Lists... p2

Movies: (excluding fully animated films cause I have a separate list for that)
1. Bedknobs and Broomsticks
My first actual memory of seeing Angela Lansbury in a role ever... I don't think I made the connection to Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast till sometime after. If I didn't know any better I would've thought Disney was trying to cash in on the live actor + cartoon hybrid film hype from Mary Poppins or something; it even has Mr. Banks (why did I remember him as Mr. Brown...) from that film starring as... himself as far as I was concerned, cause at the age of five I couldn't tell the difference. According to my parents I watched this even more times than I remembered watching it. Good memories of imagining that my bed could travel through space-time after watching this song.

2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny- no, more importantly, DONALD DUCK AND DAFFY DUCK. IN THE SAME FILM. WITH DUELING PIANOS. But more seriously, considering the fact that more than half this film takes place in the cartoon world, it's surprising how dark it is- it's actually an example of a neo-noir given the familiar mystery/crime storyline and typical jaded hardboiled protagonist. I can think of a couple of other elements of this film that I'm surprised didn't leave me more traumatized as a kid, but I won't touch on them for spoiler reasons. Also, the inspiration for one of my favorite Disneyland rides growing up, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin in Toon Town. My parents never wanted to go on it again after I forced them to wait in line with me for two hours and then made us leave right when we reached the front because I had to go to the restroom. Sigh.

3. The Godfather I + II
First time I watched a film seriously and not for the casual movie theater going kind of entertainment. I have this thing for stories that show how people change over long periods of time, and seeing the transformation of Michael Corleone over the course of both films (I didn't watch III) left quite an impression on me. I actually still kind of liked him by the end of it, though more in the sense that I sympathized with him still somehow. Isolating himself from everyone as a culmination of all the life choices he made... it's such a human thing to do.

4. Vertigo
As with Dickens, I thought I'd have hated Hitchcock after being forced to watch The Birds in school (which was the cause of my eye... damage... phobia by the way) as well as the one obviously scarring scene from Psycho, until I saw this. I love the soundtrack, the colors, the tension, the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, the promotional poster, Jimmy Stewart... and the list goes on. But especially the tension; it's what makes me come back to watch other Hitchcock films now, other than the two hated ones listed earlier; Shadow of a Doubt and Rope are two of my other favorites of his. Speaking of which, I think I'm due to watch another Hitchcock film...

5. The Philadelphia Story
From that one summer when Jade was going through a Jimmy Stewart craze and I caught the fever from her. Still my favorite Jimmy Stewart role, although the other characters were great too. To be honest, I don't really bother to watch many happy-go-lucky fun comedy films (more of a depressing/serious psychological thriller-drama watcher), but for some reason the feelings from this one stick with me even though I haven't rewatched it since.

6. Clue
I seem to have a thing for discovering properties based off of the Clue board game franchise- first the children's books, then the Clue Jr. children's books (...don't know why they needed an even younger age children's book series, aside from the lack of murders I guess), and then finally this film. I actually didn't see this until college, but it had the exactly the kind of humor that I'd have been a sucker for as a kid... meaning it still gets to me now haha. This might sound weird, but Tim Curry's character, Wadsworth the butler, was the kind of character that I aspired to be like whenever I had make-believe adventures as a kid on the playground: frenetic and seemingly omniscient about the entire scenario. This is probably why I felt a sudden weird feeling of nostalgia watching him force everyone to reenact the entire movie in ~90 seconds in order to explain who the murderer was at the very end. Also, three endings!!

7. Do The Right Thing
It seems that Spike Lee hasn't been doing very well in the news lately, like that one time he tweeted the wrong address of George Zimmerman (not that he should've tweeted anything to begin with). But this film he made back in '89 about the tension of race relations in a low income Brooklyn neighborhood still feels incredibly relevant today considering the number of recent racially charged news stories in the headlines, and some of the images are pretty powerful. Had to watch this for the Race and American Film AC class I took in college, and (like basically all of the films we had to watch in that class) it was a pretty worthwhile experience.

8. The Act of Killing
I already wrote a blog post/review on this one, so I don't really have much to add here... except that I found out one of my family members tried to watch it and wasn't able to make it very far. It really is a sickening (but necessary) subject to touch on. I think being a generation removed from the events that took place, I found it less difficult to watch this film; I really can't imagine what it would be like to try to watch this and have had relevant experiences in your own life. Just hearing the stories of what happened in the 60's from my own family was... heavy in itself.

9. Yi Yi
An overall compelling look into the introspective lives of a multigenerational Taiwanese family. I wish there were more films out there that explored and focused on the depth of everyday moments like this, or more likely I haven't been seeking them out enough haha. The most recent comparison I can think of now is Boyhood, but I think Boyhood focused more on general experiences over a longer timescale, whereas Yi Yi takes place within a rather short period of time and is spread more evenly in attention among most of the family members rather than focusing on just the boy. Consequently, the latter actually had more interesting dialogue to me. The final lines at the end left me speechless.

10. High and Low
Just saw this one recently, and looking at it now, it's probably my favorite Kurosawa film. Reminded me a lot of another police procedural film of his, Stray Dog, except this was better paced and had a more striking visual dynamic going on. It took me until partway through the second half to realize what "High and Low" actually meant (better translated as "Heaven and Hell" actually), after seeing such striking contrasts play out within the film. A number of awesome visual moments, and the train scene especially pulled me in for how well it was executed and the tension it exhibited, in a manner I didn't expect... perhaps because of how realistic the scenario was.

Solo Jazz/Lindy Hop Routines:
Because after learning enough of these, I'm starting to lose track of how to do them.

1. The Jitterbug Stroll
So I have yet to learn this officially considering that I tried to improvise learning and performing it at the same time by copying the people around me...but aside from the tick-tock tick-tock's, most of it wasn't too bad to figure out on the spot.

2. The Electric Slide (Frankie Manning style)
I originally learned the Electric Slide to Electric Boogie like you're supposed to do it, but I have to say Frankie's version of it to Easy Does It is pretty fun too. It feels like a great morning wake up routine.

3. The California Routine
Technically only learned up till around the 1 minute mark (missing the Whirlibird or however you spell it...) but otherwise it matches up.

4. Black Coffee
Two years ago Kevin St. Laurent and Jo Hoffberg taught an 8 week performance routine class at Wednesday Night Hop. I didn't have an available partner by the end of it but I was able to stick around long enough to learn the full routine itself before they started going around performing this at different venues. This is the performance they did at the 920 Special in SF.

5. The Frankie Manning Shim Sham
If you had to learn just one solo jazz routine/line dance, this is the one that most dancers know and gets performed most often at the venues. It's relatively simple to learn and a classic.

6. Doin' the Jive
A relatively short but sweet looking routine. Missed out on the class that taught the first half so I had to improvise learning it again... but it worked out in the end.

7. The Dean Collins Shim Sham
It looks like the Frankie Manning Shim Sham at first, but the second half is COMPLETELY different and considerably more difficult to do. I forgot how to do most of that half already.

8. The Lindy Chorus
The middle part at around :50 seconds still throws me off. If we ever do this again, I'll have to work that out. The song this is normally performed to is actually called Wednesday Night Hop as well, and it really grew on me the more times we did it.

9. The Tranky Doo
Oddly the most clear performance I could find of this to "The Dipsy Doodle" was by a Korean flash mob... Just learned this one this month! I've had "The Dipsy Doodle" stuck in my head a lot lately as well. Sometimes it's hard to resist the urge to just dance this one on the spot.

10. The Big Apple
Ever since seeing this performed by a crap-ton of people at Camp Jitterbug two years ago, I've always wanted to learn this. It's arduously difficult to learn compared to the others, but finally did it this summer!