Saturday, January 9, 2010

To the Mattresses Week 1 - The Schedule



Saturday, the day of rest.

I'm not much for religion, and you know what they say about the wicked.

But that's not saying I'm not going to be lazy.

So I've got this structure thing figured out over the past few days. It wasn't some amazing epiphone or anything like that. E did not equal MC squared. There was not long study of ancient scrolls to determine the best way to spread my particular brand of joy. It just happened the way it happened. One thing led to the next.

I think I'm going to enjoy the way it all worked out. Takes a little bit of the pressure away knowing at least what subject I'm writing about tomorrow.

Sunday- Cover of the Week.
Monday- 45 Minutes (Television)
Tuesday- The Short Con (Short fiction)
Wednesday- New Comic Wednesday
Thursday- The Long Con (Books)
Friday- Friday Night At the Movies
Saturday- To the Mattresses

Got my bases covered don't I?

But it doesn't overflow with spontanaeity and chaos, something everyone needs.

That's where Saturday comes into play.

On Saturday, I'm going to write whatever I damn well please. Maybe I want to spotlight another comic I found, or perhaps there was an interesting story over the news feed. I might just want to write about kittens, and at that point you are screwed.

You've been warned.

First topic...

Top 5-10 Crime movies. They don't need to be balls to the wall with criminal activity, mafia oriented or any of that other video store labelled bullshit. Just give me movies where some sort of crime takes place. (This is for you Shane. You better give me a list.) Please leave these in the comments section so others can mock you.

And Gibran, making me watch the Spice Girls movie all those years ago, that's the biggest crime. Bastard.

Prepare for discussion next week.

13 comments:

  1. I'll start the ball rolling since it was my idea. These are my top 10 modern crime films.

    1- Blue Velvet
    2- Out of Sight
    3- Streets of Fire (Michael Pare representing!)
    4- The Godfather
    5- The Departed
    6- Eastern Promises
    7- In the Bedroom
    8- Heat
    9- Jackie Brown
    10- Snatch

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  2. And Honorable Mention, because I can't believe I forgot it....Oldboy

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  3. 10. Zero Effect
    9. Coffy
    8. The Maltese Falcon
    7. Out of the Past
    6. The Ninth Gate
    5. Dirty Harry
    4. Rear Window
    3. Point Blank
    2. Blade Runner
    1. Jackie Brown

    I'm sure I've forgotten something huge, here. But that's what I came up with.

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  4. Blade Runner! Great choice. Futuristic film noir at it's absolute finest.

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  5. And City of God. I should have made a top 15.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. With these lists, it all comes down to what we’ve seen recently, doesn’t it? Eh. Maybe I’m just being a wordy bitch, inserting these ramblings ‘neath the guise of context. But, whatever. Anyway, I went with Dan’s parameters (all these films are within my lifetime), and extended it to 15, because Dan was lamenting this fact. Here’s what I’ve got (omissions of necessity due to not having seen a film (Oldboy), or not seen it in far too long (Blue Velvet) to be able to place it. Let the mocking begin:

    1- Memento
    2- The Godfather
    3- Insomnia (the original)
    4- Chinatown
    5- L.A. Confidential
    6- The Hit (Stephen Frears)
    7- Eastern Promises
    8- Gangs of New York
    9- Snatch
    10- The Proposition
    11- Heat
    12- The Usual Suspects
    13- City of God
    14- Missing by Costa-Gavras (more political than noir, but you just said “crime”)
    15- In the Bedroom

    And Matrix: Reloaded & Revolutions stole 4 hours of my life that I would like back, please. At least I knew enough to shut off Independence Day thirty minutes in.

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  8. See, this is why I ask for help. Memento is another one that should not have been ommitted. I swear I could get this list to top 50 without even trying.

    And although I love Frears, I've never seen The Hit. Adding it to Netflix immediately.

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  9. The Hit - classic caper gone completely fucking wrong. John Hurt, Terence Stamp, and Tim Roth. I think I mentioned it to you before.

    Enjoy.

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  10. You did, and I completely forgot about it.

    From Joe Vincent...
    Point Blank. Heat. Ronin. In Bruges. Payback. Collateral. The Score. Heist. Thief. Layer Cake. Road To Perdition. Pusher. The Limey. The Italian Job. The Hit. A History of Violence. Point Break. (yes, Point Break) Suicide Kings. Eastern Promises. A Simple Plan. Man Bites Dog. The Bank Job. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The Spanish Prisoner. Hard Eight Pulp Fiction. Usual Suspects. Memento. L.A. Confidential. Training Day. Blow. Ghost Dog. Fargo. No Country for Old Men. Reservoir Dogs

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  11. My apologies for this being so belated... and, potentially long-winded.

    I'm posting this without having seen anything from anyone, so my list, if it's ridiculously repetitious, at least it's because we all like the same things, and not that I was cribbing off everyone else.

    First the list, then the blah-blah-blah:

    1. The Godfather
    2. Chinatown
    3. L.A. Confidential
    4. The Shawshank Redemption
    5. The Silence of the Lambs
    6. Out of Sight
    7. Seven
    8. In the Heat of the Night
    9. Pulp Fiction
    10. Shallow Grave

    I'm trying to make only one film per association, meaning -- it'd be too easy to say The Godfather 1 & 2, Serpico, The French Connection, etc. as all those films came out in the same relative timeframe. So, I'm trying to keep it to one film per timeframe (loosely), one film per director (otherwise, tons of work by Scorsese, Taratino, etc.) and one film per star if possible (Brad Pitt could be in Fight Club as well as Seven, like Clooney in his varied heist films, etc.) -- so, I took the best of those notions and chose my faves from their respective pools.

    I also kept it "clean" meaning, despite being able to stretch the category (putting The Dark Knight up here, which would technically fit, but really we all know it's not meant as a crime film no matter how much you wanna go to a coffee shop and break it all down for me, fuck you. It's a comic book film... that kind of thing.)

    Here are the Best That Just Missed:
    Double Indemnity - my favorite of the old noir films
    The Bank Job - surprisingly awesome times
    Devil in a Blue Dress - so subtle and well-rounded
    Bowling for Columbine - I felt like there should'a been a doc here
    Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - there needs to be some Shane Black here
    Blade Runner - can not believe I'm leaving this off the list

    The Ones I Wanted to Make Fit:
    The Dark Knight - comic book
    The Thing - identity theft
    Big Trouble In Little China - kidnapping, carjacking, demon-freeing
    Young Frankenstein - grave robbing, horse-abuse, puns
    I really want to put some John Woo in here, like Hard Boiled.
    Every Jennifer Love Hewitt film - for her not getting totally naked!

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  12. Nice, if not incredibly tardy, list Shane. Shallow Grave and Shawshank! Nicely done. I'm thinking I'm going to set aside a month, probably March, because March sucks, and watch all the films that people have named. It's a big list but I figure if I get some of those Clockwork Orange (jesus, why didn't that make the list) eye things, I can do it.

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  13. It was interesting trying to decide fairly what a crime film should be for inclusion - like I mentioned above, I probably could have argued Young Frankenstein in, but it would have only been to argue the notion, not to take it seriously. But, is it just a crime that's being/been committed, or is it the act of authority pursuing the crime, etc.? It was fun to work around.

    It's a big list, indeed. But you should have seen many, if not all of those mentioned, so then it can be just a Hit List, pun intended.

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