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.
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:
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.
This movie is really good of course. Aside from giving me some really good music for my senior year of high school, the movie was groundbreaking and saved John Travolta (and Bruce Willis) from a downward spiral of Look Who's Talking movies.
What more can I say about Pulp Fiction that hasn't been said by Wikipedia? Nothing really. I did find this video that puts the many plots in chronological order, which was fun:
I'm going to leave this entry at that. I enjoyed watching the film again, and now I want to move on to watching The French Connection! I'm going to SF on Friday, and I'd really like to get one more movie down before I go.
First things first: I'm having a hard time believing that this film wasn't even listed in 1998. What the hell. I'm also having a hard time believing that the film was set in - well, you know:
Ok now that I've gotten that out of the way....
From the start, Blade Runner really captures a mood: the cinematography and soundtrack give performances almost as powerful as the actors. The blu-ray version of the Final Cut of the film is just breathtaking. Totally my favorite [by the way, Warner Brothers is releasing a 4K version of the film in September, ahead of the release of Blade Runner 2049].
So why was it included other than being awesome? I don't know. The awesomeness of this movie is such that no other reasons are necessary if you ask me. But I'll make some guesses.
1) The emphasis on philosophical questions about humanity, like: Can robots have empathy? At what point does AI become "enslaved"? As technology increasingly becomes part of our lives, these questions are coming forward even more. I, for one, have to stop myself from correcting people who don't say please or thank you to Siri or Alexa.
So what would/could make AI "human"? On the flip side of that is the question of what makes a person human. Questions like these were to be raised years later in the epic film The Big Lebowski (Coen, Coen, 1998):
The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?
The Dude: Dude.
The Big Lebowski: Huh?
The Dude: Uhh... I don't know sir.
The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man?
The Dude: Hmmm... Sure, that and a pair of testicles.
2) The successful use of film noir techniques (with the exception of the voiceover, which was notoriously unsuccessful) like chiaroscuro cinematography to create a truly immersive (and eerie) science fiction world:
above: Blade Runner (Scott, 1982)
above: Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
3) The huge cult following it developed, and its influence on cultural objects, often directly stated by producers. For instance, in 2008 Ronald D. Moore and David Eick cited it as a major influence on the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica, it has been listed by several organizations as the best science fiction movie of all times, the Visual Effects Society lists it as the second-most visually influential, and it has been one of the most musically sampled films (sources). It is also listed in the National Film Registry.
4) The extensive use of this movie in classes and academic writing - surely that must count for something. I mean, check it out: there are even "study guides" online (i.e. essay questions to cheat off of, not that I am holding a grudge from when students used to cheat in my classes or anything).
Blade Runner the film has definitely come to be a very influential cultural object. It was based on a book by Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, first published all the way back in 1968 (at which time it was supposed to happen in 1992 LOL). I read the book a few years ago, but it was a bit confusing because it's VERY different from the movie.
Some of the differences are things that don't really matter to me in the long run - Mercerism, his wife, the poor little goat. However, there are things about the book that I wish had been in the film, like the explanation of why Sebastian's building was empty. On the other hand, there are really interesting things that are in the film that aren't in the book: the ambiguousness of Deckard's replicant-ness, for instance. Blade Runner just wouldn't be the same if we all knew one way or another whether he's a human or robot.
One final thing about the movie: it is supposed to take place in 2019. Obviously LA is not really on track to be there by 2019.
I enjoyed this movie, although I wish I hadn't watched the documentary about it. I really think the director is a piece of work, and not in a good way. He gives me the heebie-jeebies. Sorry, but I need to be honest with you.
Anyway, there are a few reasons I think this film was included in the AFI list (the second time):
1) critics say the performances were really amazing - four of the actors were nominated for Academy Awards, and Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won (you go girls!!)
2) it is a slice of life film portraying the way television changed our communities and lifestyles, and the way small towns in the West were changing as people started moving away into bigger cities
3) it launched the careers of several actors and the director
4) it was one of the first movies to not have a score - the music in the film was all songs of the time and interestingly, was always diegetic, coming from car radios, record players, jukeboxes, etc
Overall, I'd say it was good, and I'm glad I saw it. It is definitely a film that will stick with me and I really appreciated the performances of the actors and the some of the choices the director made, such as shooting in black and white to capture the time period, to better convey a mood, and to make use of a greater depth of field (this was a tip he got from his BFF Orson Welles apparently).
One thing that stood out to me was the interactions between the older and younger generations, especially as I find myself reaching that point lately where I'm switching to the other side (NBD I'M OK WITH IT TOTALLY I AM). The younger generation seemed restless, uncertain, trying to find their way making such obvious but sincere and heartfelt mistakes (growing pains). The older generation seemed more reserved, having wisdom that could be shared but that was not always received. "Hey you sweet youngsters, do you want some advice? No? Ok just do your own thing. I'm cool."
It's interesting that the director was only 31 at the time, and in the documentary he talks about hiring the younger generation first, along with the male older generation actor (he had a connection to Western director John Ford so Bogdanovich knew who he wanted from the start); he had more trouble finding the "older women" actors (around 40 = "older women" NBD). He had to ask people for suggestions because he literally had no idea. Like the older generation was literally a second thought, which is how the younger generation seemed to perceive the older generation in the film as well. [The director clearly identified more with the younger generation - he started a relationship with Cybill Shepard who was about 14 at the time (gross, NBD).]
Either way, Bogdanovich ended up with some good people in the end, obviously. Especially Cloris Leachman, who will always be one of my favorite actresses. I hated in the film how Sonny talked about Cybill's character being so much prettier than Cloris' in the context of how well he treated her, like prettiness is the most important characteristic when determining how to treat someone. I guess when you get to be my/our age, you finally understand that prettiness is a fleeting characteristic and not something that should be used to determine how well to treat someone anyway.
**********
P.S. A side benefit to this is learning so much more about filmmaking technique and theory. I actually learned what diegetic sound was from watching Archer (seriously) but now I know more about depth of field too.
I really can't believe I had never seen this movie but I've seen it now and won't forget it. It was really hard to watch at the end. I knew it started as a comedy(-ish) and ended on a darker note but I wasn't really ready to watch Radio Raheem be murdered by the police in front of a crowd of people. The people started chanting "HOWARD BEACH" and I had to look it up but there were several African-American young men beaten to death in NYC all around the same time, and one of the events occurred at Howard Beach. One of the murders happened the year this film was released. The Howard Beach incident was the one that inspired the film in part, with the location in a pizzeria as a clear reference to the actual event (although in that event, the murderers were a group of white teenagers, not the police).
In the Do the Right Thing: 20 Years Later special feature on the DVD, Spike Lee says that NYC has greatly improved since then (this special was filmed in 2009) but watching Radio Raheem die in a chokehold is just too similar to all of these videos of other black men being murdered by police for me to feel like it was a different time.
This Independence Day I just have to wonder if we will ever be able to live in a place where the murder of an uncharged (read: INNOCENT) person by the police is seen as a statistical anomaly or a freak event. If not I just don't see how police departments will ever earn back our trust. I appreciate them risking their lives but nobody ever said being a police officer was easy or safe.
Before he was murdered, Radio Raheem was at the center of a big fight and I was thinking to myself how glad I was that no one was carrying guns, and what a surprise that was to me. "Thank goodness this was before everyone carried a gun," I thought. "Or something very serious would have been happening." Then the police showed up.
I hate that our children are growing up in such a lethal environment. I can't help but think there must be a better way for us to live together. The Washington Post published a really good article about the film and the connection to present-day events after the death of Bill Nunn, who played Radio Raheem.
Yankee Doodle Dandy is one of those songs that I don't actually think of someone having written. It's like Happy Birthday or something. But someone wrote it - George M. Cohan. And this movie is about him.
Except he's played by James Cagney, who I thought was a tough guy gangster but it turns out he's an actor, and rather versatile. He's of the vaudeville generation, like Cary Grant, and can sing and dance and do all kinds of things other than be tough. But also be tough. He's a renaissance man.
I'm really glad I decided to try to watch more of these movies, because otherwise this is definitely one I wouldn't have seen. I would be interested in knowing why it was selected, though, in all honesty. I mean it's interesting and enjoyable but the songs seem to be more memorable than the movie, and they had already been written.
One thing about this movie that really has stuck with me, though, is the way the cultural context of its creation and release is reflected. This will probably seem to come out of left field, but it really reminded me of Wonder Woman (not the new blockbuster movie that I really really want to see and that is supposed to be awesome, but the TV show with Lynda Carter that came out in 1975).
Wonder Woman was released in the mid-1970s, and there were a couple of interesting things going on (you know, one or two). The Vietnam War had ended and the population of the United States was grappling with moral dilemmas that never plagued the ends of previous wars, in addition to facing the reality that we may have actually "lost" a war (although I'm not sure there are ever any "winners" in war).
The "New Left" social movements of the 60s and 70s (notably the Women's Liberation, Civil Rights, and Lesbian and Gay movements) were escalating and causing additional moral dilemmas in the general population, and raising questions about equality and freedom and basic human rights that lawmakers in the United States had been avoiding for centuries.
Speaking of centuries, the bicentennial of the United States was approaching as well.
So when I watch Wonder Woman (and this is why I used to show it in my Culture and Gender courses), I don't just see the dramatization of a comic book. I see a celebration of United States world power set at the end of WW2, a war where the US definitely had the moral high ground and came out victorious. I see a celebration of a woman who is straight, white, and traditionally feminine and beautiful, and oh yeah, an Amazon - not a woman demanding equal pay for equal work or freedom of reproductive choice (for example). And although she is somewhat anti-war, she goes to fight for the side of right and justice, which by the way is the American side. I see a celebration of a simpler time, when US (hegemonic) culture wasn't challenged by things like space travel and inequality. A time when people knew their place, even Amazons.
This probably sounds really random if you have not seen Yankee Doodle Dandy, but let me explain - it come out in 1942, at which time US gen-pop didn't know how WW2 was going to turn out. There was fear and anxiety, understandably, since this was the second World War in 30 years, and the first war was called "The Great War" because it was supposed to be the war to end all wars.
So Yankee Doodle Dandy was a movie about someone who wasn't a soldier but who devoted all his talents to service to country. At one point he tries to enlist but is encouraged to continue inspiring the country with his songs and performances. He eventually wrote a few songs that were used in boosting morale during WWI, which is why FDR gives him the Congressional Gold Medal. I mean, yes he put on minstrel shows that failed miserably and yes he sided against actors in the 1919 strike which caused him to take a long break from the theatre, but these events were glossed over in the film in favor of producing a hyper-patriotic film that might help do for the United States in 1942 what George Cohan's music did for the United States during WW1.
Overall I enjoyed the movie quite a bit but am glad I have this healthy sense of skepticism that caused me to research what "really" happened in Cohan's life and in the context of the movie release.
In another unrelated point, people don't write music like they did - songs that are sung and then passed on and then sung by people at bars and parties and on the battlefield. It's kind of sad, although we do have quite a few leftover from that time... But I don't think it even "works" the same way. I guess it's because we have so many different sources of new music, and listen to our music in our earphones rather than having to go out in public. That's another thing that interests me about culture - how technological developments (like home radios, then boomboxes, then walkmen, then mp3 players, etc) change the ways we interact with cultural objects, which in turn influences the types of cultural objects that are produced.
But I think I've said enough about this movie. Up next is Do the Right Thing. I'm not making very much progress but I'm having a good time. :-)
So, Toy Story: I ran out of steam writing that Ben-Hur summary so I'll keep this one brief.
This movie came out in November of 1995 which was 22 years ago which is also the year I graduated high school. I'm mostly still in shock about both of those things, honestly. I could have had a child since it came out and that child could be out getting drunk this very minute - legally #wth
The movie was good and I remember that I really liked it the first time I saw it which I now realize was before I could drink legally but after I could vote legally.
It was before all movies were 3D animation which is hard to remember. At first, I was fascinated and a little confused about why this film made the list but then I remembered when I watched it:
it was a really good story - the toy characters were complex and nuanced and very adult and the child characters were going through very stressful situations like living next to a bully and moving and having a new little sibling - it is truly a film that speaks to people of many different ages
it was revolutionary animation and has influenced the direction of animated films in a major way - i forgot it was the first!
So I watched this pioneering animated film in blu-ray on my 4K TV using our PS4 and I was really struck by how quickly animation and visual technology is changing and how much good storytelling is staying the same.
Ben-Hur was released in 1959 and people thought it was pretty good. It won 11 Academy Awards (out of 12 nominated), which is still a record, although it's now tied with Titanic (14 nominated) and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (11 nominated). Although it was not the highest grossing film in history at the time, it was the second highest, after Gone with the Wind. Which was good for the studio, since it had the largest budget of any film yet made ($125 million adjusted for inflation) and the largest sets. The Director was also paid the highest base salary ($350k in 1958 dollars) plus bonuses. This film was so epic that although they used miniatures to film the sea battles, I'm sure they were the biggest miniatures ever used. And the musical score is still the longest ever composed. Oh and it has a chariot race scene that people kind of like. Which is good because it took 5 weeks spread over 3 months to film it. Yes, the one scene. And no this doesn't count the months of practice that the actors had to do to be able to drive the chariots, or the building of the second identical track where the horses and riders could practice. So yes, it did require sacrifices and hard work, but no one died during filming it, which is a commonly-repeated urban legend. However, the son of one of the scene's directors, Charleton Heston's stunt double, was in a really bad accident that could have been fatal but luckily he only received minor injuries. The accident was in the final cut but they cut in a close up of Heston climbing back into the chariot afterwards [whew].
The horses in this scene though. Amazing.
This movie really is epic. From the acting, to the directing and cinematography, to the music and the extras... It's really amazing to think how many people worked so hard to make this thing happen. But it's not just huge things, it's little things, too. For instance, I noticed was that most of the Romans had British accents in contrast to most of the Jews. Turns out that was intentional. According to Wikipedia, Director William Wyler "typically cast the Romans with British actors and the Jews with American actors to help underscore the divide between the two groups. The Romans were the aristocrats in the film, and Wyler believed that American audiences would interpret British accents as patrician." Directors are clever. I love how decisions they make, that audiences might not ever notice, still have an impact on how the audience perceives the film. Like how they never showed Jesus' face. It's interesting how Jesus is so crucial to the story but he's portrayed almost as an extra. Of course you always know it's him because his hair is always beautifully brushed and people always stop and stare at his face for a long time, which is interesting because as I mentioned, his face is never shown to us.
See? It's so obvious which one is Jesus even from the back.
In all seriousness, though, Ben-Hur is a film that has been impressive for 55+ years and will certainly be so for many more, so in one sense it's timeless. At the same time, it is definitely a film of its time (1959) based on a book of its time (1890). For instance, who can forget Sheik Ilderim (played in brownface by actor Hugh Griffith, who won an Oscar for his portrayal) joking to Ben-Hur when he mentioned in an offhand way that he might like to find a wife: "One wife? One God, that I can understand - but one wife! That is not civilized. It is not generous."
I don't even know how many wives I have! LOL!
I was also amazed at how upwardly mobile Ben-Hur was during his enslavement. He starts as a slave dying of thirst in the desert, but ends up a Roman noble, or something like it.
As a galley slave, his new master Quintus Arrius whipped him; when he flinched and stopped himself from lunging forward Arrius was pleased: "You have the spirit to fight back but the good sense to control it. Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-One. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength."
I'M TALKING AT YOU, 41!
And then after a few things happen - like QA leaving BH unchained before a battle and BH saving QA during the battle and QA winning the battle by luck/chance even though everyone else died - and QA is like, woah I love this dude. So he adopts him. Because really, I'm sure every slave's biggest hope and dream is that their owner/master will claim them as an heir in front of all their rich friends.
Hey everybody! I'm giving all my property to this guy as long as he doesn't mind remaining my property. Because that's true love. I'm even going to change his name from Number 41 to my name. Because that's true love. Who cares what his real name is, anyway? Now eat more food cooked by my cooking slaves and watch my dance slaves dance for you. Aren't they fun?! Speaking of true love, BH and Messala have a very interesting relationship. They appear to have a really strong bond. I'm not trying to say men can't be friends, but you just don't see many men doing champagne toasts with arms intertwined these days, for better or for worse.
#brotime
It's always made me a little sad to see how representations of straight men in the 50s in America showed more expressiveness, since I also know that at this time actual homosexual feelings were always hidden. Now that it's more acceptable to be gay, straight men seem to avoid showing affection so their emotions don't threaten their straight masculinity. In The Celluloid Closet, Gore Vidal explained that he coached the guy playing Messala that their relationship should have homosexual elements and that he should act like a spurned lover to justify the vindictiveness that comes out throughout the latter part of the film. Of course, Wyler and Heston were both like, "Hey, no, totally no homoerotic stuff here!" so I guess, you know, typical straight guy bro-lationship. (Even that word "homoerotic" makes it seem like men that express emotions with one other is somehow a significant departure from "normal" behavior. It's especially sad to me because my "homoerotic" relationships with women have been so important in allowing me to define who I am - to think about hiding the love and affection and companionship I felt with them over my lifetime is just really sad. Of course the reason I can show this affection is not unrelated to the fact that it's fetishized by straight men, but I'm getting off topic here.)
All in all, I'm really glad I watched this movie. I would definitely watch it again if I find myself with 4 hours and nothing to do. Or I might just rewatch the chariot race scene.
PS -- There were several sequences when Ben-Hur was in the galley (which looks like really difficult work and not very fun to get whipped obvs) but I couldn't help but think about how nice it would be to have a personal drummer when I do the rowing machine. That would really be useful to keep me going. I can't see working on a galley and then having to go make sandwiches 5 minutes into it or feed the cats - sure it has nothing to do with me not wanting to exercise, it's just you know the cats are clearly starving to death you know - the only downside I can see (aside from being enslaved and having to go down with the ship when it is rammed or catches on fire because I'm chained to my post) is that forever after hearing a good beat must cause your PTSD to flare up. That would make going to the club unbearable. But as I approach 40 I find that going to the club is already pretty unbearable so basically let me know if you want to be my personal workout drummer ok thx
This list is originally from We Are Out of Ink. It is a personal list, not a suggestion list, so it's a little better but also a little more random. Not including his blurbs but you can see them on his blog post.
1. Rent a fancy sports car and drive along the coast for the day/weekend.
I drove up the Pacific Coast Highway with Mom from San Francisco to Newport Oregon, and it was incredible. I have also driven most of the way from LA up to San Simeon and from San Francisco down to Carmel-by-the-Sea. So that covers most of it. Actually, I would like to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium. That's pretty different from the starting point of this guy's item though.
2. Swim with dolphins.
I've read that this is actually really bad for dolphins plus you know dolphins are so smart what if they start thinking "wasn't she going to lose weight or something? wth?" no, too much pressure. I'll just leave them alone to deal with their intelligent thoughts privately.
Seriously though, if you're considering it please read this article or any one of thousands more about it please. Because does this look like a nice job for dolphins to have?
So this is an interesting one but I'm also a little scared. Sort of the same reason I avoid therapy. :-D
4. Watch a movie in the Hollywood cemetery.
OMG I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS A THING BUT IT IS CAN I PLEASE GO MOM CAN I I'LL BE REALLY GOOD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
No but seriously if I lived in LA I would literally go every week. Sorry Saturday night, you're taken from here to eternity. Did you know they have a photo booth, too? So yeah.
5. Sleep under the stars.
I've done this lots of times. I forgot to tell you I went to college in Asheville.
6. Do a 5K Mud run.
I just realized that the people who make lists like this are the same kinds of people who push themselves to accomplish meaningless feats of endurance/strength/insanity - I've noticed that it's a common theme among lists.
7. Serve the homeless at a soup kitchen.
I've made the soup several times but never actually served it. That's interesting to realize.
8. Donate blood.
i forgot to tell you how one time i tried to donate blood in high school and the guy must have been a trainee or a homicidal maniac off the street and he kept stabbing into my arm over and over and over again and finally they just gave me a cookie and told me i could go - i guess i could add it to my list but i'm not sure my veins could take it - when they take blood at the doctor's office it always takes a long time to find a vein and i've heard the needles are even bigger for donating not that i've given it much thought i'm just throwing this out there
9. Camp in the Grand Canyon and/or go white water rafting down the Grand Canyon.
Ooh now this sounds AWESOME!!!
10. Eat the worm in a tequila bottle.
WAIT WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY
11. Pick a hockey team and learn every player on the team.
Is this quiz still in English? What's happening?
12. Paint something.
I have been meaning to paint my office. That's an idea.
Although I'm starting to think maybe I should have started this list a little earlier. Maybe it will turn into a 4 before 40 list...
13. Go skinny dipping in the ocean.
Ok that sounds well and good but then I think about fish and how basically everything poops into the ocean and then I'm like no way. Yeah that's definitely not my cup of pee. Er, tea.
14. Learn how to edit video on Final Cut Pro.
Maybe there are some programs I could learn better than would help. I've been wanting to learn Raiser's Edge, for instance, but having a difficult time. Because no one I know has it so I can't access it.
15. Headstand in the middle of the room and stay for a minute.
This is a really good goal for people to set for themselves. Like, people who don't lose their balance in footstands.
16. Adopt something.
Question: do cats count?
17. See your mom’s house in Nevada.
Ok this one sounded a lot funnier that it was. It was literally his mom's house in Nevada and he literally hadn't seen it, so I'll have to find something else. Although I have also never seen his mom's house in Nevada.
18. Hot air balloon ride or zipline or bungee jump.
I have ridden in a hot air balloon but I haven't ziplined and always wanted to. This is an exciting idea!
19. Sit in “The Show” (the San Diego State student section) for an Aztecs men's basketball game.
What Lucille said. YES EVEN THOUGH YOU EXPLAINED IT.
20. Ride a helicopter somewhere special. When I was in high school we rode a helicopter around Maui and I saw a circular double rainbow below us in a little valley filled with waterfalls. That was pretty special.
21. Hike to the top of Mt. Baldy.
Maybe I could just say "go on a backpacking trip"?
22. Go to a jazz concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
Probably this won't happen for me. Let's be honest. Although it looks like Herbie Hancock will be playing there on August 23rd which makes this a perfect time to Rockit a little bit.
23. Build my Twitter following to 1,000.
I think maybe an increase of 858 followers might be a little too ambitious.
24. Go zorbing. Hmm. Thinking about it but not really. What the hell is the matter with people?
25. Milk a cow.
No.
26. Write my will.
Hmm. Now this is something I should be doing. And a surprisingly responsible item to be following zorbing and milking a cow...
27. Visit Hearst castle.
It was so worth the trip! Although they screened Citizen Kane there once and I really wanted to go (it was a few months before we visited in 2015). The only problem was that we went to the Castle for my birthday which is in September and the screening was in March. Oh and the tickets were $1000 each. Yes, three zeroes. Each.
28. Solve a Rubik’s cube.
I'd actually like to reach 40 without having a pointless nervous breakdown so I'll stick to easy sudoku.
29. Open a Swiss bank account.
The young gentleman did his research and found out you actually need lots of money to do this and frankly unless I can win millions of dollars at craps or poker or blackjack in Monte Carlo and then say "Just wire the winnings to my Swiss bank account, Jeeves," I'm not really sure it's worth it anyway.
29.1 Be an extra on a TV show or movie for a day.
This was our young gentleman's replacement item which I think might actually be more pie-in-the-sky for me than a Swiss bank account and yes I haven't forgotten that I'm unemployed.
30. Write a blog post that gets 5,000 hits.
I believe my current max is 60 hits. So again, this is not going to happen for me.
31. Walk the red carpet and attend a movie premiere.
I'm starting to think I'm missing out by not living in LA.
32. Attend a Cirque de Soleil show.
Done! Multiple times. Awesome. The best time was when I went with my husband for our anniversary the year he bought me tickets to see Kurios and I bought him tickets to see Capital Cities in Oakland. I got a Christmas tree ornament that we hang up every year and every time I hang it up I drag him down to fawn over it with me because I love him so much.
The worst time was when I went to see it with a guy who was mostly separated from his wife and he called his high school aged daughter in the middle of it to tell her that they picked the same guy from the audience as the night before so it was definitely scripted.
33. Hand out a $100 bill to a homeless person in need.
I can't even remember the last time I had a $100 bill. Probably some graduation or holiday. I could make a donation to an organization for homeless people though.
34. Ride a Segway.
Haha. I hope this isn't something I need to do before I turn 40. Or 100. If I EVER ride a segway it will be through Golden Gate Park and we will ride up to the front of all the things and listen in our headsets as some tour guide tells us what's in each of them but we won't actually go inside any of them because we can't bring Segways.
I did this in college and it was lots of fun, mostly because we got to dress up. I'd really like to do one of those Escape Rooms though! I only recently heard about them and I mean, it looks INCREDIBLE!!
36. Say the phrase “quick, follow that car” for a justifiable reason.
Too bad I didn't use it last weekend when my mother-in-law was in town with my brother-in-law and Mad and I followed Brandon and Collin to brunch. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to find another time to use it though!
37. Floss every day for 365 days straight.
I can't sleep if I haven't flossed. True story. Although I do suffer from insomnia so those might not be related.
38. No red meat for 365 days.
Not really necessary. I'm mostly vegetarian and was full-on vegetarian for more than a decade so I'm ready to let the red meat thing go. I have it like three times a year. 39. Obtain a copy of “The Sleepy Floyd Game” and it has to be the one with Greg Papa doing the play-by-play.
What Lucille said.
40. Pick something else to add to this list in the next 364 days.
I think I'm going to have to add more than one to bring it up to 40. This gives me a good head start,
though!
