Saturday, September 03, 2011

Movies for your Education

Recommended from Dan --  http://kidsboston.com/movies.htm
By the time I have viewed all these movies, I'll have an education.

The Godfather. 1972. See [at least] the first of the three-film series. So much flows from The Godfather.  Brando as The Godfather
High Noon. 1952. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly. The quintessential American western. And it's a smashing-good movie.
Apocalypse Now Redux. 1979. Vietnam and madness via Conrad's Heart of Darkness. (See this one in a theater.)
Lawrence of Arabia. Peter O’Toole. 1962. (To feel all the desert beauty, see it in a theater; not on video)
Casablanca. 1942. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman. Nazis, Peter Lorre, the fall of Paris, heartbreak.  "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment."
The Wild Bunch. 1969. Aging outlaws and the end of the old west. Sam Peckinpah directed.
The Wizard of Oz. 1939. Judy Garland, Munchkins, the Wicked Witch.  source of munchkins
West Side Story. 1961. Jets and Sharks. Amazing music and dance. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.
Star Wars. 1977. The now-classic space opera. See the first film in the series.
2001: A Space Odyssey. 1968. Hal, Dave and director Stanley Kubrick.  could this the same Kubrick that brought us Lolita?
The Third Man. Orson Wells, Joseph Cotton. 1948. Post-war Berlin, evil, zither music.
Grapes of Wrath. 1940. John Ford. Henry Fonda. Dust Bowl, Oakies, the Great Depression.
Annie Hall. 1977. Woody Allen, Diane Keaton. Understanding the '70s with humor.
ET: The Extraterrestrial. 1982. Director Steven Spielberg. Phone home.
The Untouchables. 1987. Prohibition Chicago; getting Al Capone.
Taxi Driver. 1976. Robert DeNiro, Jodi Foster. You talkin' to me?
Psycho. 1960. Director Alfred Hitchcock. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh. Bates Motel and mother.
Blade Runner, Final Cut. 1982. Harrison Ford, Sean Young. Replicants and the LA of the future. and there's origami in here too !
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 1937. Fantasia. 1940. Disney's art, made for adults way before computer animation.  dwarves ?
Gone With the Wind. 1939. In glorious Technicolor. Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Hattie McDaniel. Atlanta's plucky planter class and its slaves at Tara in the American Civil War.  Frankly my dear, I don't give a __.
The Seven Samurai. In Japanese with subtitles. Influenced American films, especially westerns, for years. Kurosawa.
The Man Who Would Be King. 1975. Sean Connery, Michael Caine. Afghanistan, ambition and Kipling's India.

Mississippi Burning. 1988. Gene Hackman. The KKK, 1960s redneck racists and the FBI.
Show Boat. 1936. The great Paul Robeson sings "Old Man River."
Yankee Doodle Dandy. 1942. James Cagney. Flag waving, vaudeville & George M. Cohan's ymusic.
On the Waterfront. 1954. Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh. A Streetcar Named Desire. 1951. Brando, Eva Marie Saint.
Alien. 1979. Sigourney Weaver. A strong woman in very threatening outer space.
Sunset Boulevard. 1950. Joseph Cotton, Gloria Swanson. Classic Hollywood.
Citizen Kane. 1943l. Orson Wells, Joseph Cotton. (Showing 8/30/11 at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge)
Oklahoma and Guys and Dolls. Influential Broadway musicals on screen.
All the President's Men. 1976. Redford and Hoffman nail Nixon's crimes.
Gary Cooper in High Noon
Platoon. Director Oliver Stone. Vietnam war from a grunt's-eye view.
The Shawshank Redemption. 1994. Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, prison.
Jaws and The Sound of Music. Not spectacular, but part of the culture.
The Harry Potter series. Who knows if they will last, but they're certainly part of the heritage.

Love, romance, romantic comedy  These are not among the culturally significant group, above, but they're well worth seeing.
City of Angels. 1998. Cage, Ryan. If a boyfriend doesn't melt at this, dump him immediately.  Nicholas Cage, Meg Ryan
Sleepless in Seattle. 1993. Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan. Director Nora Ephron.
Starman. 1984. Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen. Love from the stars.
Manhattan. 1979. Woody Allen, Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton. Romance in b&w.
Dirty Dancing. 1987. Good girl, bad boy in the Catskills. Swayze, Jerry Orbach.
Ghost. 1990. Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg.
Big. 1988. Tom Hanks. Warm (and smart) romantic comedy.
While You Were Sleeping. 1995. Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman..
Notting Hill. 1999. Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant. With a Charles Aznavour theme song.

sharing attributed to collaboration ?

http://www.mpg.de/4376010/collaboration-children-chimpanzees?page=1http://www.mpg.de/4376010/collaboration-children-chimpanzees?page=2

"Children as young as three years of age are willing to share a prize equally with a peer, but only if both children previously collaborated in order to earn their reward."

Is it important that children learn to share ?   Only if they need to get along with others and obtain the help of others, ultimately for their own personal and professional advancement.

Friday, September 02, 2011