100 Guy Movies

Poking around a bit online, some classmates of mine found a couple different versions of a list of the top 100 movies every guy should see.  There are a lot of them floating about. Here's a link to one of the inspiring sites.

The problem with lists like these is that they are always, inherently wrong. Every guy is going to come up with opposing criteria as to what should make the list.  Three of my guy friends took it upon themselves to make their own list.  They didn't stray too heavily into any one genre (unless you count Action, but that's sort of a qualifying trait in this list), unlike the other lists that favored westerns and war movies.  Their ages are 23, 26, and 28, giving the list a distinctly Millenial flavor. However, any movie less than ten years old was moved down the list since its staying power is unknown.

The list of movies (around 140) was complied on post-its, then categorized into quarters.  36 movies were placed into the top quarter.  Some were later shuffled around as detailed organizing commenced. Other movies were remembered as they worked. All this was done without reference to imdb or other existing lists, except what could be remembered from the previous perusal.  So, naturally there are notably missing movies. That said, if its a movie every guy must see, it should be memorable.

Without further ado: The Highly Opinionated, Largely Inaccurate, Nearly Unresearched List of Movies Every* Guy Should See:

*Unless a guy has more rigorous standards of taste or morals that would exclude the viewing of many of the movies listed here. The author of this blog does not endorse the viewing of any particular movie on the list and cannot recommend more than the 23 she has personally seen.

1. Fight Club
2. Boondock Saints
3. Saving Private Ryan
4. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
5. Braveheart
6. The Shawshank Redemption
7. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
8. The Great Escape
9. Snatch
10. Ghostbusters
11. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
12. Die Hard
13. Field of Dreams
14. Goldfinger
15. Taxi Driver
16. Rudy
17. Gladiator
18. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
19. Star Wars
20. Wayne's World
21. Clockwork Orange
22. The Sandlot
23. The Matrix
24. The Godfather
25. Jackass
26. Goodfellas
27. The Big Lebowski
28. Back to the Future
29. Caddy Shack
30. The Lord of the Rings (yes, all as one movie)
31. Evil Dead (all as one, as well)
32. 300
33. National Lampoon's Animal House
34. Highlander
36. Jerry Maguire
37. Top Gun
38. Dirty Harry
39. Raiders of the Lost Ark
40. Rocky
41. Blazing Saddles
42. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
43. The Godfather: Part II
44. Full Metal Jacket
45. Pulp Fiction
46. Terminator 2
47. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
48. Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi
49. The Hangover
50. Enemy at the Gates
51. Kill Bill: Vols. 1&2
52. Gangs of New York
53. American Psycho
54. Jurassic Park
55. Young Frankenstein
56. Reservoir Dogs
57. Thank You For Smoking
58. Jaws
59. Gran Torino
60. Rain Man
61. Inglourious Basterds
62. Duck Soup
63. The Departed
64. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
65. GoldenEye
66. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
67. The Silence of the Lambs
68. Se7en
69. Clerks
70. Old Boy
71. Blade Runner
72. Scarface
73. American History X
74. Mad Max
75. Airplane!
76. The Dark Knight
77. The Blues Brothers
78. Gone in 60 Seconds
79. Cool Hand Luke
80. Ocean's Eleven
81. The Usual Suspects
82. Stand By Me
83. Watchmen
84. The Right Stuff
85. The Ghost and the Darkness
86. Sin City
87. Casino Royale
88. Maverick
89. Batman
90. Slap Shot
91. Rambo
92. Collateral
93. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
94. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
95. American Pie
96. The Patriot
97. Iron Man
98. Air Force One
99. BASEketball
100. Porky's

Susurrous Cessation

The pseudo-sun sinks slowly into obscurity
whilst she sheds crocodile tears
for her most unbeloved lover
whose visage was less sanguine
subsequent to his exsanguination—
leaving his spurious mistress,
still standing, to consider
the sibliance
as his last inspiration
became expiration—
now having elapsed
she discharges herself of her consort
already severed
from several more substantial parts.

Book Review: Fast, Fresh & Green

Ok, so everyone one knows cookbooks typically aren't good reads.  You skim for recipe ideas or, if you're ambitious like me, flavor and ingredient combos.   Few cookbooks it seems are designed to teach cooking, and the ones that are are still dry.  Moreover, 90% of all recipes found in cookbooks are too complicated for the working person OR you simply don't care for enough of the particular ingredients to make it worth your time.  After all, most of us don't entertain on a weekly or even monthly basis.  Then there's the fact that chefs usually care more about taste than health when coming up with recipes.  If you want to see an example of this sort of typical overblown for the average homecook book, check out the Food&Wine annual cookbook.  Now, I certainly like my copy of the afore mentioned book (2010).  But I like simply reading recipes to learn how ingredients can go together.  But if you are looking for help to eat healthy, tasty meals, I only ever give one recommendation: Fast, Fresh & Green.  I have a few cookbooks, recipe collections (more informal, self-published binders, usually gifts) and an herb and spice guide.  I try to limit what I own to what I plan on reading and using.  But my mainstay is FF&G.

Fast, Fresh & Green: More Than 90 Delicious Recipes for Veggie Lovers is first and foremost a book about vegetables— buying, storing, flavoring, cooking, and serving.  The first 2 chapters are dedicated to types of ingredients you'll need and how to shop for and store them.  After that the book is divided by cooking method. This is the real genius of FF&G for me.  Instead of a chapter on all the ways to use avocado, there is a chapter on how stirfry, saute (2 actually), braise, roast, etc.  The handy index in the back can help you locate specific ingredients, but the table at the beginning of each chapter is the best place to start.

Each chapter (after the first 2) has its own table of contents.  Then is a quick discussion of the cooking method employed.  Following that is a table of a variety of vegetables that work well for that method, how to prep them, and cooking times.  The first recipe of every chapter is a "foundation" recipe that allows you to take any vegetable or vegetables from the table and prepare them using the most basic form of the cooking method.  Sounds a lot like learning to cook!  And all of the recipes, including the foundation recipe, have a paragraph before the recipe for quick tips and what to expect as you are cooking.  No bare bones instructions that inevitably seem to leave out a step somehow.  Most of the suggestions encourage substitutions and creativity.  Susie Middleton's casual style makes this a very readable book.  She is writing to you, the reader, telling you her favorite ways to make healthy vegetable dishes quickly and easily.

Some general information:  The cooktime for all recipes is between 20-40 minutes, with the exception of the last chapter (Gratins) which run around an hour.  So, no soups or dry bean dishes.  Boiling (except as part of a "Two-stepping" method), blanching and steaming are not methods in this book.  Most/all of the recipes can be altered to be vegetarian/vegan, but that is not the primary aim of the book.

My favorite recipes (so far!) are the foundation recipe for quick-braising with brussels sprouts (pp 58-59) and Sauteed Broccoli with Mellow Garlic and Thyme (p 105).  

Daisy

The wind in my face.  With my eyes closed it’s almost as if things had never changed.  The sun is warm; the air feels bright.  I lock the front door and walk in the direction of the bus stop.  Leaves crinkle and crunch, stirring up the smell of early fall.  Mailbox.  Sidewalk.  I’ve stopped wondering why the neighbor’s dog barks at everything, he has become just another landmark.  Stop sign. Lamppost.  Bus stop. The bus door opens with a wheezing sigh.  The driver greets me warmly, his voice deep and syrupy.  I sit close to the front and try to guess where each passenger is headed as they get on.  An unwashed man, silent except for the flap of worn out sneakers heads to the back of the bus. Laborers in heavy shoes and plastic windbreakers.  A working mother and her son, whose stage whispers entertain me while I count the stops.  At my stop I pause with the traffic at my back, picturing a map in my head.  Another block, a crosswalk, a door.  Inside, the AC clicks on inspite of the balmy weather outside. I pad down the carpeted halls to a room.  At the end of the room, a piano.  I sit and play, no longer worried with what I sense, simply wrapped in feeling.  In my music I can see. I can recall blue skies; red and yellow leaves; neon lights; gray, misty mornings.  Sunsets, paintings of sunsets.  I’m crying.  I get up and count the number of turn to the front door.  The number of steps to the bus stop.  The number of stops home.  The number of days since I saw the sun. 

The Puppy Who Grew Wings

Original concept by Alex Blair

There once was an adorable little puppy—as cute as a fuzzy brown ball of fur could be—with floppy ears, a whippy tail, big brown eyes, and oversized paws.  His name was Puppikins.

Puppikins had one dream—to fly and soar in the clouds.  He would try to fly by jumping off the ottomans and chairs in his master’s house, but he always fell on his floppy ears.  He wished and wished for wings.

One day, he noticed little feathers growing out of his back.  Gradually, his little wings grew and Puppikins tried to fly harder than ever.  Eventually, he could glide a few feet across the room, and soon he learned to use the right muscles to flap his wings.  Now, he could rise up right off the floor.  Everyday his wings grew stronger and he could fly higher.  Puppikins looked forward to the day he would soar up in the clouds.

The time came that he could fly longer and higher than ever before, and he decided that that was the day he would try to reach the clouds.  So, Puppikins gathered his strength and took off.  His joy grew as he flew higher and higher, until—WHAM! —he hit the ceiling fan and was flung back to the floor.  Not to be deterred by set backs when he was so close, Puppikins got back up and tried again, only to be flung back again.  On his third try, he dodged the fan!  Now, he was flying higher than ever.  Soon he would be soaring in the clouds.  Higher and higher—WHACK!  He hit the ceiling and fell to the floor a sadder and wiser dog.  For he remembered—he was an inside dog.

The moral of the story is that if you try hard enough and dream big enough, you can overcome seemingly impossible obstacles only to discover your achievements are useless.  The end.

Author's Note

I've been doing a lot of thinking and my blog is going to reflect that. Previously, I have restricted posts to linguistics and book reviews, with the occasional TV or movie reference.  While I don't mean to abandon that track entirely, I am going to open up to different kinds of posts.  Most notably, original works. The idea behind this blog was to encourage me to write more and I have recently made a resolution to focus more on writing for more public forums.  I will be entering writing contests to see what feedback I get.  And I will be posting some of my work to this blog.  These will still be observations of a literary cynic, but in a more creative form.  Not that my lone reader cares about my content. (Hi, Mom.)

Book Review: Judgment of Paris

I'm a bit of a foodie and, by extension, a bit of an oenophile.  Due to my literary bent, I don't just like to taste food and wine but read about them as well.  I read cook books, food blogs, magazines, and news articles.  Food writing speaks to me, where most other non-fiction doesn't.  So finding a book that combines encyclopedic information about food (or in this case, wine) with narrative drama, and I am hooked.

Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine is a bit Melvillian in its scope.  George M. Taber seeks to set the record straight on what actually happened in Paris on May 24, 1976, but along the way he encompasses the entire history of wine.  He specifically deals with the growth of the French and California wine industries, which involves a great deal of world history, economics, and climatology.  The chapters on 20th century technological advances in winemaking are very technical and at times tedious. Taber is a trained journalist and as such his narratives are gripping and draw the reader in, but his economic break down of wine trade going into the 21st century reads a bit like the Wall Street Journal: Wine Edition.  He is less than economical in his writing and strays into cliches on occasion— How many ways can one say 'from A-Z' before it becomes overly tired and trite?

As an educational book, the narrative gives the reader an impetus to read the less exciting chapters in order to get back to the main story.  As a narrative, readers could skip chapters 2, 3, 10, 17, 18, and 22 to the end.  This is merely a suggestion to anyone who finds the technical nature of the writing inaccessible.  An easier way to selectively read is to stick to chapters about Grgich, Winiarski, and Spurrier.  Alternatively, for a less than accurate portrayal of events, try watching Bottle Shock, a Lifetime-movie-esque representation of the winning Chardonnay winery.

To be clear, this book is no more inaccessible than Moby Dick or Hunchback of Notre Dame, albeit less likely to become a classic.  And with the wine industry in America booming and wineries popping up in every state, remembering the history of those early vintners is important to understanding how American wines are perceived globally.  The technical aspects, while dry, are really to help make wine more accessible to the uninitiated.

I appreciate Taber's attempt to clarify the nature of the tasting and its original goals which were more educational than competitive.  As a native Californian, I derive great satisfaction from the fact that we won.

Tweet in the New Year

Happy New Year!  I got some reading done over my holiday break, and my new year's resolution is to update more than once a month (on average, that is).

In my progression down the line of literature of questionable merit, I've gone from checkout line books and bargain books to clearance books.  The thing about consumerism is, even if it's destined to be a classic, or it is a classic, you can still find some version of it for less than $5 if you're patient.  I found Casablanca in the $5 movie bin at Walmart.  So, don't judge a book by it's price.

Instead, judge it by its reviews.  Most books only publish the most flattering segments of their best reviews on the literal first page or sometimes on the back of the dust jacket.  If the best they have are two word reviews, what you are reading is likely not the best summary of the reviewers thoughts on that book. And then there's the reviews for the book I just finished:

"Do you hear that? It's the sound of Shakespeare, rolling over in his grave." —The Wall Street Journal
"Sincerest apologies to Shakespeare, Stendhal, and Joyce: how were we to know it would come to this?" — Mashable.com
"A move likely to be greeted by book lovers with a mixture of horror and why-didn't-I-think-of-that jealousy." —Chicago Tribune

Well, the last one isn't so bad.  Clearly, this book must have to do with pop-culture and sensationalism.  Which is half right.  If you like the beyond Cliffs Notes, hyper-condensed versions of books and have a passing familiarity with the internet check out..........


......twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less.

Seriously.  And it gets better.  This book was written (presumably on Twitter, but seeing as I don't have an account...) by two college freshmen, Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin.  Not only are they more well-read than you, they are published in a work essentially mocking how much better read they are.  'Cause really, about a dozen of the works included I had never heard of.  Then again, I'm not an English major.

It is possible to use this book to get a feel for what one of the 83 works in the book is about.  However, judging from the ones I have read, don't expect Aciman and Rensin to stick too closely to the plot.  This is after all, meant to be a humorous book.  But if you haven't read a work, don't expect to fully understand the jokes.  Along those lines, it's possible this book could promote reading. Maybe. Nah.

This book breaks all the rules conventions.  The publishing of their bad reviews only kicks off the poking fun at the establishment.  Aciman hails Napoleon as his hero, while Rensin claims a love of all things Nixon.  The book is dedicated to the victims of the Titanic.  And all that before you even get to the introduction.

It's hard to quibble with the inclusion of poetry and plays in their list of great 'books,' but the final entry was surely intended to break their own rules—Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  And, helpfully, there's a glossary at the back for the lingo you may not be familiar with.

Well, I think it's awesome, at least.  And there's a valuable lesson to be learned.  All those plans hatched in your dorm room?  Shoulda followed through. Srsly.