Listy goodness to prove my lack of pop culture immersion

Through Kottke I found a list of 1001 movies to see before you die. I decided to make a list of my own of these movies, of what I'd seen. I also added some from the alterations of the list here. And like Kottke, I starred my favorites. It's only 1000 movies, right? Surely I must have seen at least 100 of them, right?

Wrong.


A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Seven Chances (1925)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Triumph of the Will (1934)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
West Side Story (1961)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)*
The Sound of Music (1965)
The Jungle Book (1967)
Woodstock (1970)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
The Godfather (1972)
Sleeper (1973)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Star Wars (1977)*
Grease (1978)
The Muppet Movie (1979)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)*
Airplane! (1980)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)*
Amadeus (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Back to the Future (1985)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
The Naked Gun (1988)
Big (1988)
Rain Man (1988)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Glory (1989)
Goodfellas (1990)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Philadelphia (1993)
Forrest Gump (1994)*
Clerks (1994)*
The Lion King (1994)*
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Babe (1995)
Toy Story (1995)
Clueless (1995)
Independence Day (1996)
Scream (1996)
Titanic (1997)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
American Beauty (1999)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
The Matrix (1999)
Gladiator (2000)
Meet the Parents (2000)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)*
Amelie (2001)*
Moulin Rouge (2001)*
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Adaptation (2002)
Chicago (2002)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Lost in Translation (2003)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Sideways (2004)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)

That's 73. And the problem with that is I don't even remember if I've seen some of these in their entirety. See, most of these were not seen by me by a distinct desire to go see that specific movie. I half-watched them when they appeared on cable or I watched them for a class (like I would watch Triumph of the Will voluntarily. come on). I'm just not a movie person, I guess. I don't have the attention span to sit through them. Speaking of, there's at least three movies on that list where I definitely have not seen the ending, due to my falling asleep beforehand.

Surely the number I've read on the 1001 books to read before you die will be better, right?


Beloved – Toni Morrison
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.*
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.*
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov*
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Candide – Voltaire
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift

Crap. Only 25, and all of them books I've read for a class for read with the intention on writing a paper on them for a class. At least I've reread many of them willingly. I shall blame this on that I either read more non-fiction, or more crappier books. (There's probably about five books on that list that I was supposed to read for a class and then didn't. Heh.)

I guess I shall be spending my summer watching movies and reading books. But it will probably end up being movies I've already seen and books I've already read. Oh well. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I have seen and read bits and pieces of many more on the lists, and probably know the general story of even more. This is the trick to making yourself seem smart: Know a little about a lot, and everyone will think you know what you're talking about, even when you haven't read the book, or seen the movie, or seen the movie based on the book.