Winning Shot: Thelma and Louise

It seems almost poetic that a contest should begin with a man realizing his superhuman strength and endurance and ends with two women throwing themselves off a cliff. On Thursday October 2, eight contestants entered a glass-enclosed room off New York City’s Times Square to screen Iron Man in a fight to the death to see who could watch the most movies in a row. Days later, Susan Saradon appeared with a copy of her film Thelma and Louise, a film whose two deaths at the end also marked the end of the contest. The bleary-eyed victors, Suesh Joachim of Toronto and Claudia Wavra of Germany, emerged October 7 at 3:10 pm from their glass house having watched 123 hours of movies totaling 57 feature films, a feat that the Guinness World Records are pretty sure will set a new record. (And before you ask, yes, they had 10-minute bathroom breaks between films).