We are coming up on the birthday of our parent site, The Dissolve. (Also the date of its death and oh, man, July is just full of emotion, isn’t it?) Our own The Ploughman has had an idea about how to celebrate it, and I’ve agreed to be the one to handle all the writing up bits. If I get anything wrong, I’m sure he can correct me in the comments.

We’re going to give each other movies! But not like that. This is sort of a cross between a Secret Santa and the Facebook group’s Tradefest (gone too soon because you people never watched your movies). Someone (Ploughman?) will take the list of everyone who’s interested and pair them off. Then you and your partner will give each other the name of a movie. You will watch the movie. Everyone will say what they thought of their movies.

Sound good? And it’s so simple! Just a few details.

1. Nobody has to spend money. This is last minute, and during the Criterion sale at that, and not everyone has the budget for extra movies. You tell people how you can access movies—Hulu or Netflix or Amazon Prime or just a good library—and we go from there.

2. Can’t get your hands on the movie? Have a visceral objection to it? You’ve already seen it? No worries! We’ll have a return policy. “I just don’t think I’ll like it” is against the spirit of the thing, though; at least try to stretch yourself. Still, we won’t ask for details and you don’t have to disclose them.

3. Really commit. The reason Tradefest fell apart was that people simply weren’t watching their movies. If you agree to do this, actually do it. Don’t agree to do it and then remember that actually you’re going to be in the woods with no electricity for the next six weeks. This should all be done in the next couple of weeks, so it’s not a huge commitment. No time beyond watching a movie and writing a paragraph or two—more if you want to, of course.

The hope right now is to pair everyone off Monday or Tuesday, finalize title swaps on Wednesday, and post on the eighteenth. We’re missing the actual birthday of the Old Place, which would have been Tuesday, but close enough, right? It’s still the sort of fun little movie-writing exercise that led to the creation of this site in the first place!