I review films. A lot of them. So when it comes to films that are released in a given year, chances are good that I’ve seen everything from the big-budget blockbusters to low-budget Oscar fare. My one blind-spot over the past few years has been The Hobbit films. I tried watching The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring over a decade ago, and whether it was because of the genre, a short attention span, or the fact that it was through a DVD my mom borrowed from someone at work that was “fullscreen” when I already knew about things like Original Aspect Ratio, I just could not get into it. So I stopped at some point during the film, and never looked back.

Until now.

With a screening of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies scheduled for Wednesday morning, I decided that I needed to fix this little issue. And by little, I mean huge. These films are lengthy. Because I have a life (I swear!) and I don’t need my brain to turn into mush, I’m spacing the five films over three days: today (Sunday, November 30) will encompass The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Tomorrow (Monday, December 1) will focus on The Return of the King. Tuesday, December 2 will be devoted to An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug. And while I won’t be livetweeting it, Wednesday morning will wrap up with The Battle of the Five Armies. We’ll see how this goes.