My Top Five - Part IV

Let's just continue on with the movie theme.

Favorite Movies Adapted From Books
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Schindler's List
3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
4. Gone With the Wind
5. The Shawshank Redemption

Favorite Comedies
1. This is Spinal Tap
2. Raising Arizona
3. Animal House
4. M*A*S*H
5. Breaking Away

Favorite Christmas Movies
1. Love Actually
2. It's a Wonderful Life
3. White Christmas
4. Miracle on 34th Street
5. A Christmas Story

Favorite Classic Actors
1. James Stewart
2. Gregory Peck
3. Henry Fonda
4. Paul Newman
5. Cary Grant

Favorite Classic Actresses
1. Teresa Wright
2. Bette Davis
3. Katharine Hepburn
4. Myrna Loy
5. Judy Garland

Favorite Movie Songs
1. Over the Rainbow (Wizard of Oz)
2. Mrs. Robinson (The Graduate)
3. Cabaret (Cabaret)
4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Meet Me in St. Louis)
5. Edelweiss (The Sound of Music)

Favorite Detective Movies
1. Chinatown
2. L.A. Confidential
3. The Maltese Falcon
4. Seven
5. The Silence of the Lambs

Movies I've Seen Most Often
1. Gone With the Wind
2. The Wizard of Oz
3. Rear Window
4. It's a Wonderful Life
5. The Best Years of Our Lives

My Top Five - Part III

Let's make it an all movies edition.

Favorite Westerns:
1. The Searchers
2. True Grit
3. Lonesome Dove (yeah, mini-series, but I'm making the rules today)
4. Silverado
5. Rio Bravo

Favorite Gangster Movies
1. Godfather I & II
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Goodfellas
4. Casino
5. The Departed

Favorite Sports Movies
1. Pride of the Yankees
2. Bang the Drum Slowly
3. North Dallas Forty
4. Field of Dreams
5. Bull Durham

Favorite Hitchcock Movies
1. Shadow of a Doubt
2. Rear Window
3. Rope
4. Lifeboat
5. Dial M for Murder

Favorite Courtroom Dramas
1. Twelve Angry Men
2. Witness for the Prosecution
3. Judgment at Nuremberg
4. The Caine Mutiny
5. Anatomy of a Murder

Favorite Disney Animated Films
1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Bambi
3. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
4. Fantasia
5. Pinocchio

Favorite Ghost Movies
1. The Others
2. What Lies Beneath
3. Sixth Sense
4. The Shining
5. The Haunting

Favorite Musicals
1. West Side Story
2. Oklahoma
3. Chicago
4. Oliver
5. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Never View It Dubbed. Trust Me.

I should probably be embarrassed to admit this to y'all but I've watched Gone With The Wind in the neighborhood of seventy times. I guess such a statistic should be kept more accurately but when you get into numbers like that for a four hour film, I guess a little inaccuracy is to be expected.

I never watched the movie until, I believe, I was in high school. I loved it though - loved the story and loved the way it was filmed. And the costumes are irresistible. Clark Gable as Rhett is the quintessential rogue and Olivia de Havilland as Miss Melanie defines how a lady should be. And Vivien Leigh? She doesn't just act like Scarlett O'Hara - she is Scarlett O'Hara.

I have favorite lines from that movie and reciting the dialog along with the characters is easy. It should be after 70+ viewings. Hattie McDaniel as Mammy has some of the best lines ever and it wouldn't be a proper viewing of this movie if I didn't say along with her at the proper moment, "He'll be comin' to Atlanta when he gets his leave, and you sittin' there waitin' for him, just like a spider." She more than earned her Oscar with that one line alone.

If there's any statistic more embarrassing than the fact that I've viewed Gone With The Wind around seventy times is the fact that ten of those times occurred in five days. I had a terrible case of the flu and I was at home from work for a week. Each day I would wake up around 8am and I'd pop the cassette into the VCR. My prized 50th anniversary edition. I'd watch the movie (admittedly I may have drifted off to sleep for a few moments - I did have the flu), take a break for an hour to eat some lunch and rest and then around 1:00pm I'd start the film all over again; The End coming up on the screen just as my now ex-husband would be rolling in from work.

I don't watch it as much anymore - in fact I haven't watched it in about three years. Admittedly it's probably not the most politically correct or historically accurate film in the world but what really draws me in is the detail and the effort that went into making that movie. It's a big, lavish, dishy melodrama that lets you lose yourself completely into the story. And what probably draws me in most is how interesting a self-centered brat who needs a smack upside the head can be.

Friday Shuffle - Angels Among Us Edition

I believe that angels exist. I don't believe they're people who have died and have gone to heaven. I don't believe they've ever been people. What I believe is that they are messengers and helpers of God. And I believe that angels are all around us. They don't interfere in our lives unless God instructs them to - otherwise they observe us and can hear our thoughts. They hear our thoughts without judgment and perhaps without even full understanding of them because they're not human and never were human. They can't add to it their own interpretation of our thoughts because they have no similar personal experience with which to relate. However I think angels can pick up on our emotions and I believe that they have a way to comfort us or let us know that we are not alone in the world.

The film Der Himmel über Berlin, known in English as Wings of Desire, is about angels on Earth. However instead of the film being about people whose lives are touched by angels, it's more about angels whose lives are touched by humans. In the film we see that they are indeed all around unseen by humans (except, it seems, they can be seen by children) and while they see us living our lives they can't experience life. One angel seeks to change that. If you've seen City of Angles you've seen a remake of Wings of Desire but there are few similarities between the two films.

This movie is one of my all-time favorites. It's like a love song. A poem. It's a tapestry woven from the lives of the humans observed by the angels we get to know. Watching is sweet and comforting, like rolling a warm caramel around in your mouth. It's not one of those films where the moral is "Life is sweet/short/good so you'd better appreciate it." The lives we see aren't necessarily good or fulfilling or even worthwhile, but they're being lived and experienced and it's what the angels, who are eternal, can never experience.

I've only watched it in German (and I always watch it with the subtitles on because the thoughts you hear from the humans can be a bit whispery and indistinct) and I would highly recommend that if you watch it that you watch it in German. It's really made to be experienced in original language and I think the segments with Peter Falk wouldn't have the same impact if you weren't watching it in German. And if you've gone through life thinking that German is a harsh, aggressive sounding language, you may be in for a surprise. You'll hear how delicate and lovely German can sound. Here's an example - don't worry, it won't spoil any of the movie for you. This movie is all about the journey, not just were it ends up.



Bixente the iPod is ready to give you another treat. Time to shuffle.

1. Born Into A Light - Ryan Adams
2. Geraldine - Glasvegas
3. Least Complicated - Indigo Girls
4. Veronica - Elvis Costello
5. Back On The Chain Gang - The Pretenders
6. Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
7. Grounds For Divorce - Elbow
8. Joker And The Thief - Wolfmother
9. Hands Of Time - Ron Sexsmith
10. Think - Aretha Franklin
    

Popcorn Only Made it Better

Yesterday being Halloween reminded me of how I would look forward to seeing the It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special on TV each year. When I was five years old I'd been in a froth all day to see it and on the evening it was shown I fell asleep on the sofa and didn't wake up until the closing credits were on the screen. I was crushed and I tearfully asked my mother why she didn't wake me up to see the show and she only replied that she thought I'd rather sleep. Had she lost her mind? How could she not know that seeing that show was the most important thing ever? I dreaded going to kindergarten the next day where all my friends would be talking about seeing Charlie Brown and I'd have to admit that I'd slept through it.

Christmas was another time when I'd look forward to special cartoons. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I considered the Frosty the Snowman cartoon to be a bit lame but I would not miss seeing it.

But of all the annual aimed-at-kids shows I had to watch each year the one I looked forward to most - the Holy Grail of kid programming - was the annual showing of The Wizard of Oz. I'd see commercials for it on TV and I'd be marking the calendar.

On the day it was shown (usually on Sunday nights if I'm not mistaken and always on CBS), I would count down the hours. I would have everything done - my bath taken, my hair washed, my homework done, my clothes laid out for the next day - so that nothing would interfere with my favorite movie. My siblings and parents knew that on that night the television (at that time we had only one) was under my control.

And while it was on I was glued to it. I knew every word to every song and my lips would move along noiselessly as they were sung. I mimicked the Munchkins and became appropriately spooked by the Wicked Witch and her flying monkeys. My family didn't have a color TV until I was about eight years old so until then I had no idea the Wicked Witch was green. Actually I had no idea that most of the time the movie was in color until finally my friends at school got color TVs and mentioned it.

The next day my friends would sit at lunch and over our sandwiches talk about how great The Wizard of Oz was and how it was the best movie ever. It was perfect and yeah, that Willie Wonka movie was pretty neat too but Willie Wonka's factory wasn't nearly as great as Oz.

Now I have The Wizard of Oz on DVD and I expect that most kids have it on DVD. Kids can watch The Wizard of Oz every day and watch The Great Pumpkin in February and watch Santa Claus is Coming to Town in August if that's what they like and as a child I probably would have envied the ability to do that. But there was that delicious feeling of anticipation that was nearly as good as watching the program itself. It's that same sort of feeling kids get just before a big holiday or their birthday or summer vacation - those annual events that you look forward to for so long and it makes you savor that special time even more thoroughly. Perhaps the eight year olds of today would feel sorry that my eight year old self had to limit my viewings of favorite shows to once a year but I feel a bit sorry for them having a little bit less to look forward to.