America wants your Oil

Sometimes the best plans are the most simple

Top ten films not found on top ten lists

Every blogger who’s watched eleven movies in one lifetime has put togther a Top Ten films list. I’ve read half of those. Within each catagory are features well-known and well-worn. Embittered clashes have arisen over each list and its inclusions and/or exclusions to rival the Caputlets and Montagues, Hatfields and McCoys, Sunnis and Shia, and even the Yankees and the Red Sox. But this list is different. I’ve dedicated this series to those films that rarely, if ever, show up on the select litanies so often found in the blog-o-spere. With that may I humbly introduce for your perusal: The Top Ten Films That Don’t Usually Make Top Ten Lists. These are gems often overlooked, neglected, and ignored… due to no other fault than not being as good as the Top Ten…
Starting with drama: (not in order) Elmer Gantry, Dog Day Afternoon, The Elephant Man, Tender Mercies, Mona Lisa, Drug Store Cowboy, Glengarry Glen Ross, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Lone Star, The Fabulous Baker Boys

Interview with a damn-liar

Excerpts from my first (Mr. Know-it-all), and probably last, interview.*

 

I’ll call my interviewer Q… like in the Bond movies but this isn’t same person. And I’ll be playing the part of A. Because I’m considered an… uh. I’ll be A.

 

Q. Did you write as a child?

A. When I was a child I wrote as a child…

Q. Good line.

A. It’s from a movie, Wings of Desire.

Q. Okay then. What did you do as a child?

A. I stared at the television a lot, even when it wasn’t on. That’s when I saw them… these spectral like… these ghostly images moving across the screen… sometimes peering at me. That’s when I knew there were others in my house… Then I figured out it was my parents, I was just seeing their reflection in the screen. They told me later they were checking to see if I still had a pulse. I don’t remember if I did or not, have… have a pulse, but I’m pretty sure I did.

Q. Um, okay. Were those your first memories?

A. No. My first memories were of the confusion of… birth. It was cold and somebody was slapping me around, first thing, I didn’t even have time to do something wrong, just pow! And I was tryin’ to figure out why I got evicted. I was quiet, non-smoker, no pets or loud parties. And then this guy cuts the cord. ‘Hey pal. Whatcha doin’ that for? Now, I’m stuck here.’

Q. Uh huh. What do you parents think about you now?

A. They don’t. They’re dead, cremated. I didn’t have much money then, so I took care of the arrangements myself. A burn can and a bag of self-starting briquettes… but it was nice. There was music. My neighborhood if there was a burn can and an open flame on the sidewalk a half dozen folks would show up and start singing.

Q. Did you have brothers and sisters?

A. That wasn’t up to me.

Q. No… Did your parents have any other children?

A. I… never… asked. I tried to respect their privacy.

Q. Grandparents?

A. Oh yeah. They were together to the end… she was a stewardess and he was… the Safety Officer… on the Hindenburg.

Q. And great grandparents?

A. Oh, that’s a stretch. They were good, but not everyone would claim they were great.

Q. Okay. Where did you go to school?

A. Um, I went to a school at this rectangular building with a playground and some fields right next to it. It was a couple of block from my house and a bunch of other kids were there too, so it was ideal for uh, school. Ya know.

Q. Tsk, all right. Do you have any photos I can use for this article?

A. I have one photo, but there is some controversy surrounding it.

Q. I’m afraid to ask, but what kind of controversy?

A. Some people have suggested it’s just a Sasquatch in a human suit, but that’s neither been proven nor disproven.

Q. Okay, that’s it.

 

* This was a project a friend was given for a journalism class: interviewing a difficult subject. I’m keeping these answers for my first ‘real’ interview. Thanks to all, Mr. Know-it-all…