In my introductory post (My Cultural World-December 10th), I stated I have lists of Top 15 Movies, by year of release, for all the years of the Sound Era (1927 to now).
Obviously, I can't present ALL the lists in 1 post, so I've chosen 2 of them.
From 1938 to 1969, my Top 15 lists cover 2 year spans, such as 1938-1939 or 1968-1969, and all the ones in between.
So I've chosen what I consider the BEST two year grouped Top 15, that being the years 1956-1957.
But I wanted to present some more recent years too, so I chose the year 2012, which also is filled with excellent movies.
(Some of my Top 15's are NOT all as filled with "great" movies.)
The latter years are, as noted, separate lists.
Well, there's lots to cover, so let's see if YOUR Top 15's might match mine!
I'll list the movies in inverse order, giving the title, then a brief comment on each flick.
1956-1957
15. 1984 (Great rendition of the Orwell book. This movie would be Top 5 on MANY of my other lists!)
14. Attack! (I grew up watching westerns & war movies, and this is my favorite of the latter. One of Jack Palance's best!)
13. The Amazing Colossal Man (Those 50's sci-fi's are the greatest. Who needs digital/computerized Special Effects?)
12. The Curse of Frankenstein (Maybe the UGLIEST Frankenstein monster! But also one of the best in the genre.)
11. 12 Angry Men (An intense drama starring Henry Fonda as holdout juror.)
10. Hollywood or Bust (I also grew up going to all the Martin-Lewis movies. They've faded a bit in my liking of them --Abbott & Costello are now my top-rated comedy duo!-- but this one was one of their best!)
9. Forbidden Planet (Critics rate this much higher than I do, but I love Robby the Robot. I used to try to draw him a lot! Also, this movie best illustrates the then standard inclusion of gorgeous women with permed hair being found in jungles or on other planets!)
8. Jailhouse Rock (Elvis Presley at his "finest"!! That scene with the title song is a Classic!!)
7. The Delicate Delinquent (Jerry Lewis broke with Dean Martin, and this is probably his best solo movie!)
6. Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (The 2nd "movie" put together from the Disney shows starring Fess Parker as Crockett. This one's more fun then the first, and almost certainly has less truth in it!)
5. The Great Locomotive Chase (Another Disney flick starring Fess Parker, only this time he plays a spy during the Civil War. Great action scenes. The book is good too.)
4. Moby Dick (This would be Number ONE on most of my lists! Sure, the book ain't the movie, and vice versa, but see this! Gregory Peck's Ahab is pure insanity. The scenes with him on Moby are unforgettable! I've watched this movie---well, uncountable times, but almost certainly close to 100!!)
3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (After you've seen this one, do NOT watch the others! There's NO comparison. This is THE scariest movie I've EVER seen!! And the novel by Jack Finney is THE scariest BOOK I've ever read!!)
2. Lust for Life (Kirk Douglas hams it up like no other, and sometimes that takes away from my enjoyment of this interpretation of Irving Stone's historical novel. But as a HUGE Van Gogh fan, I LOVE this flick! Seeing many of his paintings on screen is mind-bending. What a sad but brilliant man!)
1. The Ten Commandments (My All-Time favorite movie, of any genre, from any year! A CLASSIC in EVERY sense. Whatever your religious beliefs, or whatever you think of the Hollywoodization of serious subjects, you MUST see this movie!!)
Now we'll move about 55 years forward, to.....
2012
15. Liberal Arts (Only seen this once, so maybe opinion isn't fully formed. It's a nice romantic comedy, but not THAT good. Enjoyable, but you've seen it all before.)
14. This is 40 (A long--134 minutes!--dramedy about a married couple and how things change at that age. Lots of great bits...and many not-so-great. Overall, worth seeing.)
13. Trouble with the Curve (Clint Eastwood stars. Enough said? In most cases, yes! In THIS case, he throws us a curveball--pun very much intended!!!--as this one wraps his usual brand of humor with some great dramatic scenes. I MIGHT move this one higher with more viewings!)
12. Veronica (A sexy sleeper. On;y seen it once, and really can't remember much about it! Some "sex" movies are like that!!)
11. Save the Date (I'm a HUGE fan of the TV show "Masters of Sex", and especially Lizzie Caplan. So seeing her as the STAR of this movie almost automatically rates it high! This movie deals with sister-sister love...and dysfunction.)
10. The Sessions (Surely would rate higher on other year's lists. Helen Hunt is a sex surrogate, who has sex with a polio victim. Sweet, sexy, funny, will make you laugh and cry!! William H Macy has the funniest lines.)
9. Fast Girls (I'm a HUGE track and field fan---my other blog is all about that sport!!--so this movie gains points with me. It's not the most realistic track movie ever, but it IS fun. Somewhat surprisingly, there's NO sex scenes or nudity!!)
8. Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding (What a HOOT Jane Fonda is as a hippie mother to a seemingly uptight NYC lawyer. The story's locale is the infamous Woodstock, but modern day, not 1969. I absolutely LOVE this movie, and have watched it MANY times!)
7. Margarita (About a Hispanic lesbian who's a long-time nanny to a family, including a now-grown teen girl. Don't be put off by the lesbian theme. This is a great RELATIONSHIP movie...about SEVERAL different kinds of relationships!!)
6. The Artist and the Model (Comparable in some ways to "La Belle Noiseuse" from 1991, this is a sturdy drama about an ageing artist who hires a girl to pose nude for him in exchange for room and board. Takes place in 1943 in France, and part of the plot centers around the war, and its effects on people and culture.)
5. Girls--1st Season (I include seasons of TV shows on my lists. I list them in the year when the season ENDS! I LOVE Girls---the TV show AND the gender!! As the show has evolved, Jessa has become my favorite character. Like any full season of a show, the episodes are hit and miss. Otherwise, this would probably rate higher!)
4. A Perfect Ending (On any given day, this movie can be interchanged with any of the ones above it! It's by lesbian icon Nicole Conn, and rates as one of my best lesbian-themed movies. Yet the 2 main characters are NOT lesbians. One is a 50-ish woman who's never had an orgasm. The other is a young high-end call girl, who is hired to provide same! Their scenes are intense, highly sensual and sexual, funny, and sad. The stars are from TV--Barbara Niven and Jessica Clark. A bit too artsy-fartsy, especially in the first 5 minutes or so! But hang in there--the rest will evoke all your emotions!!)
3. Kiss Me (Another "lesbian movie", but also about family. A 30-ish woman, just engaged to a guy after 7 years together, meets her dad's fiancee's daughter at her dad's 60th birthday party. The daughter is an outed lesbian. Their relationship is one of the most realistic ever shown in a movie---of ANY kind of relationship! It's a Swedish movie, so you'll need to know Swedish, or don't mind sub-titles!! Some really sexy scenes!)
2. Now is Good (Dakota Fanning is dying!! She is a young girl who decides to, among other things, lose her virginity before she dies. But her "bucket list" goes much deeper than just sex. This is a VERY sad movie, yet what is life without being able--and WILLING--to feel EVERY emotion? It's insane to say you LOVE a movie about someone dying--especially one so young--but I DO!! Watch it once, then put it away for a year or more. It might take you that long to regain the courage needed to watch it!)
1. Ruby Sparks (I'm a writer, so I UNDERSTOOD this movie, and this fact greatly added to my enjoyment of it! Miss Sparks is a character in a novel Paul Dano (the actor) is writing. And suddenly, she's alive.....and in his house!!! What does he do? How can he explain "her"? This is one of THE most creative---and HILARIOUS---movies I've ever seen!! Zoe Kazan, who plays Ruby, is soooooo sweet and loveable, you really WANT her to be REAL!! And wait till you see the ending!! As PERFECT a movie as I've ever seen!! Would rate high on ANY year's list!!)
Well, hope you enjoyed this post.
And try some of these movies/TV shows---if you haven't already!
Feel free to comment below!
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Things that bother me
Haven't posted here since my initial post, and don't really have one central subject I want to pursue here.
So, just to keep the bed warm, I'll name a few things that bother me.
Movies with no ending
God, don't you hate it when a movie keeps you riveted for the first 99 minutes, then in the final 60 seconds (before the credits roll), it just.....stops?
Just saw "Gone Girl", and loved the first 99% of it.
Then it just ....didn't end.
Well, there WAS an "end", but I couldn't figure out who was guilty, who wasn't, and what would happen to these two assholes after.....the end.
(Haven't read the book, and can only hope it explains things! Books of movies sometimes do!)
High Heeled Porn
You know the type.
The woman comes to bed with 7 inch spike heels on....and nothing else.
Come ON!!
What woman goes to bed with HEELS on?
In fact, what woman doesn't REMOVE her heels the very moment she leaves the party or the board meeting?
And what MAN would RISK going to bed with a wild woman wearing those heels.....afraid he'll get impaled on them during the passionate sex to follow??
Stop that, Porn directors!
Fifth in a series
You know what I mean.
Just look at the latest USA Today Top 150 Best Selling Books list!
How many of those 150 are novels that state it's the "fourth in a series" or "fifth in a series".
And what's the story?
It's generally some form of love affair....sometimes with vampire elements.
So you read the blurb that says "Eve and Adam have sex." and go, SO??.
Why did it take FOUR fucking books to get to the......fucking??
What happened to novels that started.....and finished.....inside the covers of ONE book??
(And I'm NOT talking here about Detective series that have different stories involving the same characters!!)
Lesbians who say Lesbian porn doesn't show what THEY do in bed
I watch LOTS of lesbian themed porn!
I much prefer that kind to heterosexual porn.
(I've been straight my whole life!)
And I especially like lesbian-meets-straight woman porn.
But I've seen (or read) interviews with "real" lesbians, and invariably, they all say that the sex shown in lesbian porn is NOT how THEY have sex!
Have you seen the mainstream lesbian movie "Blue is the Warmest Color"?
I have, and I loved it (and the graphic novel by Julie Maroh).
I thought the sex was real....and HOT!!
It showed one girl eating out the other, with her face stuck between her ass cheeks, while the other did the same.....you know, the old "69" thing!
So if "real" lesbians don't do that in bed, what DO they do?
Don't they use strap-ons, like the actors do in lesbian porn?
((And even "amateur" lesbians do too....in "homemade" porn!)
Don't they "trib".....rubbing their vaginas against each other?
Don't they suck breasts, lick assholes, do "69"?
And if they don't, I again ask, What DO they do??
Please, tell me your secrets, ladies!!
Well, folks, I'm going to end this now.
But I'll be back.
Maybe sooner than you think.
And maybe with something....to talk about!
So, just to keep the bed warm, I'll name a few things that bother me.
Movies with no ending
God, don't you hate it when a movie keeps you riveted for the first 99 minutes, then in the final 60 seconds (before the credits roll), it just.....stops?
Just saw "Gone Girl", and loved the first 99% of it.
Then it just ....didn't end.
Well, there WAS an "end", but I couldn't figure out who was guilty, who wasn't, and what would happen to these two assholes after.....the end.
(Haven't read the book, and can only hope it explains things! Books of movies sometimes do!)
High Heeled Porn
You know the type.
The woman comes to bed with 7 inch spike heels on....and nothing else.
Come ON!!
What woman goes to bed with HEELS on?
In fact, what woman doesn't REMOVE her heels the very moment she leaves the party or the board meeting?
And what MAN would RISK going to bed with a wild woman wearing those heels.....afraid he'll get impaled on them during the passionate sex to follow??
Stop that, Porn directors!
Fifth in a series
You know what I mean.
Just look at the latest USA Today Top 150 Best Selling Books list!
How many of those 150 are novels that state it's the "fourth in a series" or "fifth in a series".
And what's the story?
It's generally some form of love affair....sometimes with vampire elements.
So you read the blurb that says "Eve and Adam have sex." and go, SO??.
Why did it take FOUR fucking books to get to the......fucking??
What happened to novels that started.....and finished.....inside the covers of ONE book??
(And I'm NOT talking here about Detective series that have different stories involving the same characters!!)
Lesbians who say Lesbian porn doesn't show what THEY do in bed
I watch LOTS of lesbian themed porn!
I much prefer that kind to heterosexual porn.
(I've been straight my whole life!)
And I especially like lesbian-meets-straight woman porn.
But I've seen (or read) interviews with "real" lesbians, and invariably, they all say that the sex shown in lesbian porn is NOT how THEY have sex!
Have you seen the mainstream lesbian movie "Blue is the Warmest Color"?
I have, and I loved it (and the graphic novel by Julie Maroh).
I thought the sex was real....and HOT!!
It showed one girl eating out the other, with her face stuck between her ass cheeks, while the other did the same.....you know, the old "69" thing!
So if "real" lesbians don't do that in bed, what DO they do?
Don't they use strap-ons, like the actors do in lesbian porn?
((And even "amateur" lesbians do too....in "homemade" porn!)
Don't they "trib".....rubbing their vaginas against each other?
Don't they suck breasts, lick assholes, do "69"?
And if they don't, I again ask, What DO they do??
Please, tell me your secrets, ladies!!
Well, folks, I'm going to end this now.
But I'll be back.
Maybe sooner than you think.
And maybe with something....to talk about!
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