Please feel free to add, subtract, criticize…

Chuck’s 100 Movies For Marne
1.     The Graduate
2.    One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
3.    Die Hard
4.    Raiders of the Lost Ark
5.     The Godfather
6.    The Terminator
7.     The Silence of the Lambs
8.    Pulp Fiction
9.    Alien
10.  Aliens
11.   The Day of the Jackal
12.  The Breakfast Club
13.  City of God
14.  Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
15.  Finding Nemo
16.  United 93
17.  Toy Story
18.  Pink Floyd: The Wall
19.  The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
20. Singin’ in the Rain
21.  Sunset Blvd.
22. Bonnie and Clyde
23. 12 Angry Men
24. Goodfellas
25. Dangerous Liaisons
26. Platoon
27. The World According to Garp
28. The Bridge on the River Kwai
29. Charade
30. The Incredibles
31.  Brazil
32. JFK
33. Schindler’s List
34. The Ninth Configuration
35. The Princess Bride
36. L.A. Confidential
37. Toy Story 2
38. Jesus Christ Superstar
39. For A Few Dollars More
40. Close Encounters
41.  Jaws
42. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
43. Citizen Kane
44. Forrest Gump
45. Do the Right Thing
46. A Few Good Men
47. Seven
48. Beauty and the Beast
49. Stalag 17
50. Babe
51.  Back to the Future
52. Body Heat
53. Casablanca
54. Erin Brockovich
55.  On The Waterfront
56. Life of Brian
57.  Ikiru
58. The Godfather Part II
59. A Face in the Crowd
60. Once Upon A Time in the West
61.  Notorious
62. Romancing the Stone
63. The Elephant Man
64. The Matrix
65. Memento
66. Nashville
67. Excalibur
68. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They
69. Unforgiven
70. Strangers on a Train
71.  Mean Streets
72. True Romance
73. The Big Easy
74. Birdy
75.  The Hunt for Red October
76. The African Queen
77.  Lethal Weapon
78. The Nightmare Before Christmas
79. Double Indemnity
80. Mary Poppins
81.  Dog Day Afternoon
82. Duck Soup
83. It Happened One Night
84.  E.T.
85. The Birds
86. The Right Stuff
87. The Blues Brothers
88. Airplane
89. The China Syndrome
90. Rope
91.  Lawrence of Arabia
92. West Side Story
93. The Manchurian Candidate (original)
94. Lolita
95. Barry Lyndon
96. Manhattan
97. Night of the Hunter
98. The Apartment
99. Hannah and Her Sisters
100. The Third Man

Zak’s 50 Movies for Marne
1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
2. Die Hard
3. Groundhog Day
4. Galaxy Quest
5. Shaun of the Dead
6. The Great Escape
7. Back to the Future
8. Ghost Busters
9. The Thing
10. The Shining
11. Sunshine
12.  The Incredibles
13. Monster House
14. Unbreakable
15. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
16.  The Naked Gun
17. Young Frankenstein
18. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
19. The Matrix
20. Jurassic Park
21. The Night of the Hunter
22. Sullivan’s Travels
23. Batman: Mask of the Phantom
24. The Apartment
25. Double Indemnity
26. Seven
27. Snatch
28. Airplane
29. Tombstone
30. Robocop
31. Payback
32. Desperado
33. From Dusk Till Dawn
34. The Host
35. The King of Kong
36. Alien
37. Aliens
38. Terminator 2
39. True Lies
40. From Russia With Love
41. The Rocketeer
42. Dick Tracy
43. Highlander
44. Anchorman
45. Maverick
46. Drag Me To Hell
47. Monsters Inc.
48. The Nightmare Before Christmas
49. Big
50. North By Northwest

Greg’s 51 American Movies after 1970
1. Happiness
2. Election
3. Die Hard
4. Naked Gun
5. Trees Lounge
6. Beer Fest
7. Full Metal Jacket
8. King of Comedy
9. Dumb and Dumber
10. The Fury
11. Evil Dead 2
12. Hell Raiser
13. The Shining
14. Fargo
15. Raising Arizona
16.  Bully
17.  Godfather I
18.  Godfather II
19.  Terminator
20.  Aliens
21.  Big Lebowski
22. Children of Men
23. Jaws
24. Taxi Driver
25. Reservoir Dogs
26. Back to the Future
27. Blue Velvet
28. Happy Gilmore
29. Silence of the Lambs
30. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
31. Dirty Harry
32. Eight Men Out
33. Major League
34. Poltergeist
35. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
36. The Thing (1982)
37. The Fly
38. Dead Zone
39. Total Recall
40. Starship Troopers
41. Robocop
42. Funny Games (U.S.)
43. North Dallas Forty
44. Time Bandits
45. Bad Lieutenant
46. Port of New Orleans
47. Woman Under the Influence
48. In the Company of Men
49. Gummo
50. King of the Hill
51. Darkman

Covers Waiting to be Judged

When judging a book by its cover, don’t stop with the front.  The back holds some valuable information as well.  On audacious days check that cute little flap on the inside for a change of pace.  The price listed in there has some immediate impact, sure sucks for those Canadians, but that is hardly a lasting deterrent.

After years of reading books I don’t understand the big fuss.  Judging a book by its cover (though often the back or inside) is where a description of a book comes into play.  Except for reasons one and four I don’t understand why one shouldn’t judge a book based on this merit.  There are even quotes from others, and while I understand the editing process that goes into these quote decisions and therefore skip over them, I’m sure that holds a little power of decision for some.

The cover art comes in handy too.  If I don’t trust this person’s judgment choosing a simple photo how can I trust the rest of what they’re about to try and make me consume.  The art is there in order for you to save your reading energy for the inside where there are 399 more pages words.

If the cover is bad and you still have an unexplainable urge to read the thing, buy it in hardcover and take off the dustcover whose existence makes no sense to anyone anyways.

Limited hours spent staring at the pixels and my eyes are already going cross.  It is becoming clear why all computer geeks sport glasses.  Or maybe it’s that they previously had glasses and that is drawing them into computer based majors.  Chicken or the egg?

Their bespectacled selves may be way more proficient in making Photoshop do what Photoshop was designed to do.  But when I get distracted or screw up an image I make a really good zombie-devil scene with some asteroid action.  Michael Bay inspires me.

*A sample of the awesomeness that is failed Photoshop drawings will be provided as soon as the world is ready to see them.

Working on a film in Chicago we had a crew that for some reason or another spewed out ideas for t-shirts at an alarming rate.  Most weren’t good, but any idea is seen as great during hour 16 of a work day.  That’s the beauty of it.

The best shirt idea stemmed from the dealings with a producer who refused to call and Production Assistant (read: pee-on) by name.  Instead he used PA as a derogatory term for whoever happened to be standing closest.  So all Pas, myself included, were going to wear in:

Note that the name on the back was not allowed to be our own. That way, if this producer decided to try and use our names he’d be outing himself as having no clue who we were to the rest of the crew.  They wouldn’t have fired all of us at the same time… we hoped.

Another shirt actually got made from an offhanded comment I made to a gaffer working for ESPN with me one day.  We were talking about students who were “too emo to be emo” and their t-shirts.  Turns out he owned a silkscreen company to occupy his spare time, and a week later some of these showed up in the mail (It’s wrinkly, that’s what happens when you pull a shirt out of a gym bag for a picture)

Another shirt I would totally wear if someone would produce it (after making it look good of course)…

After shopping around for a new road bike I realize the phrase may be a little off base.  Maybe something like “Cheaper then a lifetime of therapy” would be a more accurate price point.

And although this isn’t a shirt, I’d sport this bumper sticker on my car somewhere.

It’s supposed to be a bit of a slap in the face.  People often act stupid towards one another without thinking.  Though I think Yield to Life goes for a bit of a different public image then the sticker represents.  Still.  I’m excited to see how the organization moves forward and in the mean time I’m going to think about what I’d do if I were them.

Last time I got bored on hiatus the web site was made (see the footer of the site for proof).  This time, I’m playing with PhotoShop.

My time is being used catching up on important things: Seeing friends I’ve been neglecting for months, backing up my laptop, cleaning my closet, etc.  I’m also unashamedly catching up with unimportant things: Organizing years worth of photos, going to the beach, catching up on TV and movies, etc.

That last one is a staple.  Hiatus is basically storing up sleep for the second half of our season the way a bear stores up food for hibernation.  To start out I figured I’d catch up on some TV I’ve been meaning to watch since it aired.  Dexter is up first, followed closely by Weeds.  Well I think followed closely by Weeds, if it is still good and didn’t turn south after season one.

Figured I’d try and sit through some movies too.  After recently re-watching Idoicracy (2006), seeing all Mike Judge films seemed like an easy enough list.  Then I realized all I had left was Extract (2009) which has come and gone in theaters and isn’t yet at Netflix.  Looking for another manageable canon to conquer, I landed at watching all Cohen Brothers movies.  I have enjoyed the six I’ve seen, eight more to check out.  Last night we finished number seven with Miller’s Crossing (1990) and I realized maybe I’ve seen all the good ones.  A little nervous for the rest.

However it turns out, hiatus is a time to get a lot of stuff done.  Not necessarily a time to be productive.  Enjoy.

Airport security guards take their job seriously.  I am not saying their jobs aren’t serious, I’m just pointing out that they do take their jobs very seriously.  And they have guns instead of tasers.  This never has stopped me from being me.

Long before 2001 my stuff and I have been searched regularly by airport security.  Taking golf clubs to Arizona?  Terrorist sticks.  Only taking a backpack, and you’re taking it as a carryon?  Terrori…  Security does put forth a valiant effort of checking bags, but seem to be dumbfounded by the straps on backpacking packs.  They gave up.     One-way ticket to Russia?  Terrorist to another country, still going to dig through everything you’ve got, we’ll try not to break your framing.

Being checked so regularly means that I am quite comfortable with airport security, and forget that they can take me into far away rooms to do whatever they’d do to me.  My plans to sleep through an early flight out of NYC meant I was pre-coffee on no sleep with the sun rising.  My bags were opened and checked at security, fine.  Turning on every one of my electronic devices that I was carrying on board, whatever.  Refusing to take a photo with me when you checked that my camera was indeed a camera, lame.

When I asked for the photo I should have assumed they’d check me further.  I know the whole spiel, and practiced while waiting for a female guard to come touch my back and stomach (riskay!).  I’d put most of my other stuff back on, which I’m pretty sure is against regulation.   My belt set off her wand, and instead of revealing the buckle under my oversized hoodie I mentioned in my sleep deprived state that I’d forgotten my doctor’s certificate for my iron lung.  Now I truly forgot I had a belt on, and she seemed to be as zoned as I was.  I was trying to brighten her morning with something amusing while I remembered that I had a belt on.  I did go on to remember I had my belt back on, but during that time she became highly alerted and jumped into a string of thoughts on what steps needed to be taken about my iron lung.  Talking to some guys, needing clearance, and some other stuff that I stopped listening to because I was more worried about the snickering guy behind me blowing my cover meaning I would actually have some serious issues to deal with.

It was supposed to make her laugh after starting work at the crack of dawn; instead it freaked everyone out.  I “remembered” my belt and assured her that if the iron lung didn’t set off the metal detector that I would be fine for the flight.  I didn’t really realize what I potentially had done until a couple people came up to me laughing about it at the gate.  I made my flight and was asleep before takeoff.