John Edwards: "I'm running for third place in the Democratic primaries."

James Brown, RIP.

Merry Christmas!

Well, wish me luck. I take on the GRE at 12 noon today. 

Another Bad Joke

Guy 1: How was your date with the blind girl?

Guy 2: Not so great.

Guy 1: Why? What’d you do?

Guy 2: I took her to the movies. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but—

Guy 1: What movie did you see?

Guy 2: Uh, City Lights. She thought we were at some old-timey dance hall. She kept trying to order sarsaparilla from the usher.

When I Should Have Known It Wasn’t Going to Work Out

HER: Do you like wine?

ME: Oh, yeah.

HER: What kind do you like?

ME: Well, it’s a big thing now because of Sideways, but I do like pinot noir. Mostly reds—a nice full cabernet or shiraz. What about you?

HER: What’s that pink wine called?

CNN.com headline: "Is the Brangelina baby cuter than a panda cub?"

Comments on Comments on Movies

Ben said...

Bergman before Scorsese.

I've seen a fair few Bergman movies, and I've thought all of them were amazing. But I don't know if I can make it through a Bergman marathon without killing myself. I felt pretty gross after Persona (incredible, by the way), I can tell you that. I'll get through him eventually.

Ben said...

Hey wait... So, top five best Allen movies?

There aren't any real surprises in my top five Woody Allen movies, but there are some honorable mentions that no one really talks about.

The Top Five:

5. Love and Death
4. Bullets over Broadway
3. Sleeper
2. Manhattan
1. Annie Hall (of course)

Very good ones that no one ever talks about:

- The Other Woman
- Take the Money and Run
- Broadway Danny Rose
- September

I find it very difficult not to mention some of my personal favorites--films that aren't perfect, but that I have a strong connection to for one reason or another: Husbands and Wives, Zelig, Match Point, and especially Stardust Memories. In the end, any movie directed by Woody Allen is better than most other movies--unless it has Tiffany Amber Thiessen in it.

A few weeks ago I finally finished working my way through every Woody Allen movie. Who's next on the list? What other film directors have a large enough body of work and a meaningful enough role in movies to merit a time investment the size of the Woody Allen project?

There are a lot of possibilities--Bergman, Hitchcock, Altman, Bertolucci--I think I'm going to have to start digging into Scorsese.

So far I've seen:

- Mean Streets
- Taxi Driver
- Raging Bull
- The King of Comedy
- New York Stories (A short-film collaboration with Woody Allen and Francis Ford Coppola)
- Goodfellas
- Cape Fear
- Casino
- Kundun
- Bringing out the Dead
- No Direction Home: Bob Dylan
- The Departed

It's a pretty good start, but IMDB lists Scorsese as director of 46 movies (although a few of them are for TV only and short films). I figure I have about 25 to go. Any recommendations?

My cousin M is five years old. During Thanksgiving my family went around the table noting the things we're thankful for.

"What are you thankful for, M?" my aunt asked.

M sat there looking at the turkey for a few moments.

"Are you thankful for this nice meal we're about to eat?" his father prompted him.

To everyone's surprise, M shouted "NO!" Then, woefully, he added, "The turkey had to die. It's so sad."

"But you like other things we're eating for dinner. Maybe you could be thankful for those things."

"Like ham?" M asked his father.

"Yes, you like ham."

"I'm thankful we have ham," M said. He paused a moment and said matter-of-factly, "It's part of the bacon family."

Speaking of brown people . . .

I recalled to ES yesterday that it was interesting that racist people in New Zealand called the Maori (the indigenous people of NZ) the N word.

Also interesting was a bit on the radio I heard featuring a British citizen with Middle-Eastern heritage referring to himself as a "black man."