Monday, November 17, 2008

The Alphabet Meme

I was tagged by Ibetolis from the great blog Film For The Soul to take part in the Alphabet Meme that has been going around started by Fletch at Blog Cabbins. The basic idea is pretty self explanatory but rules are below anyways.


Here goes:


A is for ABOUT SCHMIDT (Dir. Alexander Payne, 2002)

Just watched it again a few days ago and still love every second. A career best for Jack Nicholson.
B is for BARFLY (Dir. Barbet Schroeder. 1987)


C is for COOLER, THE (Dir. Wayne Kramer, 2003)


D is for DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (Dir. Albert Brooks, 1991)


 E is for ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Dir. Michel Gondry, 2004)


  F is for FLETCH (Dir. Michael Ritchie, 1985)

G is for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (James Foley, 1992)

Speaking of a career best, in an incredible cameo Alec Baldwin offers an alphabet meme of his own.


H is for HEAD (Dir. Bob Rafelson, 1968)


 I is for I’M NOT THERE (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2007)


 J is for JFK (Dir. Oliver Stone, 1991)


K is for KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMEN (Dir. Hectoer Babenco, 1985)


 L is for LADY FROM SHANGHAI, THE (Dir. Orson Welles, 1947)


M is for MAGNOLIA (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)


N is for NETWORK (Dir. Sydney Lumet, 1976)

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! - Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) Guess I'm all about the powerful cameo speeches, huh?


O is for OH, GOD! (Dir. Carl Reiner, 1977) See 10 Reasons The 30th Anniversary Of OH, GOD! Should Be Celebrated (Oct. 3, 2007)

P is for PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (Dir. Woody Allen, 1986)


Q is for QUADROPHENIA (Dir. Franc Roddam, 1979)


R is for ROMEO IS BLEEDING (Dir. Peter Medak, 1993)


S is for SMOKE (Dir. Wayne Wang, 1995)


T is for TIME AFTER TIME (Dir. Nicholas Meyer, 1979)


U is for UNREASONABLE MAN, AN (Dirs. Henriette Mantel & Steve Skrovan, 2006)


V is for VISITOR, THE (Dir. Thomas McCarthy, 2008) See A Marvelous Minimalist Movie Before The Blockbuster Bombast Begins May 2, 2008).


W is for WAKING LIFE (Dir. Richard Linklater, 2001)X is for X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE (Dir. Rob Bowman, 1998) Actually this is far from one of my favorite movies, but as X movies go I like it better than X-MEN and XXX.


Y is for YELLOW SUBMARINE (Dir. George Dunning, 1968)


 Z is for ZOOLANDER (Dir. Ben Stiller, 2001)


That's right. Take that ZELIG! Now here are the rules for this Alphabet Meme:


1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord Of The Rings series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

So, these are the folks I'm tagging: TheSophomoreCritic Sara Forbes at SARANOMICS Dean Treadway at filmicability ::: The Playlist ::: * TLA ATTACKS THE MOVIES Moviedearest Hope they play along. * D'oh! ::: The Playlist ::: already made their meme - check it out here.

More later...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

mine was:

adventures in babysitting, boogie nights, crumb, dirty dancing, elf, frankenfish, go, hudsucker proxy, incident at loch ness, jawbreaker, kinsey, lost in translation, midnight cowboy, nine to five, opposite of sex, persopolis, quadrophenia, rutles, safe men, tarnation, undercover brother, vampiros lesbos, whatever happened to baby jane, xanadu, you can count on me, zoolander

Kirby Holt said...

Thanks for asking me to play along! Here's the link to my list:

http://moviedearest.blogspot.com/2008/11/best-of-queer-cinema-from-to-z.html

- kch

Ric Burke said...

Thanks for the wonderful shout.

Nice, nice choices, especially About Schmidt, which I have to see again real soon, Eternal Sunshine (near perfect), Lady from Shanghai, Magnolia, Smoke (God! I love that film, I haven't seen it in years!) and Yellow Sumbarine; which freaked the hell out of me as a kid.

Great list.

sophomorecritic said...

I will not select 5 people, that's too much effort, but i'll link back to blog cabins.

Anyway, there are films on your list that i like but don't love so that's interesting. The Cooler is one of the first films I wrote a really thorough review about. I liked it, i thought it was interesting. I gave it 3 stars, but the best C films of all time over Citizen Kane, Chinatown, Casablanca? that's crazy.

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is my 2nd favorite charlie kaufman film, so i'd put adaptation first.

Lady from Shanghai had a notable scene but there were too many plot twists for me, to the point where it was predictable, to really care about the action.

Waking Life i found bizzare.
About Schmidt, Network, JFK and Glengarry Glenn Ross are interesting choices

Daniel Cook Johnson said...

OKonheim - really? It takes too long to tag 5 other bloggers? Again, I wish you'd read the rules.

The list was about personal choices for movies to represent a letter of the alphabet - not necessarily the "best" film of the letter.

The Cooler is a personal choice. It is a movie that I love and have enjoyed more each time I've seen it. I'm not saying it is a better movie than Citizen Kane, Chinatown, or Casablanca (or many movies that begin with C) - that's not what the list is. It's not a reshuffling of the AFI top 100 to prove you know your classic movies. Besides everyone already knows those "C" movies so what's the point in that? Calling it crazy to pick The Cooler is idiotic and plain rude.

I didn't care for a number of the choices on your list - but it's your list and I think it would be an asshole move to nitpick your choices.

I also absolutely adore Lady From Shanghai and have seen it many times. I'm not saying it's a better film that Citizen Kane - again it's a personal choice.

Sigh - next time read the rules.

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