100 Favorite Movies List in 28 Years of Living

Thanks to my friends Aaron and Wes for getting my ass in gear in finally compiling the last few weeks worth of work into a coherent list.

I wish more people would follow our lead.

Disclaimer: Comments are welcome, but none will be from me, as I could write for hours upon hours about why I love these movies so much. Though this has already taken a lot of time over the last few weeks, I now have to dedicate energy to other things.

100) Little Monsters (1989)

99) Ding-A-Ling-Less (2001)

98) Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006)

97) Birth (2004)

96) All the Real Girls (2003)

95) How to Draw a Bunny (2002)

94) The Prestige (2006)

93) Trees Lounge (1996)

92) Yi yi (2000)

91) Paper Moon (1973)

90) Fitzcarraldo (1982)

89) The Game (1997)

88) Deliverance (1972)

87) The Bridge (2006)

86) Julien Donkey Boy (1999)

85) Dawn of the Dead (1978)

84) Dazed and Confused (1993)

83) Lone Star (1996)

82) Kicking and Screaming (1995)

81) Dancer in the Dark (2000)

80) Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

79) Keane (2004)

78) Come Early Morning (2006)

77) The Straight Story (1999)

76) Stone Reader (2002)

75) Lilya-4-Ever (2002)

74) Before Sunrise (1995)

73) Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

72) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)

71) Beautiful Girls (1996)

70) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

69) Naked (1993)

68) Breaking the Waves (1996)

67) Bottle Rocket (1996)

66) Swingers (1996)

65) Before Sunset (2004)

64) Time of the Wolf (2003)

63) Jules and Jim (1962)

62) The Dark Knight (2008)

61) About Schmidt (2002)

60) The New World (2005)

59) The Messenger (2009)

58) Rushmore (1998)

57) Sin Nombre (2009)

56) Apocalypse Now (1979)

55) Repo Man (1984)

54) Stand By Me (1986)

53) Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

52) Annie Hall (1977)

51) Schindler’s List (1993)

50) Casino (1995)

49) Mystery Train (1989)

48) Gummo (1997)

47) Cache (2005)

46) Irreversible (2002)

45) Menace II Society (1993)

44) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

43) Scarecrow (1973)

42) Half Nelson (2006)

41) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

40) Reservoir Dogs (1992)

39) The Shining (1980)

38) Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)

37) Hoop Dreams (1994)

36) Suspiria (1977)

35) The Pianist (2002)

34) Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

33) Primer (2004)

32) Full Metal Jacket (1987)

31) The Conversation (1974)

30) Zoo (2007)

29) Ballast (2008)

28) Manhattan (1979)

27) Badlands (1973)

26) The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

25) Short Cuts (1993)

24) Elephant (2003)

23) Wings of Desire (1987)

22) The Squid and the Whale (2005)

21) Election (1999)

20) Police Beat (2005)

19) Love Liza (2002)

18) Boogie Nights (1997)

17) Do the Right Thing (1989)

16) Pulp Fiction (1994)

15) Se7en (1995)

14) The Dream Catcher (1999)

13) The Ice Storm (1997)

12) Sideways (2004)

11) Fargo (1996)

10) Children of Men (2006)

9) Snow Angels (2007)

8) Low and Behold (2007)

7) Magnolia (1999)

6) The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

5) American Movie (1999)

4) George Washington (2000)

3) The Thin Red Line (1998)

2) Paris, Texas (1984)

1) Days of Heaven (1978)

Rue

Just got my third set of Ghost Lights proof corrections sent off.

I'm starting to realize that I could see myself working, possibly somehow, in publishing in the future. Or I could see myself working for a press in some capacity at the very least. I'm really interested in everything that has to do with typesetting (as far as a computer program, not the old school way), font, look, size, etc.

Someone had a link on Facebook the other day to this interview with Jason Koo.

One of his poems is in the same issue of ACM I also have a poem in, and though I'd heard of him, I hadn't read any of his work until then. Now, after reading this interview, I'm even more interested in getting his book.

He also says one thing that I've never seen in an interview before, regarding the differences of labor and work, and it's something that I find extremely interesting, especially when it comes to the work he had to do on his book, the work that didn't involve taking seven years to get it accepted for publication:

Take my first book: it represents what I think of as my work, and each poem within it represents that work; but putting that book together was one mother of a labor-intensive process. The production of the book itself into a physical object was exasperating. C&R gave me total control over how the book turned out, which was great; but the downside was that I got almost no creative or editorial feedback. So I ended up having to make decisions about the width of the margins, the size and type of font for the poems, the poem titles, the page numbers, the first title page, the second title page, the epigraphs -- decisions I was not expecting to have to make. This might sound simple, but it’s not, especially if you’re not a professional designer; you don’t have a real idea of how things are going to look when they’re in book form. I had no idea that 12-pt Garamond -- which looks pretty small on an 8 ½ by 11-inch page -- looks huge on a 6 by 9-inch page. I wasn’t sure how to design my title pages, where to put the titles and name and how to big to make them. So there I was with a tape measure going through all my poetry books, comparing the designs and making these decisions on the fly. And when my manuscript went from Word to Adobe InDesign, all these little things got screwed up that normally get screwed up like the tabs for my indented lines that I’d spent hours setting when I prepared the manuscript for production (so they wouldn’t get screwed up). C&R’s designer was doing the best he could to make sure all the tabs were correct, but you can only stare at tabs for so long before you go crazy, and he only had weekends to work on the manuscript, so ultimately it was up to me to make sure everything came out right. Also, I didn’t have a proofreader; and honestly, could a proofreader even be expected to make sure all the tabs were correct for a poem like “2046 Love Songs of Wong Kar Wai”? That’s not in the proofreading manual. I went through so many rounds of corrections for the book before it was ready to be sent to the printer; and most of the time I wasn’t even looking at the words of the poems, I was checking tabs and margins with my tape measure. I think my girlfriend started to think she was dating a tailor. And my thought during all this time was: I’m not enjoying this. It wasn’t the work of poetry, even though I was preparing my first work of poetry. This was definitely labor, but clearly necessary labor if I wanted my book to look right.

It's pretty fascinating to me for a few reasons. Though Bear clearly knows what he's doing when it comes to making books (Dream Horse Press has not only been around for nearly ten years, but look at the future line-up, Ghost Lights excluded, and you'll see that it's a press that should be sticking around for a very long time to come...), I've gotten a lot of control with my choices thus far. I hope I haven't been too much of a pain in the ass also, with my questions and concerns and nitpicking, but I'm very particular when it comes to the look of a book, especially the font. Not only that, but a lot of my questions come from my lack of experience with this, in addition to my willingness to learn from someone who knows what they're doing.

Maybe one day I'll talk about some books that I don't think look overall too spectacular (though I probably won't, because it's not my place to go saying that about other presses, quite honestly), but I think it's important for people to realize that, if they can have a lot of control, they should spend time trying to make it a piece of art, in its entirety.

Sometimes, though, unfortunately, much of these wants are out of the poet's hands...

Granted, some folks get lucky and get with a press that not only lets them have a lot of control, but also has typesetters and copy editors and every other position you can think of, so they can concentrate on making sure their words are their words once they're officially on the page.

Even Jason's comment about Garamond in 12 point makes sense to me. My first proof was in a font that made me feel a little claustrophobic, so I wanted to see if Garamond was possible. Because some my lines are so long, we took the font down to 11, and right now it looks great. But in the back of my mind, I kept saying, "Is this too small?" I tried to imagine how it would look on the page, but it's tough when you only have a .pdf in front of you on the computer screen. From Jason's words, though, it looks like 11 should be just about right.

Jason also seems to do a lot of indenting with his poems, and many of the poems in Ghost Lights aren't left justified... I know this has been a pain to deal with also, because some of these programs don't seem to be as conducive to these types of corrections, but it's these things that you have to have, if the space on the page permits, exactly right.

I'm not really sure exactly what I'm trying to say here, but I think it comes down to being really interested in all the specific typesetting and book-making processes.

Now I'm noticing more things in books that I never noticed before.

Are the titles capitalized and not bold?
Are the titles italicized and not capitalized?
Are the titles bold and not capitalized?
How close together are the letters? Is the font boring?
Is the font claustrophobic?

And on and on and on...

Maybe some would call all of this labor, to a certain degree, but I really like this aspect of making sure everything is (at least closest to) exactly how I want it. And time is really not a factor when it comes to getting to these final stages, because though I ultimately want people to like the book for the poems inside it, it would also be great if they agreed with my choices that don't have to do with the words used.

*

I can't stop listening to the new Eluvium record, Similes. Talk Amongst the Trees is one of my favorite records of all time, and I was a bit disappointed, as much as it pains me to say it, with Copia.

But Similes is beautiful, sad, and pretty wonderful overall. There are vocals this time around, and some soft percussion in places. But many of the tracks also feel like "songs," which is new territory he's exploring.

Do yourself this small favor when time allows and pick it up.

*

Recently, we finally got a Blu-Ray player, one that plays multi-region and PAL discs, so we don't have to screw around with locked discs.

I keep saying to myself, "Where the hell have I been?" As far as technology goes, I don't understand how they do it, and I don't understand how we waited this long to witness it.

I'm a huge fan of Magnolia, for example, which is an amazing film too many people love to hate. I even skipped school in 10th or 11th grade to go see it. I've seen it at least twenty times by now, and in the first five minutes of the recently released Blu-Ray discs, I kept noticing things I had never seen (the sweep of the camera through Linda's closet, for example, showing the size of it, the detail of it, right before she exits to get in the car). So when you think about the entire three hours, it was really like seeing a different film.

When I got my IMac I was pretty impressed with all that it could do, and I still love it, but I feel like Blu-Ray is something pretty monumental in the grand scheme of technological advances of the last twenty years, at least.

Granted, I probably spend more time watching movies than I do writing poetry, so I can see how the average viewer with a 1080p TV says, "Yeah, it looks better," etc. But wow. I feel like a little kid again, and I haven't been this impressed with technology in a long time, if ever.

Take, for example, the long dolly shot in Children of Men, the one where blood gets spattered on the lens and the shot keeps going, when Theo has Kee and the baby and he's trying to get them to safety. Everything is literally heart-stopping, both visually and aurally.

The end of Full Metal Jacket: when Eightball's getting shot in slow-motion as the sniper draws the rest of the men in, and the backgrounds of smoke are curling, and fires flicker in crumbling windows and empty doorways. Then they wakj away in darkness as all the buildings are on fire around them.

And all the bright shots of Las Vegas in Casino? Completely insane.

Days of Heaven comes out in March. And tell me The Thin Red Line's not going to look immaculate, when it gets released of course.

And that's the other point: you can take a movie from the 60s or 70s and make it look and sound as amazing as it possibly can.

I'm sold. I'm beyond giddy and happy and excited. I'll be buying and renting many more Blu-Rays in the future, especially since they're, somehow, even cheaper now than regular DVDs.

Six Months

Got my second proof corrections finished for Ghost Lights about an hour ago.

I feel like I'm way too much of a stickler in some ways, but then I realize it's necessary.

It shouldn't take more than two more proofs to get everything good to go, but we'll see.

*

Spinning these records a lot lately:

• Beach House - Teen Dream
• Owen Pallett - Heartland
• Efterklang - Magic Chairs
• Tindersticks - Falling Down a Mountain
• The American Dollar - Atlas
• Vampire Weekend - Contra
• The Album Leaf - A Chorus of Storytellers

*

School starts back up officially in a week.

I'm ready to get back. Never did I think a break would be too long of a break. Until now.

But really I shouldn't complain.

*

Jess and I have been married for six months today. Time goes fast.

*

I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot.

Some

Received the new issue of Handsome a few days ago. Beautifully designed it is. A lot of good writers within the pages. Thanks again to the editors.

I now have one more poem that needs to actually be published from Ghost Lights until they're all in journals and none are forthcoming.

*

I was also thrilled yesterday to get the first round of Ghost Lights galleys.

It's funny: what I never thought would be an issue is my penchant for italics and indentation.

I'm pretty sure it was Joshua Poteat who got me obsessed with how a poem can look on the page. For better or worse. And I don't know where the italics came from, but I clearly didn't realize I had that much in the book. I used it for dialogue mostly, though, and there's a lot within many of the poems. I think I just like how it looks mostly, or at least that's how the obsession started...

Thankfully I have much less italics in the new manuscript, though the crazy indentations and forms are still there. Will I ever trust myself to be strictly left-justified?

Since I start school again in exactly two weeks, I took about five hours and got about fourteen typed pages of corrections to my editor. I think I got most of it, but we'll see.

I'm doing my best to make sure everything's as perfect as can be before it goes to the printers in a few months. I suppose that kind of goes without saying.

*

Steve had a very interesting post recently concerning defunct journals and Acknowledgments pages:

I was looking at the acknowledgments page of Torched Verse Ends, and by my count at least five of the journals I placed individual poems in are already defunct (Cranky, Diner, three candles, Unloved Mail Order Bride, and Unpleasant Event Schedule). Plus, the journal I edited for a good portion of time while I was producing the poems, The Eleventh Muse, is either defunct or might as well be. Beyond that, a ton of the journals that were generally prominent and well regarded when I first started trying to publish poetry are gone too: Chelsea, Grand Street, Partisan Review, Ontario Review, etc. And now many university reviews are in danger: New England Review, Triquarterly, The Southern Review, etc. Is there a lesson in that impermanence, especially considering that we're clearly publishing in the age of obsolescence for the print book? I don't know. Maybe it's just that if you're really a writer, you enjoy that publication when it happens, but then consider it over and move right on to writing your next thing. Maybe something actually deep that I haven't thought of yet. What do you think?

I looked at my Acknowledgments for Ghost Lights, and right now, it looks like the only journal that will be defunct will be Diner.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in a year. How many more will be gone? I didn't know Chelsea was done either.

That said, I've always been of the mind that says, "OK, this is published, now move on." And then there's the cool thing that happens after, when it's actually published.

The best thing about getting something published, to me, is being forced to work on something new if you want to get there again. Always a good thing.

*

Really enjoyed A Serious Man, which I finally saw the other day. Bizarre, disjointed, and hilarious. See it.

Beginnings

It was weird the other day as I went to Paul Guest's blog a day earlier and saw the same comment from anonymous that he ended up commenting on himself.

The whole comment elicited a response halfway between shock and hilarity to me. I wish if people were going to masquerade as knowing something that they'd at least put their real name.

I love Paul's work. His memoir's going to be amazing too.

*

Speaking of poets, I have to issue a congratulations to a friend and very talented poet who just won a book contest.

Unfortunately, I can't say anything else, since the contract stuff isn't done yet. That said, there's another reason why I'm doubly excited that this particular friend one this particular contest.

More later on this front.

*

Saw The Lovely Bones recently. Despite the horrible reviews mostly, I actually liked it a lot. I knew I was going to like it a lot when the movie opened with the first track from Brian Eno's "Music for Airports," with snow swirling above a penguin trapped in a snow globe.

The music and cinematography are fantastic. Stanley Tucci deserves an Academy Award for playing George Harvey.

Also liked The Road a lot, though I'm hoping for a director's cut DVD so it's longer. They did a little too much on the cutting room floor.

*

I registered for what I hope is going to be a great class next semester, and I decided to get a jump on some of the novels we'll be reading.

The first I read was A Thousand Acres, which I didn't know much about. Liked it a lot, though I'm not sure how I can respond to the King Lear aspect of it.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen at first, but the whole thing kept building and building and building, and though it was pretty depressing by the end (which I liked), I was amazed at how she was able to build the story around the families. There's a lot I have to say about it, so that'll be good for the spring.

My goal's to read all the books and reread them for the class.

Blood Meridian and Interpreter of Maladies are the ones I'm reading next.

Hoping to get them all done by the time I got back on January 26th.

*

I really hope to challenge myself this semester and write stuff that isn't easy for me to write. I want to branch out and experiment, though I don't want to experiment to the point where the poems become exercises in music or form without meaning.

I need a new project for my third manuscript. Where will I find you, new project?

*

Decided to sell a bunch of my DVDs.

A lot of Criterions I haven't watched, (though there are many I will be keeping that I still love) mostly because I once had a crazy idea that I'd get the whole collection. Yikes.

There are bunch of Anchor Bay flicks that are out of print that I've already made good money on. Great movies, but if I paid $10 for each and get at least $40 for each now, not to mention that there will undoubtedly be new and superior versions out in the future, then why not sell them now?

Plus, Blu Ray's becoming something I want to deal with in the future, though I can't see myself spending too much money to get superior versions of already good versions of DVDs I already own.

*

Hoping to get to my movie and music lists before I go back for spring semester also...

Endings

This year went quickly.

*

Going to see THE ROAD again in a crappy little theater in Hermitage. Saw it in NYC a few weeks ago. Loved it, but I want to see the cut of the film how it was supposed to be. I hope that happens.

*

Need to get my movie list in order, and my favorite records of 2009.

*

Have a ton of books I want to read. Novels too. Not just poetry. School doesn't start again until January 25th. I don't think I ever had a break that long in PA and VA.

*

This is one of the paintings I'd love to have for the cover of Ghost Lights. I hope Lois Dodd lets me have it and doesn't want a ton of money. Since I love it so much, I'm sure it'll be unable to grace the cover.

*

Five blurbs in for Ghost Lights. Still waiting for a few more. Need to have the galleys. I'm thrilled that people are saying such nice things.

*

Haven't written a decent poem in a long time. It's been the longest stretch since I started writing. Haven't sent out a lot of work recently either. Though I do have the last handful of poems from the new manuscript out at a good amount of journals still, and some of them have had them for a while. Maybe the rejections are coming along slowly. Maybe someone will actually want something.

*

I need to begin a third manuscript, but I'm not rushing it. I don't think the second one's going to change all that much. Maybe I'm crazy, but it's weird and I like it, and it represents a significant part of the changes of the last few years.

*

I do have high hopes for production this spring semester. Hopefully I don't let myself down.

NYC

Jess and I are off to New York City this weekend. She wants to see a show. And the tree. And Times Square.

Now that we got an insane deal from a friend of a friend on a hotel right by The Meadowlands, I really want to snag some tickets to the Giants / Eagles game this Sunday night. For Sunday Night Football. Which would be awesome. It'll be the first and officially last time we have a shot to do so before the new stadium. That would kind of make my year complete, even though it's pretty much been complete already (see previous post).

*

After watching the Denver Nuggets dominate in the playoffs last year, I've become a new follower of the team. I don't think I can officially call myself a fan, but they're fun to watch, and I'll always catch a game now if it's on TV.

When I was at my aunt's for Thanksgiving, everyone had gone to bed, and I was watching the Knicks / Nuggets game, and one of the announcers said something about J.R. Smith that I thought was extremely apt for what I want to do with whatever material ends up becoming some semblance of a start for my third manuscript.

He said, "J.R. Smith's dangerous because he has infinite range and no conscience." I thought that was beautiful, especially since it was said about a basketball player. However, if you see some of the insane shots Smith puts up, and sometimes makes (more often than you'd think), then you know what I'm talking about.

But think about it.

If, as writers, we don't believe we have infinite range, than we never push ourselves to go beyond what we're capable of. Insert name after name after name of poets who keep writing the same book after the same book after the same book (or, for those who don't have a book out, the same poem after the same poem after the same poem). And having no conscience is the part that I've been fairly lucky to have, even though it's gotten me into trouble in some cases (and it still might if certain people see Ghost Lights, since there are poems in there that certain people may not want to read, for a number of reasons). Just another reason to put your balls to the wall, especially since so many writers keep doing the same things, sacrificing heart for music, sacrificing balls for artifice.

I hope I never succumb to that.

*

Got the third blurb for Ghost Lights, with still a handful to go.

I think I'll have a good mix once all is said and done. And I'm grateful for the time everyone's taken to write something about the book.

If everyone's saying the same thing on the back cover, then what's the point of reading more than one? Or any of them, for that matter?

And yes, I don't need you to tell me that people mostly don't read the blurbs anyway, because I know that. But thankfully folks have been, in my opinion, writing representative statements that hopefully will make someone at least open it to see if they're interested. And if they're not, I'm glad they at least wanted to see if they were.