“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” at 52 Novels

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

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Netflix is brilliant.

And I’m not talking about its DVD rental-by-mail business. I’m talking about the Netflix Rolling Roadshow, a tour screening free movies around the country… whistle-stop style.

Yawn.

That got your attention. What makes this so brilliant is that the tour-stops just happen to be where the movie was either set or filmed. Netflix showed Clerks in Red Bank, N.J.; Jaws was shown on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Next week it’s The Shining at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo. Of course, the hotel is as much a character as anything in both the book and the movie. Stephen King wrote half the book while vacationing in the hotel during a whacked out alcohol and drug addled frenzy (if I remember On Writing correctly).

An added bonus to the screening is a “10-Minute Horror Story Contest.” Participants will be given the first line and ten minutes to write a scary tale. The winner gets a thousand bucks and a boxed set of King novels.

My wife and I are an hour south of Estes Park, an awesome little town nestled at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park. As with the rest of the tour, tickets for the movie are first come-first served, so the debate now is whether to take a half day off from work to be sure we get to see the flick.

Might be the world’s shortest debate.

The full Netflix Rolling Roadshow schedule

August 2: The Warriors in New York
August 5: Jaws on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
August 8: Clerks in Red Bank, N.J.
August 10: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in Northbrook, Ill.
August 11: Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa
August 16: The Shining in Estes Park, Colo,
August 18: The Searchers in Monument Valley, Utah
August 20: Raising Arizona in Apache Junction, Ariz.
August 24: The Poseidon Adventure on the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif.
August 26: Escape From Alcatraz on Alcatraz Island