lifeasdaddy

lifeasdaddy - AFI's 100 years... 100 cheers movies

The American Film Institute has just named the films voted the 100 most inspirational in the past 100 years.

Here's the list.   

Bold letters signify the 88 films I've seen. Underline signififes a film I recommend.

If you check back in a few days, I'll add some commentary in red on various films I fancy.

1. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE Shows how we can touch others' lives in positive ways, even though we seldom realise.
2. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Harper Lee's great novel of the American south brought to screen life with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a lawyer who tries to right a dreadful wrong.  Big themes in a relatively low budget film. 
3. SCHINDLER'S LIST
4. ROCKY
5. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
6. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
7. THE GRAPES OF WRATH
8. BREAKING AWAY
9. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET
10. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
11. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES 3 men, played by Frederic March, Dana Andrews and Harold Russell, return to their small town from WWII service.  Each broken in a different way.  They find civvie street and their various relationships hard going.  Russell was awarded Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
12. APOLLO 13
13. HOOSIERS High school basketball championship and more.  Gene hackman as the coach.  Good to compare this with The Great Santini, and the book Friday Night Lights.
14. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI
15. THE MIRACLE WORKER
16. NORMA RAE
17. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST  Jack Nicholson is outstanding in this movie of Ken Kesey's book.  What's the borderline between insanity and being an anarchist?
18. THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK
19. THE RIGHT STUFF I thought Tom Wolfe's original book was far better than the flick.
20. PHILADELPHIA
21. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT  The theme is racial tolerance.  Won Best Pic oscar against Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. Top Script.  Score by Quincy Jones.  Career peak acting from Steiger and Poitier.
22. THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
23. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
24. NATIONAL VELVET
25. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
26. THE WIZARD OF OZ
27. HIGH NOON
28. FIELD OF DREAMS I just liked this film a lot more than I expected to.  It's a gentle film really.
29. GANDHI
30. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA  There are so many good and great things about this film. To me, the cinematography is the thing here.  Freddie Young took the oscar for that.
31. GLORY
32. CASABLANCA "Round up the usual suspects!"  Bogart.  Bergman. Raines. Henreid. Lorre.  Greenstreet.  More quotable quotes than you can poke a stick at.
33. CITY LIGHTS
34. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
35. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER Sidney Poitier again.  Here with Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn. 
36. ON THE WATERFRONT
37. FORREST GUMP I found this one immensely entertaining.  Special effects make it.
38. PINOCCHIO
39. STAR WARS
40. MRS. MINIVER
41. THE SOUND OF MUSIC
42. 12 ANGRY MEN Justice is done, and seen to be done in this look behind the veil of the jury room.  But Henry Fonda certainly has a battle on his hands doing it.
43. GONE WITH THE WIND
44. SPARTACUS Entertaining toga dress-up.
45. ON GOLDEN POND
46. LILIES OF THE FIELD
47. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
48. THE AFRICAN QUEEN Bogart.  Hepburn.  Huston directs.
49. MEET JOHN DOE
50. SEABISCUIT
51. THE COLOR PURPLE
52. DEAD POET'S SOCIETY Uplifting in parts, but mainly saddening.
53. SHANE A western.  A damned good one.
54. RUDY
55. THE DEFIANT ONES
56. BEN-HUR  When I think of Norma Desmond's quote, "I am big, it's the pictures that got small." I think of this pic.  Because this film is big in every way.
57. SERGEANT YORK
58. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
59. DANCES WITH WOLVES
60. THE KILLING FIELDS
61. SOUNDER
62. BRAVEHEART
63. RAIN MAN Tom Cruise is a good actor.  Here's proof.
64. THE BLACK STALLION
65. A RAISIN IN THE SUN
66. SILKWOOD
67. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
68. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
69. THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS
70. COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER
71. COOL HAND LUKE Picks up on the anti-establishment ideals of the '60's. 
72. DARK VICTORY
73. ERIN BROCKOVICH
74. GUNGA DIN So creaky now, but a good tale by Kipling brought to life.
75. THE VERDICT 
76. BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ  I'm a big fan of Burt Lancaster.  A big fan.
77. DRIVING MISS DAISY  Morgan Freeman - he's  a great actor.
78. THELMA & LOUISE
79. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
80. BABE
81. BOYS TOWN
82. FIDDLER ON THE ROOF  Topol as Tevye.
83. MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN
84. SERPICO
85. WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT
86. STAND AND DELIVER
87. WORKING GIRL
88. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY  Cagney in his beloved song and dance role.
89. HAROLD AND MAUDE
90. HOTEL RWANDA
91. THE PAPER CHASE  I loved Houseman in this, and the TV series that followed.

92. FAME
93. A BEAUTIFUL MIND
94. CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS
95. PLACES IN THE HEART
96. SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER
97. MADAME CURIE
98. THE KARATE KID
99. RAY
100. CHARIOTS OF FIRE

For mine, I can't see how Mister Roberts didn't make it onto the list.

lifeasdaddy - my best movies about food

This week's Good Living supplement in the Sydney Morning Herald had a couple of stories about films which contain inspiring scenes about food.  Read 'em here , here and here.   

My fave food movies?

Big Night (1996) Scott & Tucci

and

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994) Ang Lee

lifeasdaddy - The Wiggles live in concert

Yesterday Edward and I went with Thomas and my brother-in-law Ben to see The Wiggles in concert at the Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL Club.  I thought I'd write a review of The Wiggles Concert.

The Wiggles are great!  They put on a show for about 1hours and 10 minutes (I didn't time it exactly) and they go all out for the whole time.  Their well known friends Dorothy the Dinosaur, Wags the Dog, Captain Featherword, Henry the Octopus, and the Wiggly Dancers all feature prominantly.  If you are familiar with The Wiggles' canon, you'd have seen a few clips of their live shows here and there in their DVDs and videos.  They are just like that in concert.

The room where they appeared held about 400 - 500 people, and twice during the gig Jeff Wiggle and Murray Wiggle wandered through the crowd greeting children and having a few words to say to individuals here and there.  They weren't mobbed by kids, because all of the kids were pre-school age and don't have a mob mentality.  It comes as no surprise that the four Wiggles all relate to children exceptionally well.  Greg really does sing, and very well too.  Murray plays his guitars, and at other times during the show Greg and Anthony play guitar too.  Jeff plays his keyboard.  These guys are very musical.  All kids are encouraged to dance.

The Wiggles friends - Dorothy, Wags, Henry, and the Captain - are all given plenty of time in the spotlight too, so anyone who had a special favourite wouldn't go home disappointed.

Edward and Thomas had a great time and loved the show.  Most of the adults I could see had a good time too, and enjoyed singing and dancing with their kids.

The Wiggles have got concert dates upcoming in the UK (30 June - 13th July)and the USA (28 July - 27 August) so this seems to be a series of shake out gigs for that.

As a bonus for my American readers, here's the transcript of an interview The Wiggles did for Australian TV.

lifeasdaddy - Richard Edelman on PR leadership

Richard Edelman has put up a great blog post here about desirable transformation in the Public Relations industry through thought leadership.

For the past 2 months, he's been talking on his blog about what he sees as the current turning point for the PR industry.  Make or break time.  He usually posts on his blog about once per week, and he really puts a lot of thought into his writing.  He also openly states when one of his clients is mentioned in the blog, which reinforces the ethical underpinnings of the transformation he foresees.

[I'll be happy when typepad integrate a spell checker into this thing]

lifeasdaddy - gmail spam filter anomaly

I use Google's gmail for most of my email these days, and mainly use 2 different addresses.  I forward mail from one address to the other so that I can save time by only needing to open one of the mail accounts to read the stuff sent to both addresses.

A friend sent me an invitation to join vox, a new blogging service.   So, the invitation email went from vox to one of my gmail addresses and arrived direct to my inbox.  From there it was forwarded to my second gmail address, where it was caught by the gmail spam filter and directed to the spam file.  Luckily, I quickly scan titles in the spam file before I delete it, so I recognised my friend's name in the subject line.

Seems funny to me that the gmail spam filter sent something forwarded from one gmail address to the another into the spam box.