AFI Top 100: Swing Time (#90 in 2007; not listed in 1998)

Not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy or anything, but I'm so happy to be watching a movie that doesn't have lots of blood and cursing. What a joy!


This particular film won an Academy Award for best original song (The Way You Look Tonight) and many say it's the best Astaire-Rogers film (although there's a common perception that the plot needs improvement). It's funny to me that Lucky initially sings this beautiful song to Penny while she's washing her hair, a clichéd excuse women gave for not going out. (Yes, Lucky and Penny...)


Much of the film is centered around their performances at a club mysteriously called the Silver Sandal. I wish I'd been able to go out for dinner and see entertainment like this. What an experience that must have been! It makes me wonder how they can afford it though. Cover charge? Overpriced entrees? Sixteen drink minimum?


Some of the performances were less romantic than the above. For instance:

(so many feelings)
I mean, he's so talented. It's really unbelievable. And how did they even do this? I mean, I read how they did it but I just don't see how it's possible. It's so impressive. And yet... blackface. What a weird thing blackface was. Some people even said blackface was a way for whites to pay homage to African-American culture. I can't even. But my god, he's just so talented!

And perhaps the pièce de résistance:


Now, I'm not trying to talk smack, but I will say that the three minutes of film above, if Wikipedia is to be believed, were the result of 47 takes in one day, and that Ginger Rogers' feet were bruised and bleeding by the end of it. And you thought Goodfellas were tough.

Update 4: 400 B4 40

Whew! So it's been a while. Lots happened, including my awesome trip to SF, which I will write about later. In the meantime, though, here's an update on what I've been doing.

Forty Playlists:

I'm falling behind on these because they are really hard! I'm almost done with 1987-1990, which will bring me right into adolescence and grunge music, so that should be a breeze, right?!?!

Year 0: 1977
Year 1: 1978
Year 2: 1979
Year 3: 1980
Year 4: 1981
Year 5: 1982
Year 6: 1983
Year 7: 1984
Year 8: 1985
Year 9: 1986

Forty-ish Films:

1 (100): Ben-Hur
2 (99): Toy Story
3 (98): Yankee Doodle Dandy
4 (97): The Last Picture Show
5 (96): Do the Right Thing
6 (95): The Last Picture Show
7 (94): Pulp Fiction
8 (93): The French Connection
9 (92): Goodfellas

Forty Defining Experiences:

I have created a list of 21 experiences so far!

Forty Chores:

1 - repair paint on carl
2 - get NC license plate
3 - get ivy from trees
4 - remove dead weeds from walkway [I feel like I've done this a million times and they keep coming back. I think that's the nature of weeds, which makes me wonder if I should take this off the list...]
5 - trim azalea
6 - file all paperwork
7 - update blog background
8 - replace filter on cat fountain
9 - do something about the doors
10 - plant something?
11 - get a new passport (need to wait until after July)
12 - go to the eye doctor
13 - go to the lady doctor
14 - go to the dentist
15 - go to the dermatologist?
16 - find a real doctor
17 - cancel Foreign Affairs subscription
18 - update address at SFFCU and get new debit card
19 - hang plants from ceiling
20 - hang intentions board
21 - edit video footage of Louis from 2015
22 - edit video footage of Collin from 2016
23 - edit video footage of Devon from 2017
24 - renew library books and return books that can't be renewed anymore
25 - fix slow draining shower!!!
26 - Write May Minimalism Challenge blog entry
27 - edit video footage of Greer's wedding from 2017
28 - finish year 1 (SF) photo book! :-)
29 - photobook for Greer!
30 - take donations away from the house!
31 - oil change for Carl
32 - curtains for the bathroom
33 - make shed lockable

Forty Unbroken Chains:

I have been steadily accumulating stuff and feel certain I will be able to accumulate more.

Forty Letters:

Honestly I'm reconsidering writing these. I'll think about it more and if I change my mind I will explain why.

Forty Acts of Self-Love:

1 - 14 - I started doing Richard Hittleman's Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan. I'm on day 14, so I'm counting it as 14. :-)
15 - another sweet half hour in the massage chair while Collin got another haircut
16 - visited some of my wonderful friends in SF
17 - mani-pedi in SF!
18 - shiatsu massage with communal bathing at Kabuki Springs & Spa, which should really count as 50 self-care acts because it was so amazing and I'm so glad I didn't find it when we lived in SF or I would have spent all of my money there, which actually may not have been such a bad thing come to think of it :-)
19 - signed up for regular facials
20 - massage and facial at Massage Envy
21 - lots of foot soaking!
22 - facial steam
23 - haircut
24 - rainbow mani-pedi
25 - massage chair at Collin's haircut
26 - lying out in the sun on the porch reading Borne

Forty Job Applications:

I am currently working part-time as a companion and just finished my application to be a Lyft driver. I'm also in talks to finalize another part-time job opportunity, so I'm feeling slightly optimistic. I'm very thankful for the opportunity I've had to really focus on finding work that makes me happy, while also taking some time to get settled into our new life in Durham. I'm ready to be at work full-time, though. This gig economy is exhausting for real.

Forty Photos:

1983? (age 6?): I love this photo of me with my dear grandma Helen reading The Value of Understanding: the Story of Margaret Mead, which may have been responsible for me deciding to be a sociologist, not to be dramatic about it or anything...

I gave a print of this to my mom one Mother's Day and this year I got a print for myself too. It's hanging beside my computer screen so I see it whenever I am in my office and often look at it when I take my "space-out breaks" (not sure what they are actually called but I'm sure you know what I mean). It's very special to me.

Forty Haiku:

Five:

my motto of late:
suck it up and suck it in!
(not sure it's helping)

Six:

seagulls gathering -
in the twilight they sort through
abandoned memories.

AFI Top 100: Goodfellas (#92 in 2007; #94 in 1998)

Goodfellas was a movie that I had seen long ago and rewatched. As I remembered, it's super good but it's really violent. This movie came out in 1990, four years before Pulp Fiction (and two years before Reservoir Dogs). It made me realize that it's difficult for me to imagine a cinematic world before Quentin Tarantino. Movies now are more violent (no more bright red

I actually read they cut out some of the bloody shots from one of the post-Lufthansa murders, which is hard to imagine when I watched the scene. It's hard to imagine more blood, and how much blood does one scene need anyway? And also, was that really a lot of blood? Who can even tell anymore? #thanksquentin


Roger Ebert pointed out in his original review of the film is that Goodfellas is largely about guilt. However, it is more complex than typical films about guilt "in which good is established and guilt is the appropriate reaction toward evil. No, the hero of this film feels guilty for not upholding the Mafia code - guilty of the sin of betrayal. And his punishment is banishment, into the witness protection program, where nobody has a name and the headwaiter certainly doesn't know it." In fact, "the real guilt, the guilt a Catholic like Scorsese understands intimately - is not that they did sinful things, but that they want to do them again" (source).

In a later review, Ebert explains the way that Scorsese uses the tools in his filmmaking tool chest to allow us to see from Henry Hill's perspective why the "Goodfella" life was so appealing and the break from it so difficult.

Three groundbreaking minutes of film.

In the most famous shot in the movie, [Henry] takes his future wife [Karen] to the Copacabana nightclub. There’s a line in front, but he escorts her across the street, down stairs and service corridors, through the kitchen area, and out into the showroom just as their table is being placed right in front of the stage. This unbroken shot, which lasts 184 seconds, is not simply a cameraman’s stunt, but an inspired way to show how the whole world seems to unfold effortlessly before young Henry Hill.

At first the mob seems like an opening-up of his life, but later, after he starts selling drugs, there is a claustrophobic closing-in. The camera style in the earlier scenes celebrates his power and influence with expansive ease. At the end, in a frantic sequence concentrated in a single day, the style becomes hurried and choppy as he races frantically around the neighborhood on family and criminal missions while a helicopter always seems to hover overhead.
...

A very different 3 minutes of film for a very different point in this goodfella's life.

It is an indictment of organized crime, but it doesn't stand outside in a superior moralistic position. It explains crime’s appeal for a hungry young man who has learned from childhood beatings not to hate power, but to envy it. When Henry Hill talks to us at the opening of the film, he sounds like a kid in love: “To me, it meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played cards all night, nobody ever called the cops.”

The thing that concerns me about this and films like Pulp Fiction is the way they celebrate a zero-sum version of masculinity, and one that is relatively celebratory of violence.

Even when revealing the unfortunate brutality of the lifestyle, the violence is made to seem like, at best an unfortunate way to get what a man wants or is owed, and at worst a way to bond with fellow men and prove oneself worthy of respect.

Unfortunately I have to kill you because you owe me money.

See how it tears me up inside? 

See how we're bonding now that you picked a side and it was our side?
It alarms me that young men seem drawn to this version of masculinity, which is, ironically, a very weak and fragile masculinity, dependent as it is on the subjugation of others rather than the lifting up of oneself.

Nevertheless, this is part of the definition of masculinity inspiring and teaching our young men, and training and desensitising our young women.

Example one: GoodBros
The worst part is that apparently many of them won't grow out of it. What would our future look like with men like this in charge? Oh actually I know this one:

Example two: GoodPres

AFI Top 100: The French Connection (#93 in 2007; #70 in 1998)

This was another film that I hadn't yet seen, which I really enjoyed. Apparently lots of people really enjoyed it when it came out, too (1971); it won Best Picture, Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

It was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Roy Scheider, who was awesome but lost to Ben Johnson in the Last Picture Show), Best Cinematography (French Connection and Last Picture Show lost to Fiddler on the Roof, so that must have been fantastic), and Best Sound Mixing (lost to Fiddler on the Roof again - I guess I'll add it to my list).

So about the French Connection. One thing I'm curious about is why it dropped from #70 to #93 on the list. I could make a guess but it would certainly be wrong. I wish they published a "Reasons Why" essay for these films, but I couldn't find one. As a teacher who had to objectively-subjectively grade large numbers of essays at one time, I could again make a guess, but again, it might be wrong. (I would feel more confident about the reasoning though but I'm still going to hold off on including it.) Moving on, though:

The first term that comes to mind about this film is "fast-paced" and the fast pacing starts at the very beginning, with some very dramatic music played over a minimal number of title cards racing onto a black screen and then off again.

After the title cards, the film opens with us being dropped off in Marseilles, in a very disorienting sequence that introduces us to the actual French Connection, the head of a French syndicate (and his Lincoln Continental). After we see the French detective following him being murdered, we are brought to Brooklyn, where Santa Claus and a street vendor chase down and violently apprehend a bartender involved in a heroin deal.

The entire film is fast-paced, with many of the scenes taking place in moving cars or while walking, windshield wipers and cars moving in background. The cinematography also contributes to this kinetic energy, often switching from close ups to crowd shots. This really makes the scenes of stillness eerie and dramatic.

The film is known for its frenetic car chase scene, and as others have pointed out, the entire film plays like one long chase scene. Someone is always following someone on foot or vehicle (car, train, etc) or at the very least tracking someone down or staking someone out. Several scenes end with a cut to someone watching, which really heightens the tension; I always expected someone to be watching or something coming, even in scenes of stillness and apparent calm (there weren't many of those though).

The detectives who were actually on the case were also actually on set much of the time, and able to give feedback when appropriate. (One of them, Eddie Egan, played their boss in the film!) In the director's commentary, William Friedkin explains that the film is an "impression" of the case that inspired it, in that the facts of the case were not as important as the feelings or sense of the case. The feeling is what the detectives on set were helping recreate, although many facts of the case were changed (such as the number of agencies involved). This was an especially interesting choice because he had experience with documentary filmmaking and copied that style with handheld cameras, real settings, and natural lighting. 

He was inspired by the "documentary realness" of French New Wave cinema, mentioning Godard's Breathless and Costa-Gravas' Z specifically. I saw Breathless years ago during my French New Wave phase. It wasn't my favorite - Alphaville made more of an impression at the time - but I loved it.

I guess I have to add Z to my list of films as well. I'm starting to think I won't finish by my birthday.

Playlist! YEAR 9: 1986

My parents got remarried this year! To different people obv. But still, a big deal. This photo is from my mom and stepdad's wedding. I'm in the blue dress below:

They got married at the place where Richard lived at the time - a house out in the country with a lake on the property, where we used to go swimming. I have random memories of 1) watching a documentary about manta rays and 2) listening to The Chipmunks sing Witch Doctor. This is where I first got to know my stepsister Angel (in pink) and my stepbrother Eric (not pictured). Good times. Followed shortly by 1987, which was memorable for a different reason.

Anyway, I'm not including the Chipmunks in the playlist, which I'm sure you'll be glad to see, but I am including it here, and dedicating it to my mom and stepdad, who this year celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary. :-)



Link / Year 9: 1986*

Track Listing:

I Know What I Know - Paul Simon
Venus - Bananarama
La Isla Bonita - Madonna
Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Your Love - The Outfield
True Colors - Cyndi Lauper
Take My Breath Away - Berlin
Control - Janet Jackson
Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
I Can't Wait - Nu Shooz
Who's Johnny - El DeBarge
Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House
These Dreams - Heart
Glory of Love - Peter Cetera
Tonight She Comes - The Cars
If You Leave - OMD
Your Wildest Dreams - The Moody Blues
Life in a Northern Town - The Dream Academy
Alone Again Or - The Damned
Girls - Beastie Boys
Conga - Miami Sound Machine
Kiss - Prince & The Revolution
The Divided Sky - Phish
Eric B. Is President - Eric B. & Rakim


*By the way, you may have to have a subscription to Apple Music to listen to this. You will almost certainly need iTunes and an Apple ID. If you'd rather I make you an actual mixtape, just remember that it's 2017 not 1977.

thanks xoxo

Playlist! YEAR 8: 1985

Enjoy!

[These playlists are very much subject to change, by the way.]

Link / Year 8: 1985*

Track Listing:

All Through the Night - Cyndi Lauper
And She Was - Talking Heads
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Broken Wings - Mr. Mister
I Want to Know What Love Is - Foreigner
You're the Inspiration - Chicago
Raspberry Beret - Prince & The Revolution
Axel F - Harold Faltermeyer
Take the Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven
Don't Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Things Can Only Get Better - Howard Jones
Take On Me - a-ha
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
Forever Young - Alphaville
I'm Sticking With  You - The Velvet Underground
I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day - The Pogues
I'm On Fire - Bruce Springsteen
One More Night - Phil Collins
What About Love? - Heart
We Belong - Pat Benatar
All She Wants to Do Is Dance - Don Henley
Money for Nothing - Dire Straits
Material Girl - Madonna
How Will I Know - Whitney Houston
Fat Boys Are Back - Fat Boys


*By the way, you may have to have a subscription to Apple Music to listen to this. You will almost certainly need iTunes and an Apple ID. If you'd rather I make you an actual mixtape, just remember that it's 2017 not 1977.

thanks xoxo