It was cinematic...

Hi. Look at me, two posts in one day, although not really because I actually kind of wrote that other one yesterday but just finished it and posted it today...anyway, none of this is the point.

The point is: movies! Specifically, the AFI Top 100 Movies version 2.0. If you like I were inspired to watch tonight, while checking in with the Braves-Red Sox to find that nothing had changed there, you would find that things HAD changed since the original 100 Years 100 Movies list came out in 1998.

I remember the hubbub when that list was released. I think I immediately set out for Blockbuster (these, of course, were the pre-Netflix days) to rent some of the films I had not seen. Well, after printing out the list and highlighting of course. I think I had seen only 18 or 28 or something. It was a pretty low number. I think my mom had seen 87. So, I was off with a new project, side by side with working my way through the Modern Library's Top 100 books in English from the 20th Century. Wow, those were good times for top 100 lists. I miss the late 90s. I miss the Clinton administration.

I'm pretty sure I started with Citizen Kane which was number one, and which held on to its number one spot in tonight's revised and revisited top 100 movies of all time. Many things did not in fact hold onto their former spots. Casablanca, formerly #2, and The Godfather, formerly #3, switched places. I personally find Casablanca to be the most triumphant film of all time, and wish it had gone the other direction. As it happens, much of the Top 10 remained Top 10, but with some scooting around. Like, Singin' in the Rain moved from 10 or 11 to 5. What?! I mean, come on, it's great but top five? Hello?

So, as I sit here waiting for the revised list to be posted at 11 p.m. Pacific time when the AFI prime time special ends out west, short of rearranging my Netflix queue I can think of no more fitting response than to post my Top 10 films of all time. Only I'm not really sitting here totally thinking it out, as I've actually been doing other stuff. And I'm going to post my Top 10 books and albums, too. So these will be my desert island lists. Off the top of my head. Subject to much revision.

Linda's Top 10 Movies
1. Casablanca
2. The Hours
3. Dead Poets Society
4. After Life
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. Born Into Brothels
7. Dolores Claiborne
8. The Wizard of Oz
9. Clue
10. Lost in Translation
(a prize to anyone who can guess my #11 that just missed out...it's a classic)


Linda's Top 10 Books
1. Candide by Voltaire
2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
3. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
4. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
5. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
6. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
7. Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
8. Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
9. Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
10. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Linda's Top 10 Albums
1. Never Loved Elvis - The Wonder Stuff
2. Tea for the Tillerman - Cat Stevens
3. Rites of Passage - Indigo Girls
4. I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Sinead O'Connor
5. Earth Sun Moon - Love and Rockets
6. Life's Rich Pagaent - R.E.M.
7. Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel
8. Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
9. Time*Sex*Love - Mary Chapin Carpenter
10. In My Tribe - 10,000 Maniacs

I love lists. And movies. And books. And music. And I just loved watching that AFI special tonight; I positively reveled in it.

"Empty lots, secrets well kept
Nothing standing but the frame of a set
Some things built to withstand regret
It was cinematic how we loved
Long shot
Jump cut
Close up..."
--erin mckeown, 'cinematic'