Favorite Movies: Off the Top of Your Head

This is another one that is sort of a Rohrschach test of how you are feeling at any particular moment, I guess, because I have done this before with friends and you get different lists at different times.

The key to it is just to jot down favorite movies of yours without thinking too much about it--I mean, without pondering whether this or that movie "deserves" to be on your "very best favorite" list or how you think the list is going to sound to other people ( because if you do it again in six months, you'll get a somewhat different list anyway).

Then there is also the fallacy, prompted by the French "auteur" movement, that you have to remember who DIRECTED the film. I mean, at my age especially, I can forget all kinds of things and have them pop back into my head somewhat later or get confused about the simplest things I know from days gone by ( I really pissed off my friend Goddard Graves when in an email not so long ago when I referred to Julius Caesar saying " All Gaul is divided into four parts," to which G.G. shot back " Omnia Gallia in TRES partes divisa est!!!!"

My reply to that was the people of Paris had already decided they were a separate country from the rest of Gaul which they obviously still believe today, just as they used to refer to NYC as "the 51st State." 

Anyway, I wonder what 20 films I would come up with right now...and I will once again ask friends to send me their lists and see who responds.

What is the point of all this? Just fun, and then of course later you will of course say," Oh, how could I have forgotten such-and-such" but who cares.

This morning's 20 favorite films

1. Stolen Kisses- Francois Truffaut
2. Shoot the Piano Player- Truffaut
3. "Das Boot" (forget director's name)
4. Kanal-- Andrej Wadzja ( do I have the spelling right?)
5. Slumdog Millionaire-- by -- oh, what's his name dammit--oh that's right, Peter Boyle
6. And Then There Were None- Rene Clair
7. A Nous La Liberte- Clair
8. Ashes and Diamonds- Wadzja again ( I am going to have to cheat and google this up when I have finished the list)
9. The General- Buster Keaton
10. Looking for Mr. Goodbar ( it had Diane Keaton in it), no director in memory
11. Dr. Strangelove- Kubrick
12. 2001- Kubrick
13. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie- Luis Bunuel
14. The Milky Way - Bunuel
15. That Obscure Object of Desire- Bunuel
16. Hugo- Martin Scorsese
17. The Manchurian Candidate- Frankenheimer
18. Cape Fear ( Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, forget director)
19. Nights of Cabiria- Federico Fellini
20. When Harry Met Sally ( no director)

That's just where it stand this morning...

Interesting how most recent movies I have seen have no registered very much ( oh, they will come to me in a little while, have no fear)

I have ignored "Citizen Kane" because I just don't feel like it this morning as well as some other worthy projects..such as the S. Ray Indian " Apu" Triology ( oh, wow, films are flooding back to me now! )

Now to see if I can get some lists from people I know and convince them just to be spontaneous and not dwell on " Did this Movie Change My Life" or something

You can make lists like that too but then you have to really put on your thinking cap as this second grade teacher I had used to say

In fact, if any movies really changed my life that much they are not zipping into view this morning other than the ones I have mentioned ( oh , of course--why don't I have any Hitchcock? How could I? I mean, I KNOW "Psycho" made me afraid when taking a shower for months and months after I saw it but so what, etc.)

Try making your own list just for the hell of it and then see how it grabs you tomorrow or the day after.. Oh yes, it's

Andrzej Wajda ( Polish spelling is HARD. Pronouncing it is even harder. There is some word that means I think "June bug" which they have proven is impossible for anyone to pronounce  really properly who was not brought up speaking Polish).

LK