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shadowkatSort of half watching The Golden Globes - which is dull, but there was an unintentionally funny bit when Matt Damon forgot his glasses so couldn't read the teleprompter, and two presenters were given the wrong script. Also, predictably, Breaking Bad won best series and best actor. I'm not sure I agree on Best Series, nor am I certain you can compare it to the other nominees...different genres. But mileage, it varies. Some people love lima beans, some love green beans. Oh, they also had the real Philomena Lee, whose story the film Philomena is based upon.
Anyhow...lists. Not everyone loves lists. Had a friend once who bemoaned them as a guy thing (they aren't, women do lists too), or a geek thing (again, not, there are non-geek's who are into list making). Personally, I like lists. I make them for basically everything. At work, I list all the things I'm working on. Online I list favorite movies, tv shows, etc. The only thing I suck at in regards to list making is well - shopping lists. I'll make a shopping list and then forget I did it or leave it at home. Which sort of foils the whole point of making the shopping list - doesn't it? I also suck at keeping track of tv shows, movies, and books that I've watched, read, or own. And, I'm not great at personal financial tracking - maybe because I track financial stuff at work - and don't want to deal with it outside work?
With all of that in mind, below are some cultural related lists or fannish lists.
10 Favorite Movies (I'll underline the ones that featured or starred female characters, just to be spicy)
1. Moonstruck - interesting film about an older and single Brooklyn woman who finds love with a much younger man...although there's more going on than that. Stars Cher and Nicolas Cage. Cher won an award for it. And she never sings.
2. Prizzi's Honor stars Kathleen Turner and Jack Nicholson as mob hitmen. Something goes awry and Nicholson's loyalties are tested when he is ordered to kill Kathleen Turner.
Guest-stars, Angelica Huston, in one of her better roles. Hilarious in places.
3. Aliens - yes, everyone likes the Ridely Scott film, Alien, but I couldn't make it through it. Too scary. I liked James Cameron's better - for the kick ass female roles, and
the humor.
4. Jaws - possibly amongst the best horror films that I've seen, because it is more of a character drama than a horror film. And focuses on a sheriff on a small island who is afraid of the water, and his relationship with a marine biologist, and an cynical shark fisherman.
5. The Wild Bunch - which is a Sam Peckinpah Western that comments on the Western genre and the trope perhaps better than anything else has before or since. Some say it created the modern western or at least changed the trope forever. I adore it, because once again it focuses on characters, rich and deftly acted by a diverse cast.
6. His Girl Friday - Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell, and the best of the film versions based on The Front Page. (Although I also adored Broadcast News, just not as much.)
It's about a top notch crime reporter trying to choose between her career and her fiance, with her ex, who also happens to be her editor doing everything in his power to make her choose her career, all the while a man's life hangs in the balance. Hilarious black comedy.
7. Blade Runner - starred Harrison Ford, Edward James Olmus, Darrly Hannah, Scean Young, and Rutger Hauer. Favorite sci-fi film. It's based on a Phillip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?, but is so much better than the book.
8. Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean, starring Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif. Just the cinematography alone. But it is also a complex character study and political study of the Middle East.
9. Singing in the Rain - always guaranteed to put a smile on your face. A deft satire of Hollywood, wrapped in fluffy musical bow...starring Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly.
10. The Empire Strikes Back - starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamil, and Carrie Fisher, the best of the Star Wars films, and amongst the best sci-fi adventure flicks. It's the middle movie, and yet works on its own.
10 TV Shows That Look Promising in 2014
* Legends (TNT, Summer)- a sort of Bourne Identity flick - starring Scean Bean, and based on a novel by Robert Little about an agent for FBI's Deep Cover Operations Division, who makes the unsettling discovery that he may not be who he is.
* Tyrant (FX, Summer) - about the son of a Middle Eastern dictator who returns with his family to his homeland after 20 years of self-imposed exile in the US.
* Turn (AMC, Spring) - A historical thriller that explores the origins of tradecraft during the Revolutionary War, with Jamie Bell playing a farmer who helps establish America's first spy ring. This is based on the Alexander Rose book, Washington's Spies.
* Outlander (Summer, Starz) - based on Diana Gabaldon's time-traveling romantic fantasy historicals - about a married 1940s battlefield nurse who is transported to the 18th Century and falls in love with a hunky warrior. The show-runner is Ron Moore, who is hopefully better here than he is with Helix.
* Wayward Pines (Summer, Fox) - M. Night Shyamalan decides to do television with a Twin Peaksesque series, starring Matt Dillon, Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo and Terrence Howard.
It's a 10 episode mini-series that follows a Secret Service Agent who lands in the bucolic and vaguely creepy tow of Wayward Pines, Idaho, only to discover things are not as they appear.
* The Leftovers (Summer, HBO) - this is created by Damon Lindelof of Lost fame and Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), and is an adaptation of Tom Perotta's best seller about people who remain on earth following a Rapture-like event (called the Departure). It's basically the kid of Friday Night Light's and Lost.
* Penny Dreadful ( Spring, Showtime) - This horror drama posits that Victorian London was one helluva town, in which characters from classic novels like Frankenstein and Dracula crossed paths with each other - and with an American sharpshooter and a mysterious woman battling her own demons. Creator is the guy behind Skyfall.
The movies and books - listed in EW, regrettably, look far less interesting.
Anyhow...lists. Not everyone loves lists. Had a friend once who bemoaned them as a guy thing (they aren't, women do lists too), or a geek thing (again, not, there are non-geek's who are into list making). Personally, I like lists. I make them for basically everything. At work, I list all the things I'm working on. Online I list favorite movies, tv shows, etc. The only thing I suck at in regards to list making is well - shopping lists. I'll make a shopping list and then forget I did it or leave it at home. Which sort of foils the whole point of making the shopping list - doesn't it? I also suck at keeping track of tv shows, movies, and books that I've watched, read, or own. And, I'm not great at personal financial tracking - maybe because I track financial stuff at work - and don't want to deal with it outside work?
With all of that in mind, below are some cultural related lists or fannish lists.
10 Favorite Movies (I'll underline the ones that featured or starred female characters, just to be spicy)
1. Moonstruck - interesting film about an older and single Brooklyn woman who finds love with a much younger man...although there's more going on than that. Stars Cher and Nicolas Cage. Cher won an award for it. And she never sings.
2. Prizzi's Honor stars Kathleen Turner and Jack Nicholson as mob hitmen. Something goes awry and Nicholson's loyalties are tested when he is ordered to kill Kathleen Turner.
Guest-stars, Angelica Huston, in one of her better roles. Hilarious in places.
3. Aliens - yes, everyone likes the Ridely Scott film, Alien, but I couldn't make it through it. Too scary. I liked James Cameron's better - for the kick ass female roles, and
the humor.
4. Jaws - possibly amongst the best horror films that I've seen, because it is more of a character drama than a horror film. And focuses on a sheriff on a small island who is afraid of the water, and his relationship with a marine biologist, and an cynical shark fisherman.
5. The Wild Bunch - which is a Sam Peckinpah Western that comments on the Western genre and the trope perhaps better than anything else has before or since. Some say it created the modern western or at least changed the trope forever. I adore it, because once again it focuses on characters, rich and deftly acted by a diverse cast.
6. His Girl Friday - Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell, and the best of the film versions based on The Front Page. (Although I also adored Broadcast News, just not as much.)
It's about a top notch crime reporter trying to choose between her career and her fiance, with her ex, who also happens to be her editor doing everything in his power to make her choose her career, all the while a man's life hangs in the balance. Hilarious black comedy.
7. Blade Runner - starred Harrison Ford, Edward James Olmus, Darrly Hannah, Scean Young, and Rutger Hauer. Favorite sci-fi film. It's based on a Phillip K. Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?, but is so much better than the book.
8. Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean, starring Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif. Just the cinematography alone. But it is also a complex character study and political study of the Middle East.
9. Singing in the Rain - always guaranteed to put a smile on your face. A deft satire of Hollywood, wrapped in fluffy musical bow...starring Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly.
10. The Empire Strikes Back - starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamil, and Carrie Fisher, the best of the Star Wars films, and amongst the best sci-fi adventure flicks. It's the middle movie, and yet works on its own.
10 TV Shows That Look Promising in 2014
* Legends (TNT, Summer)- a sort of Bourne Identity flick - starring Scean Bean, and based on a novel by Robert Little about an agent for FBI's Deep Cover Operations Division, who makes the unsettling discovery that he may not be who he is.
* Tyrant (FX, Summer) - about the son of a Middle Eastern dictator who returns with his family to his homeland after 20 years of self-imposed exile in the US.
* Turn (AMC, Spring) - A historical thriller that explores the origins of tradecraft during the Revolutionary War, with Jamie Bell playing a farmer who helps establish America's first spy ring. This is based on the Alexander Rose book, Washington's Spies.
* Outlander (Summer, Starz) - based on Diana Gabaldon's time-traveling romantic fantasy historicals - about a married 1940s battlefield nurse who is transported to the 18th Century and falls in love with a hunky warrior. The show-runner is Ron Moore, who is hopefully better here than he is with Helix.
* Wayward Pines (Summer, Fox) - M. Night Shyamalan decides to do television with a Twin Peaksesque series, starring Matt Dillon, Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo and Terrence Howard.
It's a 10 episode mini-series that follows a Secret Service Agent who lands in the bucolic and vaguely creepy tow of Wayward Pines, Idaho, only to discover things are not as they appear.
* The Leftovers (Summer, HBO) - this is created by Damon Lindelof of Lost fame and Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), and is an adaptation of Tom Perotta's best seller about people who remain on earth following a Rapture-like event (called the Departure). It's basically the kid of Friday Night Light's and Lost.
* Penny Dreadful ( Spring, Showtime) - This horror drama posits that Victorian London was one helluva town, in which characters from classic novels like Frankenstein and Dracula crossed paths with each other - and with an American sharpshooter and a mysterious woman battling her own demons. Creator is the guy behind Skyfall.
The movies and books - listed in EW, regrettably, look far less interesting.
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 01:47 am (UTC)Have admittedly felt that way about more than one movie in my life time. The most recent was...I think The Departed, although it might have been Lost in Translation - yes definitely Lost in Translation - I kept going to sleep during it and had to rewind. Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing also had that effect on me. As did Citizen Kane - a beloved flick of film scholars, but deathly dull in my opinion.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 03:56 pm (UTC)Casablanca (clear favorite; nothing else is close)
Princess Bride
Annie Hall
To Have and Have Not
I'd have to think about it to get to 10.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 01:44 am (UTC)I don't tend to like to watch movies over and over again, and the ones that I do - often aren't that good, they are just guilty pleasures such as You've Got Mail or Ladyhawk or Tremors.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 01:49 am (UTC)