100 Film List...So Far.

I've been asked a lot of questions about the list. This challenge, or experiment, is a way for me to catch up on movies that I should have already seen, or those that need a refresher viewing, in the least amount of time. It isn't a marathon of watching just any old movies, but classics.

I'll make a list of around 150 titles so I don't run into problems with availability. At the request (nay, demand) of the Halloween Boo Crew, here is the unofficial working list so far:

Bottle Rocket
The Warriors
The Asphalt Jungle
Network
La Dolce Vita
The Searchers
Modern Times or The Gold Rush
On the Waterfront
The Bicycle Thief
Sunset Boulevard
The Bad and the Beautiful
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Jules and Jim
8 ½
Blue Velvet
Taxi Driver
A Night at the Opera
The Seventh Seal
The Sweet Smell of Success
Double Indemnity
Touch of Evil
The Graduate
The Wild Bunch
The Rules of the Game
The Lady Eve
Breathless
Mean Streets
The Third Man
The Conformist
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Do the Right Thing
Diabolique (1955)
Blow-Up
Un Chien Andolu and L’ Age D’Or
Pickup on South Street
Mildred Pierce
Sunrise
Tokyo Story
The Last of the Mohicans
It Happened One Night
Five Easy Pieces
The Night of the Hunter
Sullivan’s Travels
The Last Picture Show
The Verdict
Written on the Wind
Woman of the Year or Adam’s Rib
The 400 Blows
Battleship Potemkin
Detour or D.O.A.
Grand Illusion
Le Samouraï
All That Heaven Allows
Cat People
Duel in the Sun
Faces
The Fall of the Roman Empire
Gun Crazy
High Sierra
Key Largo
Leave Her to Heaven
Lolita
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Man with the Golden Arm
Meet Me in St. Louis
The Naked Kiss or Shock Corridor
The Public Enemy
Scarlet Street or Spies
Stagecoach
The Eiger Sanction
Three Days of the Condor
The Exorcist
The Philadelphia Story
Of Mice and Men
The Scarlet Letter
Interview with a Vampire
La Strada
Eyes without a Face

Update:
Billy Jack
Seven Days in May
The Manchurian Candidate
12 Angry Men
Laura
Dangerous Liasions
Dog Day Afternoon

"It's serious business"

Chris Matthews on why the CIA leak investigation is so important.

"Warriors, come out and play..."

This was a Triple Points weekend at Media Play. The Director's Cut DVD of The Warriors was released last week. I picked up that disc, along with The Bela Lugosi Collection and the seventh Hammer Dracula picture, Dracula A.D. 1972.

I haven't seen The Warriors since it ran constantly on HBO in the mid-eighties, so it will have a spot on the 100 Films list. Thinking about it, I might put Dracula A.D. 1972 on there as well.

100 Films in 100 Days

I had this idea hit me early this morning. There are still too many movies that I haven't seen, but whenever I think about what I should watch, I freeze. I really should make a list of outstanding films missing from my viewing resume. Not only that, but it's difficult to make time for movies lately.

As a solution, I had this flash of inspiration: 100 Films in 100 Days. This is different than some other movie-viewing plans, like watching all of the AFI Top 100 over time. To get in a large number of movies in a short time, I'll challenge myself to get them in within a time limit. There will be days that I won't have time to watch one -- game nights, for example -- so I'll allow myself to catch up on other days, like weekends. The important part is watching all the films within the time limit.

Right now I think New Year's Day would be a good start date. It would give me some time to compile a list and the holidays will be over. The list will be made up from movies I have never seen or movies that I haven't seen in 15+ years (since high school) and I need to watch again.

I told Mrs. Kaiju about my plan at lunch, and she thinks that the experience would make a good book. Maybe... More about this later.

Signs and Portents...free!

Mongoose started publising their own monthly magazine, Signs and Portents, about two years ago. It covers their own lines of RPGs and wargames but often there are more generic articles (mostly D20-related, though). Even so, it's a decent quality gaming mag.

Now they are announcing that S&P is splitting into two magazines, one strictly for RPGs and one for wargaming. But even better, going forward S&P is being released for free as PDF files! I think this is a terrific gesture for the fans, and I hope they can continue this way for a long time.

Build your own Weathertop ruin

I've mentioned Hirst Arts before. They produce molds for casting plaster terrain pieces, which is a great idea. A company by the name of Castle Kits is a licensed seller for Hirst Arts. Here's the cool part: Castle Kits sells the pre-cast pieces as kits, so you can skip the tedious casting portion and go right to the fun part -- building and painting!

Castle Kits just announced two new kits, the Tower of Amon Sul and the Ruins of Weathertop. The painted examples are beautiful.

New Rules

In the past few weeks I've been able to read the Mutants and Masterminds and True20 rulebooks, rather than just flip through them. I'm going over the rules to prepare for the Bloodlines and Planescape campaigns. I'm eager to see how the rules work in an ongoing game and what kinds of reactions the other players have to them.

True20 has a definite "heroic fantasy" feel to it that I really like. In the back of the book there are some notes on converting D20 items, which would make it much easier to import some of the skills and feats from the Conan RPG than to convert them into GURPS.

Try to think happy thoughts...

I don't know why I continue reading articles like these, they only make me more depressed. From the last couple of days:

CNN: Government: Effect of greenhouse gases rising
CNN: Report: Ice-free Arctic summers possible by 2100
Time: The Arctic Meltdown Speeds Up
CNN: Warm climate transforms Alaska terrain