Movies, books, characters and a little bit of why

@stuckonu Hmmm, I bet you will get a wide variety of responses. Movies - Bridges of Madison County [Meryl Streep's and Clint Eastwood's characters], War Horse. Books - "Temple of My Familiar" by Alice Walker; "The Four Agreements" by Miguel Ruiz; "Why We Revolt" by Victor Montori, M.D..
Ginger

Good Morning Ginger, I asked the question but didn’t answer in part because I thought about a time when, like the AM music stations there was a “ top 10 “ and/or a top 100 and although I never recall having my own top 100 me and my GF and other Friends had top 10’s of many categories. So a few of those previous top 10 movies and books jumped into my mind. When I read your answer I realized that one movie was left out of that first memory: A GF of mine gave me the book Bridges of Madison County on a weekend that she went away with a few of her GF’s to a spiritual retreat. I had not heard of the book and it seemed odd to me that she would give me THAT BOOK. But I picked it up on a Saturday morning forcing myself to do so and I never put it down until the last page. When she called I told her of my thoughts and experience which includes lots of tears and a range of emotions that I never expected. When we heard about the movie I was disappointed by the choices of the lead characters. But she and I went to see it in the Boston area during her college reunion and we both loved it. Actually I’ve watched THAT MOVIE, more than any movie ever which says a lot. Where I grew up one of the nonNetwork stations had a program called Million Dollar Movie which played the same movie everyday for a week. On the week they played the original King Kong I watched it everyday. So I’ve watched Bridges more that that but nowhere near as much as some fanatics like a kid in San Francisco who watched Rocky 50 times at the theater.
So I really liked both the book and movie BoMC and Clint and Meryl didn’t disappoint.

I also liked Being There, Apocalypse Now, The God Father, Rosemarys Baby, Slaughter House Five, Catch 22, Play Misty for Me, Silence of The Lambs, Falling Down, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Fail Safe, No Way to Treat a Lady, when Harry Met Sally, Citizen Kane, African Queen, Casa Blanca, Bullet, Psycho

How can I not include Network? How about part of the monologue that won him the Oscar posthumously. The first and only posthumously awarded Oscar for Best Actor Peter Finch
Part of the speech:

“We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’

Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. (shouting) You’ve got to say: ‘I’m a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!’

@stuckonu

This is just a great topic! I just finished a book called, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, the author is Dugoni. The main character, Sam Hill, has a genetic eye disorder that causes him to have red eyes (hence when he is bullied the kids call him Sam Hell rather than Sam Hill). The book tells his story from childhood to adulthood and traces the bullying he experienced in his school days, the friendships he developed with other "different" people, his parents' love for him and the way he finally accepted his disorder as an adult. This is a great read for anyone who has felt different.

@stuckonu There are many movies I have enjoyed but the one that always sticks out in my mind is from years ago -- "A Patch of Blue" with Sidney Poitier. There are a lot of very popular movies I have never seen like Psycho, The Bridges of Madison County (I read the book and didn't care much for it), and many others that you mention. I did love Airplane. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. I hate scary movies if what happens seems possible. The ones that are way out in believability do not frighten me. There have been some that have given me nightmares.
As far as books are concerned, the one that sticks out in my mind is also older and fairly unknown -- "You Shall Know Them". I like a lot of books that are historical fiction too, but can't think of the names of any right now.
JK

Honesty JK says so much and it can be brave IMHO just saying your truth. If you don’t like scary movies don’t see Psycho or The Exorcist or Alien.
Have you seen Blazing Saddles?

Compared to many of my friends I hardly see anything compared to them. The films I named are mostly well known. But there are these small films that are often not well known that are GREAT in my opinion, like a movie called Rumble Fish directed by Francis Ford Coppola and Brazil that is so heady. And a Rock Hudson film that most people never heard of but Rock says it’s his favorite of his own film. In an odd way it fits in well here in connect

@stuckonu Blazing Saddles? Now that’s an old movie. Yep, I saw it. I always loved woody allen movies too. I have not seen Psycho or The Exorcist but I don’t think they would be believable to me so probably not a problem.
JK

@stuckonu Since we were talking about good movies, I have to add the one we watched last night -- "A Time to Kill". Very moving and powerful. It really was upsetting too. I thought our country was improving on bigotry but apparently hate crimes are on the rise. This is so sad.
JK