A Bird Dog pup (pupette, actually) has asked me to help her fill out her college education by listing some things she ought to know and read, but cannot fit into her college schedule as she has mapped it out.
Music to a Dad's ears, of course. Father knows best.
Well, I will just focus on one piece of her request here and now (because it went well beyond entertainment - this is just the fun part). She is a theater rat and reads plays daily for fun. She knows most of Shakespeare pretty well, and loves Pinter too (!). But she says her knowledge of films prior to her era is very limited. "What films should I know?," she asks. (I call them movies because I am a knuckle-dragging clinger.)
Ain't it great when the youths acknowledge their ignorance?
I told her I had once, for fun, made a list of my 100 essential movies (and I am not much of a movie fan), but it went away when my ancient Mac died ten years ago. Naturally, my list had some John Wayne, Gone With The Wind, Bridge Over The River Kwai, Swept Away, Streetcar, Waterfront, Mr. Blandings, Wonderful Life, the hideously painful Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, some James Bond and some WC Fields, Citizen Kane, Days of Wine and Roses, some Jack Lemmon like 7 Year Itch, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Harvey, Billy Budd, the Alistair Sim Christmas Carol ( which she has seen countless times), and, as one item, all of Charlie Chaplin. I don't want to try to make my list again, and, for a person who is more of a reader than a movie person, I got well over 100 with my list of basic flicks.
If you google "100 essential movies of all time," you can get all sorts of obscure lists by critics. She did take the time from her Christmas-break reading and ski trips to New Hampshire and constant NYC trips to watch Amarcord today, which definitely is on my list.
Man, that movie is rich in memorable imagery, and as Italian as anchovies in olive oil.
So help me out. What's on your essential movies-to-see-to-be-culturally-literate list? (please do not feel that you need to list 100!).
Re Cultural Literacy: She asked for it..., the comments were good fun. Thanks, y'all. She enjoyed noting them very much. Are you familiar with the McSweeny's site? Apparently lots of folks are, but it's new to me. Verbing? I don't approve of it.
Tracked: Jan 13, 05:50