Yet another movie list

The exhausting and somewhat questionable New York Times list of the "1000 Greatest Movies Ever Made." Stuff I've seen is once again in Bold. I'm still trying to figure out how I missed seeing The Birds.



Partial vindication for Jenni and me, as two derided MDN picks (They Shoot Horses... and Baxter) made the list. Then again, so did Moonraker...go figure.

I didn't serve much cheese...

...but the whine flowed like a mighty rivahhh!



I type, of course, of the last MDN, in which I chose decent movies that were still mocked relentlessly. First up was this bleak, cynical film, on a tape hampered by poor sound and some serious pan & scan. How Gig Young didn't get on that AFI villains list, I don't know. Not much character development aside from Young, but that's okay. You don't watch Survivor or The Real World for the character development. You watch to see who's gonna throw forks, dammit. I think today, how you take TSHDT depends mostly on one's Jane Fonda tolerance level. Also, it's hard to tap into the desperation of the marathon participants. Today's reality-show participants are going on just to be on TV, or to do some travel, or get some endorsements...not because may be the only chance to get regular meals for a month. And dance marathons today are the domain of well-fed college brats.



Next up was this Busby Berkeley/Ray Enright musical. I love this movie's silly plot, decent songs, and terrific musical numbers. There are some problems with showing a film like this. Foremost is the jarring casual racism of the era, which Deeablo touches upon (and is why I didn't show Footlight Parade, which gives you dancin' Cagney on one hand, but "Shanghai Lil" on the other). Secondly, all the Warner Brothers Depression-era musicals have corny, formulaic plots and cram in all the musical numbers at the end. So there's a fair amount of downtime before the payoff. 42nd Street is for some reason considered the classic WB/Busby musical (probably because of its Broadway revival in the seventies and the "You've got to come back a star!" line), but to my mind it doesn't stand out any more than Footlight Parade, Golddiggers of 1933, or Dames. I went with Dames because Guy Kibbee's a great second-banana of the era, and because it's got Berkeley at his most insane -- "The Girl At The Ironing Board" has a washerwoman serenading her client's skivvies...and them serenading her back. "I Only Have Eyes For You" foretells "Being John Malkovich," only with the disturbing mug of the long-on-connections, short-on-talent Ruby Keeler.



So yeah, much complaining, specifically about false advertising when we claimed to be showing "good" movies. To this I say a. they are good, you philistines, and b. with some of the swill that's been shown , the bar for good has been lowered substantially.

Another movie meme, this time with a twist. Bold denotes what I've seen, of course, while bold italic denotes things I've finally seen just within the past three years:



The really-lame AFI 100 list:

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)

2. CASABLANCA (1942)

3. THE GODFATHER (1972)

4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)

6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

7. THE GRADUATE (1967)

8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)

9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)

10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)

11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)

14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

15. STAR WARS (1977)

16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)

18. PSYCHO (1960)

19. CHINATOWN (1974)

20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)

21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) (I know I've seen parts, but not enought to count it)

22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

24. RAGING BULL (1980)

25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)

26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)

27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)

28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)

29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) (parts, again)

30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)

31. ANNIE HALL (1977)

32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)

33. HIGH NOON (1952)

34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)

35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)

36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)

37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)

38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)

39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)

40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)

42. REAR WINDOW (1954)

43. KING KONG (1933)

44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)

45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)

46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

47. TAXI DRIVER (1976)

48. JAWS (1975)

49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)

50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)

51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)

52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)

53. AMADEUS (1984)

54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)

55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

56. M*A*S*H (1970)

57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)

58. FANTASIA (1940)

59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)

60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

61. VERTIGO (1958)

62. TOOTSIE (1982)

63. STAGECOACH (1939)

64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)

65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

66. NETWORK (1976)

67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)

68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)

69. SHANE (1953)

70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)

71. FORREST GUMP (1994)

72. BEN-HUR (1959)

73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)

74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925)

75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)

76. CITY LIGHTS (1931)

77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)

78. ROCKY (1976)

79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978)

80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)

81. MODERN TIMES (1936)

82. GIANT (1956)

83. PLATOON (1986)

84. FARGO (1996)

85. DUCK SOUP (1933)

86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)

87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

88. EASY RIDER (1969)

89. PATTON (1970)

90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)

91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)

92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)

93. THE APARTMENT (1960)

94. GOODFELLAS (1990)

95. PULP FICTION (1994)

96. THE SEARCHERS (1956)

97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938)

98. UNFORGIVEN (1992)

99. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967)

100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)





Hmm...Okay, so the viewing holes that Netflix has patched up aren't as spectacular as I had thought. I'm sure some of you (okay, the some of you that are named My Sister) are wondering when I'm gonna see Forrest Gump. The answer is still never, if I have anything to do with it. I'll see 99 of these (okay, 98 -- a college roommate put me off My Fair Lady) and be done. I know enough about me and enough about Gump to know that I will hate it and bear grudges against all who recommended it to me. And I already did that with that damn Jerry Maguire.

I was amused this weekend, if not particularly surprised, to learn of quizbowl connections among the group I play boardgames with. I suppose the center of that particular Venn diagram is fuller than one might suspect, no matter how marginalized "geek stuff" is in trash. More than one gamer has expressed interest in curling, too. That should be interesting. Now, to set up more enclaves of Movie Dictator Nights...



So Saturday afternoon, the much-planned face-to-face game of Diplomacy (if you're not sure what I'm talking about and don't want to follow the link, think of the backstabbing and alliance aspects of Survivor without immunity challenges, product placements, and, um, swimsuit models) finally happened. My jargon-filled recap of same is

here.

Saturday night K. and I saw The Funseekers, a Minneapolis band from my youth who reunited for a Mod fest in Chicago. They were great, and one opening act was good enough for me to buy the CD. The crowd was a little odd, with over half wearing various Mod attire. Kirsti nailed it: like Goths, the women usually look good, but the guys were just sad with maybe one or two exceptions. White belts! Ascots! Orange double-breasted suits! And scooters, scooters, scooters, seemingly all wedged in tightly around my parking space. I needed some Astroglide to get home.



Sunday we went to the last day of the Brandeis Book Sale (everything for 50 cents) with Jenni and Alexis. I got a bunch of stuff that'll become trash prizes, and regrettably few things that I'll keep. We and Steve had brunch and questionable service at Cheesecake Factory, then Jenni came back and hung out with us for a few hours.

A Vast Right-wing Spam Conspiracy?

When people think of spam e-mail, people usually think of natural Viagra, porn, or Nigerian scams. Lately much of my spam has been for Dittohead crap. Flag stuff. Israeli gas masks. Iraq's Most Wanted cards. Axis of Weasels cards. And most recently, in a mail bewilderingly titled "Stop Hillary's Book" (yeah, damn that pesky first amendment --ed.), something called "Axis of Hillary" cards. I'm not sure how purchasing playing cards of any nature is going to "stop" a book, but there you go.

In non-marketing spam news, one of the better bloggers (either Atrios or Ted Barlow, linked in the left column on this page) did an interesting analysis some time ago of the presidential email forwards mentioned on Snopes.com. Apparently there are far more false emails denigrating Clinton(s) then there are for Bush, and of them, there's more of an effort to cast Bush in a positive light than there is for Clinton.

I'm just sayin', is all...

hey, links are back, yo.

Perhaps the best lyrical ad-lib ever?

"Why am I standing here?/I should be kissing her/

Why am I Schlesinger?/I should be Kissinger"

--The Suicide Commandos, covering The Monkees' "She"