Happy Hump Day!

Happy Wednesday, and to all my friends in North Dakota and Minnesota, Happy March Blizzard Day!  Thankfully I've lived in the Midwest long enough to never fall for those first nice weeks in March, but with the inches of ice covered with inches of snow, this storm really seems like a doozy.  Wednesdays are my sleep-in day since I generally work late on our other campus, but when I woke up and looked out the window and turned on the TV to see all the school cancellations, I knew that driving wasn't in the cards for today.  Just as the spring thaw turned back into the spring freeze, I feel like my brain went back into hibernation.  I know that I won't be able to post here every day, but as I try to get started back up, I want my postings to be a little more regular.  With that said, I stumbled onto an old note I had posted on Facebook that I found pretty amusing.  I wrote it almost two years ago, and amazingly it is still accurate for today.  The post was about movies that I thought were the best or most influential to me.

I've recently signed up for Netflix because I don't have cable and I started getting really tired of forgetting to bring back Redbox movies.  I've also stopped buying DVD's, mostly because I'm getting really sick and tired of constantly moving them.  At last count I had over 1,000, and I'm starting to think that's about 900 too many.

With all of that said, I'm still a huge movie and TV buff and Netflix offers me the opportunity to stream their content directly to my PS3/Wii/Blu-ray player. I've been watching some of the most off the wall, random shows and movies, and for the most part, I've given up on regular TV except for the weekly two hours I give to Glee, Modern Family, and The Office.  There is one terrifying element to Netflix, though.  It  monitors your watching habits and kicks out suggestions on other things that you might watch.  I think it should be mandatory that people carry these suggestions on a name tag attached to their shirts at all times because it is pretty revealing as to who people really are.  For instance, if you met me on a first date in a coffee shop and took thirty seconds to read my name tag, you would realize that I enjoy critically-acclaimed comedies from the 80's, space travel television (really?), mind bending suspense and action, documentary-style reality shows, dark alternative comedy, and goofy children's cartoons.  At that point most girls would take their Venti Vanilla Latte and hit the road, thus avoiding the inevitable break-up down the line when we're having the argument over whether we should watch Grey's Anatomy or Scooby-Doo Unmasks the Space Bandit.  I actually use this method of screening on Match.com.  In my first e-mail, I always ask women what is on their iPod and their favorite cartoon was as a kid.  The music thing always ranges and is more or less my control question, but their response to the cartoon question immediately weeds out 80% of the population.  After all, could I really see myself spending the rest of my life with someone who picks Sailor Moon over She-ra or Bobby's World?  Maybe, but only if she's really, really good looking.

So, without further ado, a flashback to 2009 and the 15 Most Influential Movies for Jeffrey L. Pool (Updates in Parenthesis):


1) The Wizard of Oz- To the best of my knowledge, my first favorite movie and probably the one that was the most influential in a lot of my future entertainment choices. My grandma Nita taped it on TV for me and it was probably the best babysitter she could find since I'd lay on the carpet starting when I was really, really little and just be transfixed for hours. I'm a completely heterosexual 27 (29) year old male, and I still love musicals to this day. It was seriously magic for me. I still can recite almost every single word and can sing any of the songs on cue. It was that important to me. 

2) PeeWee's Big Adventure- This movie confused the hell out of me when I was a kid, but I loved it so much. It was so weird in a way I'd never seen before, and it was also really, really dark in its humor, so much so that I remember being really scared during a couple of parts. I think this was my first glimpse of my darker, sarcastic side. Also in this category, both Harry and the Hendersons and Howard the Duck. My grandma Pat had both of these on tape, and they felt a little more "adult" than the Disney movies I got to watch at grandma Nita's. I looked forward to almost every weekend getting to go spend the night with the Pools, getting just a little bit of coffee to dunk Oreos in, and watching either Harry or Howard. I own both on DVD, and although they haven't really stood the test of time, there are still moments that give me flashbacks to those nights. 

3) Follow That Bird- I swear I don't just watch kids' movies! But in terms of important movies in my life, next to Wizard of Oz this one takes the cake. I was a big Sesame Street/Muppet fan, and this was the first full-length Sesame feature. You will all think I'm crazy, but if you haven't seen this movie, you need to! If you have kids, pretend like they are reason you are putting it on. Like a lot of Jim Henson movies, this one had a lot of adult themes and emotions that you wouldn't get on PBS. The music is awesome (Waylon Jennings makes a cameo!), the writing and acting are great, and it was probably the first time as a child I remember relating emotionally to a movie. I still get teary eyed when Big Bird breaks into his Blue Bird/Be Back Home song. Yes, I can also sing every word to every song in this one, too, just like most of the Muppet movies' songs. No, that isn't pathetic. 

4) Very Bad Things- You probably haven't seen this movie. Hell, you probably haven't even heard of it. You can pick it up in any $2 bin at Walmart, but it wasn't a throw-away movie to me. My friends and I all managed to get into this movie even though we weren't old enough, and the commercials looked hilarious. It was a darker version of The Hangover. Long story short, a bunch of friends go to Vegas, get crazy, kill a hooker, and spend the rest of the movie trying to deal with it. Sounds hilarious, right? Well, it is! And the characters in the movie matched up almost perfectly with all of my high school friends. Not everybody loved it as much as I did, but it was right up my dark comedy alley. 

5) Shawshank Redemption- Shawshank was the first movie that made me understand the importance of a really, really good film. I've seen this movie so many times, and everytime it feels like the first time and I catch something new I missed the first 25 times. Probably the best story and acting of all the films on the list. (I've since seen a lot of other films that were much better than this one, but this one still is one of my favorites because it taught me you didn't need singing puppets or big explosions to be entertaining.)

6) Pulp Fiction - I was 13 when this first came out and somehow Dan and I talked my mom into renting this for us. At the time the big buzz was around the "Royale with cheese" scene, and we both thought we were these mature, smart, dark-humored guys that would totally get this movie. What I remember from our first viewing was that we counted the word "fuck" like 30 times in the first 15 minutes. I don't know that we made it much further than that before we figured out it wasn't for us. I rewatched Pulp Fiction again a couple of years ago because I'd seen Kill Bill and thought it was time to go back and review the old Tarantino movies. After I finished Pulp Fiction I was blown away. I went and got supper and came back and watched it again. The writing is so sharp, the dialogue so over-the-top, and the entire tone so unique that I couldn't believe I had been missing it in my life. 

7) Dirty Work- Alright, another movie that most people would just toss away. But this one is a shout out to my sister. We were lucky enough to have HBO when we were kids, so while my mom and dad were at work all summer, Shelbi and I would stay at home and watch movies we probably shouldn't have watched. The plot is so ridiculous, Norm McDonald can't act to save his life, and Chris Farley gets his nose bit off by a Saigon whore, but there was something about it that made Shelbi and I cheese out everytime (and if you know the old-school HBO rotation where they would show Radio Flyer, Short Circuit, Dirty Work, and Police Academy over and over and over again, you know we saw it a lot). Also, this was the start of my fascination with Artie Lange that continues on today with my obsession with the Howard Stern Show. This and Shawshank were the first two movies I ever bought. 

8) Fight Club- Fight Club is the movie that reminds me most of my best friend in high school. He and I went and saw this together, and it was the coolest movie in the world at the time. I have a bad habit of being able to guess the entire plots of movies within the first 15 minutes, but this one completely caught me off guard. When we got done, we both were all amped up and blown away. I immediately wanted to see it again to see how I could miss such a huge twist. Same thing with the movies Memento and The Game. Also, Brad Pitt went from being a pretty boy to pretty bad ass. 

9) Office Space- Post age 12, I have not seen a movie as much as I've seen this one. Dave, Dan and I would watch this almost nightly one summer, and Chris and I watched it almost nightly in college. We would quote it all the time to the point I'm sure we were obnoxious. It also was the movie that put this crazy notion in my head that I shouldn't be happy working a job that didn't make me happy, which is probably why I am never content in life. Damn you, Mike Judge! (In the same vein, we watched Super Troopers somewhere in the neighborhood of a million times.) 

10) Edward Scissorhands- This movie had it all. 1) The creepiness of a Tim Burton movie that I was still fascinated with since PeeWee. 2) The story of a kid who didn't fit in during a time when I was starting to feel awkward and like I didn't fit in. 3) Heavy rotation on HBO. 

11) Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Ferris first came out when I was 5, so needless to say I didn't find it until later in life. Still, the story was timeless. I can be a little bipolar, and I like to think that when I'm at my best I'm in full-Ferris, but at my worst I'm a complete Cameron. 

12) Mallrats- If I was stuck on a deserted island and could only pick the works of one writer/director to take with me, with all due respect to Tarantino, Burton, Spielberg, Scorsese, and Hughes, I would grab the Kevin Smith catalog in a heart beat. Kevin Smith's characters talk exactly like I think...rambling, sarcastic, pessimistically optimistic, and always laced with pop culture. Mallrats, Clerks 1 and 2, Chasing Amy, and even Jay and Silent Bob strike back are all masterpieces to me. 

13) Mr. Holland's Opus - This movie came out when I was a huge band geek and just coming out of junior high. I went to see it with Dan and some girls that we were trying to impress since we had just figured out that girls weren't so icky after all. So, what did I do to impress the girls? I cried. Not once, but twice during the movie. I don't know if it was the hormones or some deep-down dad issues I had, but this movie made me tear up like I was cutting onions. And you know what? I still cry everytime I watch it and Stranger on the Shore is still the greatest clarinet solo of all time. Deal with it. 

14) Stranger Than Fiction - This movie is just really smart. I don't know what else to say about it other than I like smart movies that are a little existential in nature. Sideways, American Spledor and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind are also smart, and I like those, too. That's all. 

15) X-Men/Spiderman/Transformers - The original movies in these series all make me feel like a kid. I saw them all in the theater on opening night, and I sat on the edge of my seat with a huge smile on my face the entire time. Sometimes movies just need to make you forget the troubles of being an adult and bring you back to the days when giant robots fought other giant robots and people fixed their problems by growing giant metal claws or swinging over New York City by a giant web.


( 16) I'm adding to the list because since I wrote this, I've discovered the Coen brothers in a big way. I love Fargo, Big Lebowski, True Grit, No Country For Old Men, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, and A Serious Man.  Their movies are full of the subtle, not so subtle, and the absurd.  I think Joel and Ethan might take over Kevin Smith as my desert island collection someday, especially considering KS recently said he was putting his View Askew universe to rest.)


Keeping couch warm and the popcorn I Can't Believe It's Not Buttered,


Jeff


P.S. - If you have Netflix, I'd really recommend the 6-part PBS docu-series "Circus".  I plowed through the whole thing last night, and while it was probably a little fluffy, it was still super entertaining to see what goes on with the cast and crew behind the scenes.