Archive for April, 2006

102 movies you must see to be cinema literate

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

Saw this list on the Roger Ebert’s site. It’s not supposed to be a list of the best movies, or anyone’s favorite movies, just the 102 you should see in order to talk about movies. Turns out of I’ve seen 80 out of 102. This is pretty almost entirely due to my father’s tutelage. Heck I was probably dragged kicking and screaming into at least 20 of those movies! But I appreciate having seen them (ok, I could have done without Breathless and I may have seen Rules of the Game but supressed the memory). Thanks, Dad.

What do you think, cinema-philes? Anything missing (Hello? Star Wars?) Are there any that i missed that I MUST see? Do you have any favorites from the list?

I marked the ones I’ve seen with a *

* 2001: A Space Odyssey
The 400 Blows
* 8 1/2
* Aguirre, the Wrath of God
* Alien
* All About Eve
* Annie Hall
* Apocalypse Now
* Bambi
* The Battleship Potemkin
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
* The Bicycle Thief
* The Big Sleep
* Blade Runner
* Blowup
* Blue Velvet
* Bonnie and Clyde
* Breathless
* Bringing Up Baby
* Carrie
* Casablanca
* Un Chien Andalou
* Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
* Chinatown
Citizen Kane
* A Clockwork Orange
* The Crying Game
* The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
* Do the Right Thing
* La Dolce Vita
* Double Indemnity
* Dr. Strangelove
* Duck Soup
* E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial
* Easy Rider
* The Empire Strikes Back
* The Exorcist
* Fargo
* Fight Club
* Frankenstein
* The General
* The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
* Gone With the Wind
* GoodFellas
* The Graduate
* Halloween
* A Hard Day’s Night
Intolerance
It’s a Gift
* It’s a Wonderful Life
* Jaws
* The Lady Eve
* Lawrence of Arabia
M
* Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
* The Maltese Falcon
* The Manchurian Candidate
Metropolis
* Modern Times
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
* Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
* Night of the Living Dead
* North by Northwest
* Nosferatu
On the Waterfront
* Once Upon a Time in the West
* Out of the Past
Persona
* Pink Flamingos
* Psycho
* Pulp Fiction
* Rashomon
* Rear Window
* Rebel Without a Cause
Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
* Scarface
The Scarlet Empress
* Schindler’s List
The Searchers
* The Seven Samurai
* Singin’ in the Rain
* Some Like It Hot
A Star Is Born
* A Streetcar Named Desire
* Sunset Boulevard
* Taxi Driver
* The Third Man
* Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil
* The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
* Trouble in Paradise
* Vertigo
* West Side Story
* The Wild Bunch
* The Wizard of Oz

Hockey Cock

Monday, April 17th, 2006

Nathan named this goose “Hockey Cock” (no comment). He begged for food and we gave it, which attracted a mallard, a squirrel, a sparrow, a starling a couple more geese, and alternating delight and derision from the humans passing by.

Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 16th, 2006

The start of a long day of Easter fun.More photos.

Today’s funnies

Thursday, April 13th, 2006

I don’t have any new photos today but I have a couple of funny things to share since it has been a while.

When we were at Carberry’s bakery today and Nathan was enjoying his Grandmother’s Biscuit he said to me, “This is sugary. I want something healthy for me at Carberry’s.” Yeah right. I knew he wouldn’t eat anything healthy from Carberry’s but I bought him a banana anyway. Now we have a banana with a bite taken out of it.

After Carberry’s we went to the doctor. We had a bit of a wait in the exam room before the doctor came in and most of the visit was me talking to the doctor. Nathan got pretty bored with the single hard plastic dinosaur available brefore the doctor even came in. This was a new to us doctor so I hoped Nathan would make a fairly good first impression. He did amazingly well and was quite charming until he said, “I’m all done with this doctor thing!” That ended the appointment pretty quickly.

A pricey day at the Aquarium

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

Last week Ben picked up reduced priced tickets to the aquarium for us. Unfortunately I seem to have lost them on the way there today though I really don’t know how it could have happened. I debated not going in since Nathan wanted to go mostly in order to take the Blue Line and we had already done that by the time I discovered the missing tickets. But he did have a list of things he wanted to see there like the octopus and the jellyfish (which are now called jellies by the way) and I wasn’t up for a scene. So it ended up being a very expensive visit given the very expensive normal ticket price combined with the reasonable discount ticket price. Oh well, it was a cold dreary day and we had nothing else planned.

Once we got inside Nathan quickly peeked at the jellies and octopus but repeatedly returned to the tidal pool area to hold the hermit crabs and starfish (now called sea stars by the way). I learned something new while Nathan tormented the really big hermit crab which is that the tail on a horseshoe crab is used only for turning itself over should it wind up upside down. All those years at the Long Island Sound fearing that I’d be whipped by a horseshoe crab if I got too close…

East Hill Farm

Sunday, April 2nd, 2006

We spent the weekend at East Hill Farm in Troy, NH (which we heard about from Molly). It’s like a farm/resort - all meals are included, there are activities through out the day, there’s an indoor swimming pool - very kid-focussed. And of course you can wander around interacting with ducks, chickens, guinea fowl, bunnies, sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys, cows and horses.

Nathan cried when we left. He spent much of the ride home making us promise that we would bring him back again. And we will, I’m imagining a big trip with friends coming along.

See the full photo collection on Flickr