th of February. Details beyond that are nonexistent, probably because the Academy hasn’t even released the nominees in question yet. I would imagine the theater chain would try and space out the long ones on different Saturdays, but when you’re dealing with the Academy Awards, they tend to pick movies longer than an hour and a half.

For those of you interested in making this happen, click on over to the AMC Website on Friday January 28th. By that point, all will be revealed and information on how and where to purchase tickets will be available.

I know I admitted in the first paragraph of this news story that I cheated during my only Best Picture Showcase, but it’s still an experience I would recommend. Actually seeing all the Best Picture nominees makes the award ceremony far more entertaining and watching them all in a row tends to really clarify the haves and the have nots.