#1- The 400 Blows

I am proud to say that I have watched my first movie.
Granted, I almost stopped halfway through and begged "no more" to the Movie Gods, but I am glad that I finished it. I still have no idea why this movie is titled "The 400 Blows". Maybe the "400 blows" stand for the 400 ways the main character Dionel finds to get into trouble. Seriously, this kid was constantly in trouble, and I even caught myself screaming at him "why would you ever think that it is a good idea to do that?" Then, I remembered that he was only about twelve years old. This movie reminds me a bit of Oliver Twist, if Oliver was set in the 1930's in France. There are so many parallels between these two movies. From the rag-tag group of boys to the group of grossly neglectful adults, the only thing that the 400 Blows was missing were the catchy musical numbers. Then, we would have had a french Oliver! It was a little mind numbing at first, because this movie is really dialogue heavy. It is also entirely spoken in French. It picks up in the middle when you start to feel a little bad for Dionel ,even though he does many painfully stupid things. Spoiler alert (to those who care)- At the end when he runs away to the ocean, I found myself in a total Chariots of Fire moment while saying, "Run, Dionel, Run!"

Curtain Call!

This weekend I became stumped while trying to decide what movie I wanted to watch. Family Guy had lost its appeal (it's truly a great show, but I think that I recently had a nightmare where I was Lois and my boyfriend was Quagmire). So lazily, I typed in "100 movies to see before you die" into the Google search box. A link popped up for a yahoo page, and I clicked it. I began scrolling. Some titles I recognized such as "Duck Soup" by the Marx Brothers, but sadly I had never seen it. Some I had never even heard of like "The 400 Blows" by: Francois Truffaut, and I began to feel slightly ashamed of myself. I became inclined to bury my head in the sand when I realized that The Matrix was on this list. Yes, I have never seen The Matrix. Of course, there were a few that I had seen (only 15 out of the 100 that I must see). I believe that it is fair to say that my education in classic cinema incomplete and sadly in need of some intense study. Today is the day that I put my foot down and never again shall I complain that there is nothing to watch. I shall complete this list by the end of this school year. I shall watch the ones that I have already seen over again, and hopefully some people will join me. I will not go in alphabetical order, but I shall complete the list (I do not want to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" in April). These artists of cinema have given us masterpieces to watch and absorb, but many of us just tune into Jerry Springer and think "whatever".

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/100-movies-to-see-before-you-die.html

• 12 Angry Men (1957)

  Directed By: Sidney Lumet

  Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

  Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

  Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

• 

  The 400 Blows (1959)

  Directed By: Francois Truffaut

  Starring: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Patrick Auffay

  Why You Should See It

• 8 ½ (1963)

  Directed By: Federico Fellini

  Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee

A

• The African Queen (1952)

  Directed By: John Huston

  Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

• Alien (1979)

  Directed By: Ridley Scott

  Starring: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright

• All About Eve (1950)

  Directed By: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

  Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders

• Annie Hall (1977)

  Directed By: Woody Allen

  Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton

• 

  Apocalypse Now (1979)

  Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola

  Starring: Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall

  Why You Should See It

B

• 

  The Battle of Algiers (1967)

  Directed By: Gillo Pontecorvo

  Starring: Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Brahim Haggiag

  Why You Should See It

• 

  The Bicycle Thief (1948)

  Directed By: Vittorio De Sica

  Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola

  Why You Should See It

• Blade Runner (1982)

  Directed By: Ridley Scott

  Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young

• Blazing Saddles (1974)

  Directed By: Mel Brooks

  Starring: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens

• Blow Up (1966)

  Directed By: Michelangelo Antononi

  Starring: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles

• 

  Blue Velvet (1986)

  Directed By: David Lynch

  Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper

  Why You Should See It

• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

  Directed By: Arthur Penn

  Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard

• Breathless (1960)

  Directed By: Jean-Luc Godard

  Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg

• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

  Directed By: David Lean

  Starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins,

• 

  Bringing Up Baby (1938)

  Directed By: Howard Hawks

  Starring: Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn

  Why You Should See It

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

  Directed By: George Roy Hill

  Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross

C

• Casablanca (1942)

  Directed By: Michael Curtiz

  Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid

• Chinatown (1974)

  Directed By: Roman Polanski

  Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston

• Citizen Kane (1941)

  Directed By: Orson Welles

  Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

  Directed By: Ang Lee

  Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Ziyi Zhang

D

• 

  Die Hard (1988)

  Directed By: John McTiernan

  Starring: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman

  Why You Should See It

• 

  Do the Right Thing (1989)

  Directed By: Spike Lee

  Starring: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee

  Why You Should See It

• Double Indemnity (1944)

  Directed By: Billy Wilder

  Starring: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

  Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

  Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden

• 

  Duck Soup (1933)

  Directed By: Leo McCarey

  Starring: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx

  Why You Should See It

E

• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

  Directed By: Steven Spielberg

  Starring: Dee Wallace Stone, Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore

• Enter the Dragon (1973)

  Directed By: Robert Clouse

  Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly

• The Exorcist (1973)

  Directed By: William Friedkin

  Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair,

F

• Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)

  Directed By: Amy Heckerling

  Starring: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold,

• The French Connection (1971)

  Directed By: William Friedkin

  Starring: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider

G

• The Godfather (1972)

  Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola

  Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan,

• The Godfather, Part II (1974)

  Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola

  Starring: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

• 

  Goldfinger (1964)

  Directed By: Guy Hamilton

  Starring: Sean Connery, Honor Blackman

  Why You Should See It

• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)

  Directed By: Sergio Leone

  Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

• Goodfellas (1990)

  Directed By: Martin Scorsese

  Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci

• The Graduate (1967)

  Directed By: Mike Nichols

  Starring: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross,

• Grand Illusion (1938)

  Directed By: Jean Renoir

  Starring: Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim

• Groundhog Day (1993)

  Directed By: Harold Ramis

  Starring: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott

H

• 

  A Hard Day's Night (1964)

  Directed By: Richard Lester

  Starring: The Beatles

  Why You Should See It

I

• In the Mood For Love (2001)

  Directed By: Wong Kar-Wai

  Starring: Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung

• It Happened One Night (1934)

  Directed By: Frank Capra

  Starring: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert

• It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

  Directed By: Frank Capra

  Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore

J

• 

  Jaws (1975)

  Directed By: Steven Spielberg

  Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

  Why You Should See It

K

• King Kong (1933)

  Directed By: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Shoedsack

  Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong

L

• The Lady Eve (1941)

  Directed By: Preston Sturges

  Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn

• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

  Directed By: David Lean

  Starring: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn

• 

  The Lord of the Rings (2001,2002,2003)

  Directed By: Peter Jackson

  Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen

  Why You Should See It

M

• 

  M (1931)

  Directed By: Fritz Lang

  Starring: Peter Lorre, Theodor Loos, Otto Wernicke

  Why You Should See It

• M*A*S*H (1970)

  Directed By: Robert Altman

  Starring: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt

• The Maltese Falcon (1941)

  Directed By: John Huston

  Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet

• The Matrix (1999)

  Directed By: Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski

  Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss

• Modern Times (1936)

  Directed By: Charlie Chaplin

  Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

  Directed By: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

  Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin

N

• 

  National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)

  Directed By: John Landis

  Starring: John Belushi, Tim Matheson

  Why You Should See It

• Network (1976)

  Directed By: Sidney Lumet

  Starring: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch

• Nosferatu (1922)

  Directed By: F.W. Murnau

  Starring: Max Schreck, Gustave Von Wagenheim, Greta Schroeder,

O

• On the Waterfront (1954)

  Directed By: Elia Kazan

  Starring: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

  Directed By: Milos Forman

  Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield

P

• 

  Paths of Glory (1958)

  Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

  Starring: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou

  Why You Should See It

• Princess Mononoke (1999)

  Directed By: Hayao Miyazaki

  Starring: Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver

• Psycho (1960)

  Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock

  Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh

• Pulp Fiction (1994)

  Directed By: Quentin Tarantino

  Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman

R

• Raging Bull (1980)

  Directed By: Martin Scorsese

  Starring: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty-Gentile, Joe Pesci

• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

  Directed By: Steven Spielberg

  Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman

• Raise the Red Lantern (1992)

  Directed By: Zhang Yimou

  Starring: Gong Li, He Caifei, Cao Cuifeng

• 

  Rashomon (1951)

  Directed By: Akira Kurosawa

  Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo

  Why You Should See It

• Rear Window (1954)

  Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock

  Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr

• Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

  Directed By: Nicholas Ray

  Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo

• Rocky (1976)

  Directed By: John Avildsen

  Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young

• Roman Holiday (1953)

  Directed By: William Wyler

  Starring: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert

S

• 

  Saving Private Ryan (1998)

  Directed By: Steven Spielberg

  Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore

  Why You Should See It

• Schindler's List (1993)

  Directed By: Steven Spielberg

  Starring: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes

• The Searchers (1956)

  Directed By: John Ford

  Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles

• Seven Samurai (1954)

  Directed By: Akira Kurosawa

  Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba

• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

  Directed By: Frank Darabont

  Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman

• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

  Directed By: Jonathan Demme

  Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn

• Singin' in the Rain (1952)

  Directed By: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelley

  Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds

• 

  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

  Directed By: David Hand

  Starring: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell

  Why You Should See It

• Some Like It Hot (1959)

  Directed By: Billy Wilder

  Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon

• The Sound of Music (1965)

  Directed By: Robert Wise

  Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer

• Star Wars (1977)

  Directed By: George Lucas

  Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher

• Sunset Blvd. (1950)

  Directed By: Billy Wilder

  Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim

T

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

  Directed By: James Cameron

  Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton

• The Third Man (1949)

  Directed By: Carol Reed

  Starring: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles

• This is Spinal Tap (1984)

  Directed By: Rob Reiner

  Starring: Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest

• 

  Titanic (1997)

  Directed By: James Cameron

  Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet

  Why You Should See It

• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

  Directed By: Robert Mulligan

  Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford

• Toy Story (1995)

  Directed By: John Lasseter

  Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles

U

• 

  The Usual Suspects (1995)

  Directed By: Bryan Singer

  Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne

  Why You Should See It

V

• 

  Vertigo (1958)

  Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock

  Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak

  Why You Should See It

W

• When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

  Directed By: Rob Reiner

  Starring: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher

• Wild Strawberries (1957)

  Directed By: Ingmar Bergman

  Starring: Victor Sjostrom, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin

• Wings of Desire (1988)

  Directed By: Wim Wenders

  Starring: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander

• The Wizard of Oz (1939)

  Directed By: Victor Fleming

  Starring: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger

• 

  Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

  Directed By: Pedro Almodovar

  Starring: Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas

  Why You Should See It

• The World of Apu (1959)

  Directed By: Satyajit Ray

  Starring: Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Swampan Mukerjee,

ere is the list and link: