Tuesday, December 28, 2010

My Three Songs: 12/28/10

1. REO Speedwagon - Riding the Storm Out
2. Rolling Stones - Beast of Burden
3. Slaughter - Fly to the Angels

Theme :: The X-Men.  Storm, Beast, and Angel are all members of the comic book superhero team created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  Stan Lee celebrates his birthday today.

Monday, December 27, 2010

The List: All My DVD's

Someone wanted to know exactly which movies I own. That way you can ensure that I'm not cheating - skipping movies that I don't want to watch or can't connect to anything else in my collection.

You could also play along at home... take the list and try to make all the connections yourself. It's way harder and more time consuming than you'd think.

So here they are...

12 Monkeys
2001: A Space Odyssey
28 Days Later
300
A Clockwork Orange
A Few Good Men
A Fish Called Wanda
A Fistful of Dollars
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
Airplane!
Alien
Aliens
Almost Famous
Amadeus
American Movie
American Pie
American Psycho
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Animal House
Apocalypse Now
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
Army of Darkness
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Back to the Future
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part III
Backdraft
Batman Begins
Batman: The Movie
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Beavis and Butthead Do America
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Big
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Billy Madison
Blade Runner
Blazing Saddles
Boogie Nights
Bowling For Columbine
Boyz n the Hood
Braveheart
Bull Durham
Cabin Boy
Caddyshack
Casino
Chasing Amy
Chinatown
Christmas Vacation
Citizen Kane
Clerks
Clerks II
Coming To America
Confidence
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Critters
Dark City
Dawn of the Dead
Dazed and Confused
Dead Alive
Deja Vu
Die Hard
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dogma
Dr. Strangelove
El Mariachi
Election
Elf
Escape From the Planet of the Apes
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Evil Dead
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
Fargo
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
Fletch
For a Few Dollars More
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Freddy vs. Jason
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Free Enterprise
Frenzy
Friday
Friday the 13th
From Dusk Till Dawn
Full Metal Jacket
Ghostbusters
Glengarry Glen Ross
Goodfellas
Grindhouse: Death Proof
Grindhouse: Planet Terror
Grosse Point Blank
Groundhog Day
Half Baked
Halloween
Happy Gilmore
Hard Candy
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Heat
Heist
High Fidelity
Hot Fuzz
I Love You, Man
I'm Gonna Get You Sucka
In Bruges
In the Line of Fire
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Interview With the Vampire
Jackie Brown
Jacob's Ladder
Jaws
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
Jerry Maguire
Jurassic Park
Kill Bill, Vol. 1
Kill Bill, Vol. 2
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
Knocked Up
L.A. Confidential
Legends of the Fall
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2
Lethal Weapon 3
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Lost in Translation
Love Actually
Major League
Mallrats
Marnie
Mean Streets
Memento
Mission Impossible
Mission Impossible 3
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Meaning of Life
Moon
Napoleon Dynamite
Night of the Living Dead
North by Northwest
Notorious
Ocean's Eleven
Office Space
Old School
On the Waterfront
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Patton
Pi
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Planet of the Apes
Point Break
Poltergeist
Primal Fear
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
Raging Bull
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rear Window
Requiem For a Dream
Reservoir Dogs
Return of the Jedi
Rio Bravo
Risky Business
Roger & Me
Rosemary's Baby
Roxanne
Rushmore
Saving Private Ryan
Saw
Say Anything
Scarface
School of Rock
Scrooged
Seven
Shadow of a Doubt
Shaun of the Dead
Shrek
Sideways
Signs
Sin City
Singles
Sixteen Candles
Sneakers
Sold Out: A Threevening with Kevin Smith
Spellbound
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Star Trek
Star Wars
Stripes
Suicide Kings
Sunshine
Superbad
Superman
Superman II
Superman III
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Swingers
Talk Radio
Taxi Driver
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The Big Lebowski
The Blues Brothers
The Breakfast Club
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Brothers McMullen
The Commitments
The Crow
The Dark Knight
The Departed
The Empire Strikes Back
The Exorcist
The Fountain
The Godfather
The Godfather, Part II
The Godfather, Part III
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
The Goonies
The Howling
The Jerk
The Karate Kid
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Lost Boys
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
The Manchurian Candidate
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Muppet Movie
The Natural
The Omen
The Princess Bride
The Proposition
The Ring
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Searchers
The Shining
The Silence of the Lambs
The Simpsons Movie
The Terminator
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Usual Suspects
The Warriors
The Wedding Crashers
The Wedding Singer
The X-Files
There's Something About Mary
Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead
This Is Spinal Tap
Tombstone
Tommy Boy
Top Gun
Touch of Evil
Trading Places
Training Day
Trainspotting
Tropic Thunder
True Lies
Unforgiven
V For Vendetta
Vanilla Sky
Vertigo
Wall Street
Wall-E
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
What About Bob?
When Harry Met Sally
Wonder Boys
X-Men
X-Men 2: X-Men United
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Young Frankenstein
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Zodiac
Zombieland

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Six Degrees of DVD Project

The Project:
My DVD & Blu-Ray collection currently contains nearly 300 movies (plus some music DVD's and a bunch of TV shows). My goal: To watch every movie in my collection in such an order that each film shares an actor or director with the film before it... connecting my entire collection in one big 266+ degrees of separation.

For example: If I watch Schindler's List, I could follow it up with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, because both were directed by Stephen Spielberg. I could then follow Close Encounters with What About Bob? since both star Richard Dreyfuss.

The Rules:
1. I must own the movie.
That means no Netflix, rentals, library check-outs, loans from friends, burned discs, or stuff I recorded from TV.

2. Connections must be actor or director only.
No cheating by connecting movies with the producer, writer, key grip, best boy, or caterer.

3. Actors must be recognizable either by name or by character.
I won't cheat by finding some extra who was in the background without any lines in two movies.

4. No documentaries or music DVD's.
Without any actors and with directors that usually haven't transitioned into feature films, it would be nearly impossible to fit my copies of Radiohead's Best Of music video DVD, Led Zeppelin Live DVD, or docs like American Movie and Roger and Me into the list.

5. No TV on DVD.
As much as I love my collections of shows like The Simpsons, The Wire, The Shield, South Park, Weeds, The Muppet Show, and more... this is a project about movies, so those will stay on the shelf.

6. I can watch other stuff.
This project is just for fun. I will be going to the movie theater, getting DVD's from Netflix, and popping in some of my favorites to watch with my friends.

7. The new movie rule.
I'm going to buy more movies. So what to do about this list once something new has been added to the mix? I foresee three scenarios:
  • A) I can fit the new movie in between two movies I haven't watched yet. No problem. Just put the new DVD in the list when I get to that point.
  • B) The new movie will only fit between two I've already watched as part of the project. The plan would be to watch the new DVD before moving forward on the list, and place it in the list where it would have fit if I had owned it at the start of the project.
  • C) Major frak-up. The new movie will only fit into the project with a major overhaul of the order, screwing up the order of movies I've already watched as part of the project. I'm not sure what I'll do in this situation. Will have to figure it out as we go.
The Beginning:
I'm starting with the 1991 film, The Commitments. I'll post connections and thoughts as I go through each movie. Stay tuned...