The Movie Challenge

It was Valentine's day this week. If your lady friend isn't talking to you right now, you probably forgot. The only things I love more than big hairy bearded guys named Gabe, are movies!

It's true. I don't know why. I think because it appeals to my inner lazy reader. One of my favorite movie quotes is from Matilda - "There's nothing you can get from a book that you can't get from a television faster."


I say that with sarcasm being a fan of the printed word too. There is just something about movies I love. Sitting in the dark, suspending with disbelief (as much as possible) and being told a great story. Laughing, crying, getting angry, being terrified; sharing an experience with a group of strangers is just sort of cool.

Anyway - for Valentine's day - I just wanted to stay home, eat a good dinner - and watch a movie. Something of a love story in keeping with the day's theme. I like quirky love stories. I'm not so much a 27 Dresses kind of girl, as I am a 500 Days of Summer kind of girl.

I offered Gabe my list of romantic movies I would be up for watching:
Amelie
500 Days of Summer
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
When Harry Met Sally
Scott Pilgrim
A Philadelphia Story
Bringing Up Baby
It Happened One Night

He opted for Amelie or a Philadelphia Story because he didn't think he'd seen either of those, but he wasn't sure if he was up for a movie about Tom Hanks having AIDS.

He's adorable.

We went with Amelie. As always - LOVE it. So charming.

As we were relaxing after the movie he says, "You should show me more old movies; I haven't seen many." DONE and DONE! I pose an idea that we should watch all the movies on the AFI list of greatest movies. We pull the list out on Wikipedia and start going through the list.

I notice a trend, any boy movie (Rocky, Stagecoach, etc.) he has seen. While I've seen most of the "girl" movies.

I pose that we should watch them all -then blog about them - like a girl vs. boy take on the movie - and then become famous. Then they'll make a movie about us. (See Julie and Julia - movies tell me these things can happen)

Not sure how we will fare on the blog part. I'll be impressed if we tackle most of the list. I figure if we do 2 a week we'll be done in about a year. No pressure. This should be easier now that I've cancelled our cable and netflix. What else are we going to do? Take a walk, read a book - or play with the dog? Pff! That sounds AWFUL!

Our approach to the list at first was to work our way down to Citizen Kane (supposedly the greatest movie of all time - I have my doubts). But we realized quickly we'd be foiled by having to watch Godfather II before Godfather I. (p.s. yet another example of boy movies I've missed).

So we thought we'd sort the list by release year. That yielded a lot of silent movies neither of us had heard of being on the top of the list. I knew we'd really burn out fast with that method, but if we worked back through time - we probably wouldn't finish with that stack of silent movies staring us in the face. That would also mean we'd have to start with Lord of the Rings, and I'm not ready for that yet. What?! I'm not being a poophead - I just watched it like a month ago, because I apparently missed the part where Gandalf was a dick. I did fall asleep right before Sean Bean died and woke-up at the credits. Apparently there was still like AN HOUR OF MOVIE I missed...Christ, Peter Jackson, it's called an editor - they can't be that expensive! (p.p.s - Sean Bean should talk to his agent, why does he always die relatively early in his series? Maybe he just wants the action figure made and then he's out?)

We sorted by alphabetical order and that threw 12 Angry Men at the top. In my mind, that was perfect! (True we end with Yankee Doodle Dandy - not exactly a real rousing movie - but James Cagney is pretty bad ass.) Anyway, in my opinion it's a geat movie to start off with - plus this would ensure a lot more randomness to our movie watching. Gabe got to torrenting (f.u. spell check that is a word), and we watched 12 Angry Men tonight.

As always it was amazing! I love Henry Fonda. I love the understated nature of it, and how it unfolds. GREAT flick - I have nothing bad to say about it. Gabe liked it too. You should all harass him and see if we can get him to resurrect his blog and write about it. It could happen. He caves to peer pressure easily, that's how I got him to marry me.

I am terrified though. Next is 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I'm not really a Kubrick fan. I only really liked Dr. Strangelove, and mostly because I have a crush on Peter Sellers. Also - I do not handle the sci-fi well. The biggest strike against it is mainly the review my parents gave it. Apparently they saw it at the Milaca Theater in 1968. They were so confused. It took them a while to realize someone got the reels mixed up and it was all out of order. They thought to give it another try - you know - see it in sequential order. But even in order - they hated it.

I am coming at this one with a pretty biased opinion already, but I shall do my best -- you know, in the interest of Science! What?