Friday, May 21, 2010

Breaking It Up: A Procrastinator's Word On Watching Movies

It's nearly June, nearly six months into 2010, and I am nowhere near being even halfway through the AFI Top 100 movie list. I'm completely disappointed in myself and I am not going to make a lot of excuses. There are a number of reasons why I haven't made it as far as I should have (for most of my life, watching two or three long movies a week would be a breeze, something I would do anyway), but none are what I'd call "good reasons."
In an effort to make myself feel less like a failure in this endeavor, I've decided on a solution - one that even at my laziest, I should be able to abide by. I'm going to break the list in half. This year, 2010, I will watch the top 50 films and write about them. In 2011, I will watch the bottom 50 and do the same. Here are the movies I still need to watch this year (excluding Raging Bull and Casablanca, which I have watched but haven't gotten around to blogging about...yet); those in purple are ones I have seen before:


  1. Singing In The Rain
  2. Gone With The Wind
  3. Lawrence of Arabia
  4. Schindler's List
  5. Vertigo
  6. The Wizard of Oz
  7. City Lights
  8. The Searchers
  9. Star Wars
  10. Psycho
  11. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  12. Sunset Blvd.
  13. The Graduate
  14. The General
  15. On The Waterfront
  16. It's A Wonderful Life
  17. Chinatown
  18. Some Like It Hot
  19. The Grapes of Wrath
  20. E.T.
  21. To Kill A Mockingbird
  22. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
  23. High Noon
  24. All About Eve
  25. Double Indemnity
  26. Apocalypse Now
  27. The Maltese Falcon
  28. The Godfather Part II
  29. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
  30. Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs 
  31. Annie Hall
  32. The Bridge on The River Kwai
  33. The Best Years of Our Lives
  34. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  35. Dr. Strangelove
  36. The Sound of Music
  37. King Kong
  38. Bonnie & Clyde
  39. The Midnight Cowboy
  40. The Philadelphia Story
  41. Shane
  42. It Happened One Night
  43. A Streetcar Named Desire
  44. Rear Window
  45. Intolerance
  46. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring



I'm also not going to be a stickler for watching and writing about my assigned films in the order that they appear on the list. 
So...anybody want to come over some time and watch a bunch of movies with me? That could be a fun way to get through a chunk of them. 
Anyway, wish me luck. 

.to elaborate.

I just got an email  (weeks after my interview) that I didn't get the shelver job at Evanston Public Library...which I really wanted. However, because my "qualifications are quite impressive, your name will remain in Category “B” of our eligibility list. What this means for you is that should this opening come up again prior to the expiration of this current eligibility list - two (2) years after today's date, the Human Resources Department will be contacting you to determine your interest in such a position at that time." That's a direct quote, of course. So there's that. A bright note to my failure. 


Speaking of failures, I've also decided to give up on the AFI project for the year. I have gotten so behind that I don't think I can finish 100 movies this year - seeing as how almost half of it is over. Yep...ladies and gentlemen, we are coming up on 6 months of 2010. It all goes by a little too fast. I think I have whiplash. Maybe I will just do the top 50...so I can feel less like a loser. Then do the bottom 50 in 2011. Heh, we'll see. 


And in other news, I think I am going to be rewriting my first novel again. It needs a lot of work and I can't seem to let it go (it's quite possible it should just be burned at the stake to make way for the second draft of my second novel or finishing the third one that's waiting in the wings, but I can't get Hedy, Grace and Emma out of my head). At least this time around, I have a rather honest (brutally so, which I need) writing group to get me going in the right direction.


The gloomy weather is leaving me mostly tired and unmotivated and I have spent most of the week doing Census stuff from morning to evening, straight through, so I am feeling a little overwhelmed to boot. It makes me feel like I have sold the majority of my time (and soul) to the highest bidder. Heh. Some do believe the government is the devil. Not me, not entirely, but still...


Tonight, Kathy and I are going to check out a queer spoken word event in Logan Square at New Wave, that may suck or may be interesting. At least the coffee is good (and they have nifty bathroom graffiti). And maybe I will manage to get some reading done later, too. That would be nice. If I don't fall asleep first.


P.S.: A poem of mine was recently included on the Genderqueer Chicago blog.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

.dreaming is free.

The other night, I dreamed that my girlfriend, my sister and I were outside the house I grew up in and we were snapping open giant-sized bean pods. Inside one was a giant fish; inside the other was a tiny gummy skeleton. Then I walked in front of traffic on Irving Park Road (down the street from where I live now) and a car hit me, making me bounce about like a ping-pong ball.

Interpretations?