11-21-11 LISTS, PART 1

I love to make lists.  I don't know why, I used to blame my mother but now I blame the fact that if I don't write it down I don't remember it.  Regardless, I just like to make lists, and I tend to make a lot of random lists.  I have a lot of random and useless lists on my computer.

I came across a list I made of all of the movies that have had a profound influence on me during my lifetime. Yes, I said 'profound', as in each one completely changed the way I look at movies in some aspect.  This is not a list of my favorite movies, though many of them are. A lot of my favorite movies ('Star Wars', 'Cinema Paradiso', 'Get Shorty') are not on this list.   Also, I'm only including movies I watched at the time they were released, which leaves off my #1 & #2 all-time favorite ('Godfather 1 & 2') as well as a few other influences ('The Sting', 'Apolcalypse Now').  Why am I being so stingy with my list? I have no idea, it's just the criteria I decided on at the time that I made the list.

There are some really mundane movies on this list... not all of them can be cinematic masterpieces. A few of them are only on this list for the music, which obviously has a huge influence on my life.  Anyway, with no further explantation or justification, here it is, in chronological order:

'92 Strictly Ballroom

'92 Glengarry Glen Ross
'94 Shawshank Redemption
'94 Pulp Fiction

'95 The Usual Suspects

'97 Lost Highway

'97 Face Off

'98 The Big Lebowski

'99 Any Given Sunday

'99 The Matrix

'00 Snatch

'01 Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

'03 Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

'03 Italian Job

'04 I Heart Huckabees

'04 Napoleon Dynamite