Another Movie List

This list has been going around the web logs I read for the last few days, so I finally took a look at it.

Jim Emerson, posting on Roger Ebert's movie site, listed the 102 Movies You Must See Before... Before what? He says "They're the common cultural currency of our time, the basic cinematic texts that everyone should know, at minimum, to be somewhat 'movie-literate.'" So before you can talk credibly about movies.

I went over the list and sorted them into two, seen and not seen. On the seen list are movies I recall clearly, and movies I know I've seen but barely remember. On the unseen list, I'm pretty sure I've not seen one of these. Perhaps I'll have to make a project of checking them out (over the next few years). Then I can talk 'meaningfully' about the movies I've seen.

Seen

1. "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) Stanley Kubrick


2. "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Richard Lester


3. "A Star Is Born" (1954) George Cukor


4. "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) Elia Kazan


5. "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) Werner Herzog


6. "Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott


7. "Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen


8. "Bambi" (1942) Disney


9. "Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott


10. "Blowup" (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni


11. "Blue Velvet" (1986) David Lynch


12. "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) Arthur Penn


13. "Bringing Up Baby" (1938) Howard Hawks


14. "Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma


15. "Casablanca" (1942) Michael Curtiz


16. "Chinatown" (1974) Roman Polanski


17. "Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles


18. "Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel


19. "Do the Right Thing" (1989 Spike Lee


20. "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) Stanley Kubrick


21. "Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey


22. "E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) Steven Spielberg


23. "Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper


24. "Fargo" (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen


25. "Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale


26. "Gone With the Wind" (1939) Victor Fleming


27. "GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese


28. "Halloween" (1978) John Carpenter


29. "Intolerance" (1916) D.W. Griffith


30. "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) Frank Capra


31. "Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg


32. "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean


33. "M" (1931) Fritz Lang


34. "Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981) George Miller


35. "Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang


36. "Modern Times" (1936) Charles Chaplin


37. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam


38. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) George Romero


39. "North by Northwest" (1959) Alfred Hitchcock


40. "Nosferatu" (1922) F.W. Murnau


41. "On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan


42. "Psycho" (1960) Alfred Hitchcock


43. "Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino


44. "Rashomon" (1950) Akira Kurosawa


45. "Rear Window" (1954) Alfred Hitchcock


46. "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) Nicholas Ray


47. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly


48. "Some Like It Hot" (1959) Billy Wilder


49. "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder


50. "Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese


51. "The Big Sleep" (1946) Howard Hawks


52. "The Crying Game" (1992) Neil Jordan


53. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Robert Wise


54. "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner


55. "The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin


56. "The General" (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman


57. "The Godfather," "The Godfather, Part II" (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola


58. "The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols


59. "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston


60. "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) John Frankenheimer


61. "The Night of the Hunter" (1955) Charles Laughton


62. "The Seven Samurai" (1954) Akira Kurosawa


63. "The Third Man" (1949) Carol Reed


64. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) John Huston


65. "The Wild Bunch" (1969) Sam Peckinpah


66. "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming


67. "Touch of Evil" (1958) Orson Welles


68. "Vertigo" (1958) Alfred Hitchcock


69. "West Side Story" (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise


70. 2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick


71. "Double Indemnity" (1944) Billy Wilder


72. "The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller


73. "The Searchers" (1956) John Ford

Not Seen

1. "8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini


2. "All About Eve" (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz


3. "Apocalypse Now" (1979) Francis Ford Coppola


4. "Breathless" (1959 Jean-Luc Godard


5. "Children of Paradise" / "Les Enfants du Paradis" (1945) Marcel Carne


6. "Days of Heaven" (1978) Terence Malick


7. "Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher


8. "It's a Gift" (1934) Norman Z. McLeod


9. "La Dolce Vita" (1960) Federico Fellini


10. "Nashville" (1975) Robert Altman


11. "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) Sergio Leone


12. "Out of the Past" (1947) Jacques Tournier


13. "Persona" (1966) Ingmar Bergman


14. "Pink Flamingos" (1972) John Waters


15. "Red River" (1948) Howard Hawks


16. "Repulsion" (1965) Roman Polanski


17. "Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks


18. "Schindler's List" (1993) Steven Spielberg


19. "The 400 Blows" (1959) Francois Truffaut


20. "The Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein


21. "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) William Wyler


22. "The Bicycle Thief" (1949) Vittorio De Sica


23. "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) Luis Bunuel


24. "The Lady Eve" (1941) Preston Sturges


25. "The Rules of the Game" (1939) Jean Renoir


26. "The Scarlet Empress" (1934) Josef von Sternberg


27. "Tokyo Story" (1953) Yasujiro Ozu


28. "Trouble in Paradise" (1932) Ernst Lubitsch


29. "Un Chien Andalou" (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali

Easter Rap

One of the clues that Jean cooked up for the Easter treasure hunt was written in a faux 'rap' style of verse. Unfortunately, Renee is not all that 'hip to the jive', so she needed visual aids. Jean, with a little coaxing, was happy to oblige. The link is to the slideshow version of the photoset. I recommend setting the interval to around two or three seconds an image. That almost captures the timeframe of the actual performance. If you wish to linger, there is a photo set (for now).

In at least one photo, Jean is clearly on the edge of losing it. In others, she looks less like a dangerous rapper and more like a Popeye impersonator.

Easter Hunt

This image is not really from this weekend. Jean had a nursing shift Saturday and Sunday, so we celebrated Easter earlier in the week. Renee did the egg hunt, which I think is getting a little beneath her (she skipped Sunday School this weekend because it was primarily an Easter egg hunt "to give the little kids a chance -- I'm too good at it."). But she also does a customized puzzle-driven treasure hunt masterminded by her mother, who each year drafts a chain of clues, each leading to the next, until BOOM! Easter basket!

So I bring to you a snap of the not-so-little one applying her enormous brain to a clue, whilst lounging in the window box...

Salt the Earth

Follow the linky goodness to see pictures of ... wait for it ... dirt. We have had a ground-based deck behind our house for as long as we owned it. It came with the house, but we're not the backyard party 'n' barbeque types, so it sat idle. One summer we made a half-hearted attempt to waterproof the wood, but our long-term commitment was obviously lacking, so it eventually began to rot. So this week, we had it ripped out.

What'll go there now? Only Jean knows for sure. We're leaning away from edible crops, due to the danger of chemical leeching from the wood that was over it for so long. So decorative plants of some sort. Maybe by the end of the summer I'll be posting another picture... Or maybe sometime next year.

Sprouting

How's this for breaking my recent silence? Remember how I reported that Renee is getting her 'maturity' act together? You should, it was my last post!

So now, Renee has passed another milestone. She is now taller than her mother, by maybe 1/2".

We knew from the various rules of thumb for projected height of children that she'd be about midway between Jean's and my height. She's now begun that journey.

Renee Triumphant

Last conference we had with Renee's teachers (actually Jean usually does these solo) we got bad news. She was hanging out exclusively with the boys in her class, and was excluded from the 'girly-girl' circles. She argued with her teachers, made faces, generally seemed to be having a hard time making the transition to the classical 'next stage'. What is worse, she was telling us everything was fine, just ducky folks. And of course, apparently unaware that we'd hear about it from her teachers...

So we sat her down and had a long talk. We've done that a number of times, and I was despairing of how to impress on her that she was building bad habits for life. This time, we talked earnestly, and I shared an anecdote from work.

It seems that a guy where I work, who is one of their top engineers, was as big of a jerk to everyone else as he was to me. He was combative, agressive and rude in almost every setting. Time passed, and I hadn't worked with him for several years. One day it became clear that I'd need to talk to him about some of his software, and I was quite reluctant to expose myself to such a prat. But I girded myself and went to see him. And he was nice! He was pleasant and helpful, took nearly two hours out of his day to try to nail down my problem. Not once was he in any way rude or snide. I just couldn't figure it out.

Anyway, much later, I was telling one of my work friends about it, and he shared this with me. It seems that the mystery guy was in a meeting with marketing and a couple of customers. When it was done, the marketing guy pulled him aside, and said, "you know, everyone thinks you're an ass." He was stunned. "Really?" He just didn't perceive his 'out front' style as insulting. The marketing guy laid it on the line, and told him that he could get so much more done if he'd just get his attitude under control.

Well, that explained what I had seen. He got this candid and unpleasant insight into how people saw him, and he decided to change it. And he acted.

So I told this story to Renee. I don't claim that this story was the main force for change. Jean also tried in a sincere and heartfelt way to impress on Renee that she was sabotaging her own life. Renee seemed to really listen (for a change). Then in the following days, Jean took Renee in hand, and they went shopping for 'girly-girl' clothes, and worked on hairstyles, and on and on.

Well, Jean got back from another teacher conference today (my excuse for not going this time is that I had a doctor's appointment), and the report was night and day. Renee scored at the extreme high end on state testing in literature, science and math. She has been regularly sitting with the 'girly-girls' during lunch. She talks with them, compliments them on their choice of clothes, and is even asking them out on movie dates. Her teachers were apparently near tears in their happiness with her transformation. She's not currently being combative, and doesn't roll her eyes when given a task she's not happy with. In short, she has remade herself.

So this evening, we entered collective bargaining with her to see what her reward would be. She's getting an extra half-hour on the computer (Neopets!!!) every Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and if her grades hold, a gameboy game.

Fuji's

We had a little family outing tonight. It wasn't planned, in fact it kind of popped up without warning. Jean wanted to reward Renee for various reasons, and Renee picked going out to a restaurant, especially one with noodles. I knew she meant soba noodles, so I did a little Googling for Japanese restaurants in Tualatin. We ended up going to Fuji's in Sherwood.

Turns out that Fuji's is one of those Japanese grill restaurants where they prepare your dish on a grill at your table. Renee got her yakisoba, in fact we all got yakisoba, and grilled veggies. Jean got gyoza, Renee got chicken teriyaki, and I got grilled calamari steak. It was good. I took a chance, considering that I'd never been to this restaurant before, and squid is too often overcooked, to the point of becoming rubbery. Here it was smooth, buttery and rich.

I talked to the sushi chef, asking him about the toro, which was on special for $6.95. I don't think I'll be blowing a big chunk of change on sushi at Fuji's. That seven bucks get's you two pieces of fatty tuna on rice planks. Even at Mugi's, which is a really good hole-in-the-wall sushi joint, I can get more for my money.

Anyway, it was a fun outing. The chef, who was a young guy, definitely not Japanese, did a trick where he stacked ring slices off an onion into a cone, filled it with oil, and lit it to make a 'volcano'. Renee was tickled, and claimed it was 'scary'. Too much fun!