{"id":3237,"date":"2008-12-19T10:32:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T10:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/12\/19\/movies-az\/"},"modified":"2008-12-19T10:32:41","modified_gmt":"2008-12-19T10:32:41","slug":"movies-az","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/12\/19\/movies-az\/","title":{"rendered":"Movies, A-Z"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nobody officially &#8220;tagged&#8221; me for this, but I saw it at <a href=\"http:\/\/weblogs.swarthmore.edu\/burke\/?p=680\">Easily Distracted<\/a>, and it seems like a good post topic for the Friday before Christmas. The idea is to pick one movie title for each letter of the alphabet.<\/p>\n<p>The list below the fold is not an attempt to come up with Great Films for each letter of the alphabet; rather, it&#8217;s a list of movies that I liked enough to be willing to watch them again. I&#8217;m fully aware that not all of them are cinematic triumphs, but I like them, and that&#8217;s what matters here.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><cite>After Hours<\/cite> A quirky and amusing early Scorsese movie. Alternate choice: <cite>The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension<\/cite><\/li>\n<li><cite>The Blues Brothers<\/cite> Belushi&#8217;s best movie.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Casablanca<\/cite> It really is that good. Seasonally appropriate alternative: <cite>A Christmas Story<\/cite>.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb<\/cite>  Deeply silly, but serious at the same time. <cite>Die Hard<\/cite> and <cite>The Dark Knight<\/cite> are strong contenders as well.<\/li>\n<li><cite>The Empire Strikes Back<\/cite> Far and away the best of the three <cite>Star Wars<\/cite> movies.<\/li>\n<li><cite>The Fellowship of the Ring<\/cite> OK, maybe I&#8217;m cheating by leaving out the series title, but this is outstanding. The ride of the Rohirrim in the third movie is probably the best moment, but this is the best movie.<\/li>\n<li><cite>The Great Dictator<\/cite> Chaplin plays Hitler. I watched this for a class, but I still really like it.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Hoosiers<\/cite> An absolute must for any hoops junkie.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade<\/cite> It&#8217;s probably not as good a movie as <cite>Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/cite>, but it&#8217;s a whole lot of fun. And at a better spot in the alphabet.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Jaws<\/cite> I&#8217;m kind of at a loss when it comes to movies starting with &#8220;J.&#8221; This is a good piece of work, though.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Kung Fu Hustle<\/cite> K is a weak letter, too, but I&#8217;m pretty happy with this one. <cite>Shaolin Soccer<\/cite> made more sense, but the over-the-top fight scenes in this are hilarious.<\/li>\n<li><cite>LA Story<\/cite> Steve Martin&#8217;s best movie. Favorite quote: &#8220;When I&#8217;m around you, I find myself showing off, which is the idiot&#8217;s version of being interesting.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><cite>Midnight Run<\/cite> I watched this so many times in college, I can just about play it frame by frame in my mind.<\/li>\n<li><cite>No Country for Old Men<\/cite> &#8220;N&#8221; is another weak letter. At least, I&#8217;m having a hard time coming up with a better &#8220;N&#8221; movie. <cite>No Way Out<\/cite>, maybe?<\/li>\n<li><cite>Ocean&#8217;s Eleven<\/cite> The first one with Clooney and Pitt is a nearly perfect caper movie. <\/li>\n<li><cite>The Princess Bride<\/cite> Another one I can play frame-by-frame, but would still watch again. <cite>Pulp Fiction<\/cite> would be the other obvious choice.<\/li>\n<li>Q&#8230; I got nothing. Sorry.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Reservoir Dogs<\/cite> Since Tarantino got edged out by Wesley and Buttercup, we&#8217;ll give this the nod over <cite>Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/cite>.<\/li>\n<li><cite>The Silence of the Lambs<\/cite> Since George Lucas already got one movie on the list, we&#8217;ll give this the nod over <cite>Star Wars<\/cite>.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Trainspotting<\/cite> Not the romantic movie about heroin that Bob Dole thought, but a good film. <cite>Time Bandits<\/cite> would be a fine lighter alternative.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Unforgiven<\/cite> Eastwood deconstructs the Western.<\/li>\n<li>V&#8230; Again, I don&#8217;t have much of anything. I&#8217;ve only seen bits of <cite>V for Vendetta<\/cite>, which looks pretty, but doesn&#8217;t make that much sense. I&#8217;ve never seen <cite>Vertigo<\/cite>.<\/li>\n<li><cite>The Wizard of Oz<\/cite> &#8220;W&#8221; is another tough letter. This is the best I can come up with at the moment.<\/li>\n<li><cite>X-Men 2<\/cite> If I have to have an X, this would be the one.<\/li>\n<li><cite>Young Frankenstein<\/cite> Incredibly juvenile, but fun.<\/li>\n<li>Z&#8230; Again, not a rich letter. The only &#8220;Z&#8221; movie that I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ve seen is probably <cite>Zorro, the Gay Blade<\/cite>, which isn&#8217;t exactly brilliant.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, there you go. Feel free to suggest alternatives in the comments, or fill in the gaps in my list.<\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nobody officially &#8220;tagged&#8221; me for this, but I saw it at Easily Distracted, and it seems like a good post topic for the Friday before Christmas. The idea is to pick one movie title for each letter of the alphabet. The list below the fold is not an attempt to come up with Great Films&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/12\/19\/movies-az\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Movies, A-Z<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}