Thing #45 - Watch all the American Film Institute Top 100 that I haven't seen

In 1998, the American Film Institute released a Top 100 American Films list. Being a movie fan and former student, I've seen a good amount of these already. In 2007, they released a revamped list, swapping out a few titles for others (they removed "All Quiet on the Western Front," which was a silly move in my opinion. Even when it was there, it was too far down on the list.) I've decided to watch all of the films on both the original list and the new one that I have not seen yet. If I've seen most or important parts of a film, it doesn't count. I've seen a great deal of "North by Northwest" and "Tootsie," but I've never sat and watched either of them.

I've gone through both lists, and I have my work cut out for me. The total is at approximately 80 films. Some of these will be a treat ("Duck Soup," "The Wild Bunch"), others will certainly feel like a chore ("Doctor Zhivago"). I'm going to try to intersperse them so that I don't do a bunch I've been dreading in one weekend and want to kill myself. On the plus side, I've already endured "Citizen Kane."

Here's the list. The films in BOLD are those I've already seen.

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941
2. "Casablanca," 1942
3. "The Godfather," 1972
4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939
5. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962
6. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939
7. "The Graduate," 1967
8. "On the Waterfront," 1954
9. "Schindler's List," 1993
10. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952
11. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946
12. "Sunset Boulevard," 1950
13. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957
14. "Some Like it Hot," 1959
15. "Star Wars," 1977
16. "All About Eve," 1950
17. "The African Queen," 1951
18. "Psycho," 1960
19. "Chinatown," 1974
20. "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975
21. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940
22. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968
23. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941
24. "Raging Bull," 1980
25. "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial," 1982
26. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964
27. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967
28. "Apocalypse Now," 1979
29. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939
30. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948
31. "Annie Hall," 1977
32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974
33. "High Noon," 1952
34. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962
35. "It Happened One Night," 1934
36. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946
38. "Double Indemnity," 1944
39. "Doctor Zhivago," 1965
40. "North by Northwest," 1959
41. "West Side Story," 1961
42. "Rear Window," 1954
43. "King Kong," 1933
44. "The Birth of a Nation," 1915
45. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951
46. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971
47. "Taxi Driver," 1976
48. "Jaws," 1975
49. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937
50. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969
51. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940
52. "From Here to Eternity," 1953
53. "Amadeus," 1984
54. "All Quiet on the Western Front," 1930
55. "The Sound of Music," 1965
56. "M*A*S*H," 1970
57. "The Third Man," 1949
58. "Fantasia," 1940
59. "Rebel Without a Cause," 1955
60. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981
61. "Vertigo," 1958
62. "Tootsie," 1982
63. "Stagecoach," 1939
64. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," 1977
65. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991
66. "Network," 1976
67. "The Manchurian Candidate," 1962
68. "An American in Paris," 1951
69. "Shane," 1953
70. "The French Connection," 1971
71. "Forrest Gump," 1994
72. "Ben-Hur," 1959
73. "Wuthering Heights," 1939
74. "The Gold Rush," 1925
75. "Dances With Wolves," 1990
76. "City Lights," 1931
77. "American Graffiti," 1973
78. "Rocky," 1976
79. "The Deer Hunter," 1978
80. "The Wild Bunch," 1969
81. "Modern Times," 1936
82. "Giant," 1956
83. "Platoon," 1986
84. "Fargo," 1996
85. "Duck Soup," 1933
86. "Mutiny on the Bounty," 1935
87. "Frankenstein," 1931
88. "Easy Rider," 1969
89. "Patton," 1970
90. "The Jazz Singer," 1927
91. "My Fair Lady," 1964
92. "A Place in the Sun," 1951
93. "The Apartment," 1960
94. "Goodfellas," 1990
95. "Pulp Fiction," 1994
96. "The Searchers," 1956
97. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938
98. "Unforgiven," 1992
99. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," 1967
100. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942

2007 Removals: Doctor Zhivago, Birth of a Nation, From Here to Eternity, Amadeus, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Third Man, Fantasia, Rebel Without a Cause, Stagecoach, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Manchurian Candidate, An American in Paris, Wuthering Heights, Dances with Wolves, Giant, Fargo, Mutiny on the Bounty, Frankenstein, Patton, The Jazz Singer, My Fair Lady, A Place in the Sun, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

2007 Additions:

The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring

Saving Private Ryan

Titanic

The Sixth Sense

The General

Intolerance

Nashville

Sullivan's Travels

Cabaret

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Shawshank Redemption

In the Heat of the Night

All the President's Men

Spartacus

Sunrise

A Night at the Opera

12 Angry Men

Swing Time

Sophie's Choice

The Last Picture Show

Do the Right Thing

Blade Runner

Toy Story

Thing #4 - Start my RRSP

On Friday, I met with a gentleman at my bank. He spent about an hour with me, walking me through all my options, and then I opened one with a nice little amount of money. It was one of the easiest things on my list; I only wish I had the sense to do it sooner.

Done. :)

Thing #61 - Buy myself a piece of jewelry

I accomplished this Friday, April 29, 2011. It was the very first day of my Things list. It was also my birthday.

I bought myself a lovely little ring, with a wee sapphire in the centre, flanked by an aquamarine on each side. I decided on a ring, because, while I'd like to get married, nothing in life in guaranteed.

If you know me, you'll see it sometime soon. :)



Edited to add a picture of the ring.

Thing #51 - Take 5 Singing Lessons

I’ll certainly be continuing past the 5 lessons, but I needed something specific on my list. I feel like singing is such a large part of me, but that I’ve been neglecting it for far too long. So long, in fact, that one of my best friends has no idea, as we met after high school. I mean, I’m usually quite goofy around her, so telling her that I’m taking singing lessons is going to feel really… awkward. Whatever, once it’s out there, it’s out there.

On Friday, May 13, I had my second singing lesson with my friend, Sue McAllister-Bee*. Sue teaches a specific method of singing, known as Speech Level Singing, which has a wide following, including the likes of Michael Jackson and both Enrique and Julio Iglesias.

I had actually had a lesson the previous Sunday, and it hadn’t gone very well. When I was in high school, I was trained using the old classical method, and I still had some deeply ingrained behaviours left over from that. Several times in the lesson, she asked if I was sure I wanted to continue with speech level singing, and was I sure that she was the right teacher for me? I started to kind of feel like she didn’t want to teach me. Now, the great thing about Sue is that she records the lesson, and then burns a CD for you, so you can practice using your previous lesson. When I listened to the lesson throughout the week, I heard myself protesting and full of doubt. No wonder she felt that way! So, on Friday, I went in with a more positive attitude and I came out feeling great. While I was practicing during the week and wondering if I was going to continue, she had played my lesson for a colleague to get another perspective. Her colleague and her talked about different exercises to help me out (it’s a little technical, but basically, I waste a lot of breath), and I’m really excited about where this could go. At the end of Friday, I had paid her for 5 lessons in total, which will take care of my list.

I'm really excited about this one, and I think I'll be really proud with the end result.

*For those interested, Sue has a website at http://www.beemusicstudios.com/ where she frequently updates her blog, and you can read more about the services she offers.

Related frustrations.

I am making progress on the list, but I haven't made any blog posts on it lately. I'm hoping to get a couple done tomorrow, but this is fresh in my mind, and I feel I need to get it out there. The following isn't really a thing, but it's related to the list, so it belongs here.

I had two of the most discouraging moments tonight, on a long drive home with my dad. Basically, I ended up talking about my singing lessons a little bit (I had my second singing lesson on Friday, which was quite delightful), and my dad made some comments about how nice this is "for now" and "if your job situation changes, you'll have to stop your singing lessons", etc. and it just generally implying that this was a passing fancy (been singing since high school, btw), and that I wasn't going to keep up with that. Overall, it really pissed me off. He then went on to talk about how he thought I should have pursued this a long time ago and how he thought I had potential.

The second moment was when he started saying something along the lines of "about your list," which continued on and contained phrases like "double edged sword," and it can "feel great because you accomplish some things, but that it can become an obsession, too, and you have to be careful, bullshitbullshit." This is such horseshit.

Every time I've been involved in the arts in some way, he's just so damn concerned that I'm somehow going to get in the way of making a living. He doesn't seem to think I could make money, therefore it's not worth pursuing. Truth is, if I had focused on some of these things when I should have, I could be good enough to feed myself.

He's been talking to me like this all my life. All I've ever had is potential, and I've never felt really supported by him. It's as though he's worried that if I stick my neck out, and work really hard at something, I'll end up being disappointed. He's a good person and he means well, but at times like this, it's difficult not to see him as an asshole.

Thing #62 - Comb through my digital photos and delete the ones I don't want.

I should get better at naming my Things. That's ridiculously long. I guess it doesn't really matter, truth is, I completed this thing over the past weekend, and I feel much better for it.

Like many of us, I have a digital camera. I love my digital camera. The ex-boyfriend helped me pick it out at an electronics liquidation outlet, so it was a great deal, and because he was there I knew I was getting the best one they had. Say what I want about my ex, he knew his gadgets (alright, let's face it: he should have, it was his goddamn job).

I'm very good at cluttering up different areas of my life, and my computer is no different. I love taking pictures, but I hate uploading them onto the computer. Once I have uploaded them, they usually just sit there in a folder on my computer, taking up space. Those folders really needed to be cleaned out.

Coupling my hatred for dealing with digital photos with the simple fact that the subjects of those photos are from a different time for me, a time when I was in love and thought I was on the road to marriage and all sorts of good things. When I was making love regularly, sometimes cooking for two, and any plans that were made were usually made taking someone else into account. My digital photos are filled with evidence of a relationship that, now that it's over, it's easy for me to believe it never existed. Armed with a glass of wine, I opened up the first folder.

His once warm and reassuring smile just looked smug and condescending.

Delete.
Delete.
Delete, delete, OMG DELETE.

I didn't delete all of them. I don't think there's much sense in completely ignoring my past. Not to mention, a great deal of what I did delete was either fuzzy or contained my thumb. I did get rid of a lot of them, though. There's a bunch still up on Facebook, but I'm just going to leave them be. They're not taking up any space on my computer, and if I do move to untag or delete the pictures, he'll see that I still think of it, in some way. Of course, part of me wants to do it first, before his next girlfriend asks him to do it.

At any rate, my picture folders on my computer have been cleaned up, and I feel much better for it. Truth be told, it wasn't as tough as I was worried it would be.