The WSW 25 for the 2010s

I was going to save this for August, when the tenth anniversary of WSW will come around, but I think I’ll put it up now instead. These are the 25 movies that, to me, best represent the previous decade in film, culled from my annual Top 10 lists. You’ll notice this list isn’t ranked; there’s no way I could decide which of these is the “best,” and it doesn’t matter much. Agree? Disagree? Let’s talk about it.

Five precedents for the proposed changes to the Hollywood Walk of Fame

...Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell unveiled a 90-page concept Thursday [January 30] aimed at creating a less gritty, more welcoming atmosphere for the millions of tourists who visit the Walk of Fame each year. 

The initial proposal draws inspiration from world-class streets across the world, including the Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris. That could be achieved in Hollywood, too, the plan says, with wider sidewalks, more shade trees, more space for sidewalk dining — and far less space for drivers.

I haven’t been to Los Angeles. I hope to go one day; the Hollywood Walk of Fame is one of the must-see attractions of the city, a glittering tribute to the men and women who shaped the American film industry. Because I’ve never been there, though, it never occurred to me that for all its glamour and prestige, it’s still part of a street, like any other in LA—two of them, in this case: Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. And like many big city streets in America, it has been engineered with driving private vehicles in mind over everything else.

This proposal to traffic-calm the WOF area and make it more pedestrian-friendly reminds me more than a little of when Times Square underwent a similar change, over a decade ago. It was considered radical at the time, but the end result slowed vehicle traffic and made walking and biking through the area safer and more pleasant, which was a boon to the local businesses. It didn’t take much, either—just paint and some extra chairs.

I believe the same is possible for the WOF area, but there will likely be those who object, who believe it’ll have an adverse effect on traffic and will drive away business. There always are. So let’s look at what Councilman O’Farrell’s plan entails and see how it works in other cities.

Five 5K runs inspired by movies

To be honest, running, for me, is not the transcendental experience it is for some. I jog up and down a small, three-block side street adjacent to my apartment building. I’ve done it in warm weather and now, Zod help me, I’m doing it in cold weather too. It’s lonely, grueling work. Every weekday it’s an effort to push myself to keep going, to keep my legs and feet in motion when all I’d rather do is stay in bed.

I don’t trust my feet. I’ve fallen more than once, not due to poor ankles or weak bones or anything like that, but just because. Falling has always been a fear of mine, and a part of me can’t help but think something is out on the pavement waiting to trip me up, no matter how smooth it may seem.

And yet I still run. Virginia is one reason why, as she is for so many things I do these days: she’s not a runner, but her own ongoing struggle to keep the weight off inspires me—and hell, I wanna look good for her. Why not? I also remember the health problems I had that landed me in the hospital only three years ago, and I do not want to experience them again. I’ve joined a Facebook running group, and seeing other people go from being large and round to leaner and fitter, really makes me think it’s possible for me too.

But I gotta run a lot.

Five original Woodstock performers who made movies (and TV)

Of course I wish I had been there. Mad as it sounds like it was in hindsight—the rain, the disheveled crowd, the brown acid—I think it was understood, even then, how special the concert was.

Time has turned it into something larger than life, something emblematic of The Sixties in general, and yeah, that colors my perception of it (how can it not?), but strip away the legend and I still would want to have been there for it, if only for one of the three days, not just for the music but for the atmosphere, the chance to taste the spirit of this seminal period in American history which seems light years distant now.

Was there really a time when young Americans honestly believed rock and roll could change the world? Where peace, love and understanding were more than words on a bumper sticker? I look around me today and I see a nation that doesn’t need a war in Vietnam; it’s more than happy to fight itself. I see a president worse than Nixon ever was, one blind to his own divisive nature. I see the best minds of this generation raging on social media and on television so loudly they can barely hear what anyone else says.

The world seemed equally bleak fifty years ago, too, but for three days in August, rock and roll brought forth into the world a different vibe. Maybe it was nothing but hype in reality, but the idea of the Age of Aquarius and the redemptive power of music was strong enough to attract half a million people to Yasgur’s Farm where “everywhere was a song and a celebration”—and the idea remains attractive today.

The musicians that attended Woodstock went on to various degrees of success and longevity. Some of them went Hollywood. Here are five examples, including links to their Woodstock performances:

Five films about the 1969 Mets (sort of)

This weekend, members of the 1969 World Champion Miracle Mets team will gather at Citi Field here in Queens, for what may be the last time in such a formal setting, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the summer they accomplished what many thought was not only improbable, but just plain impossible.

In 1969, the Mets were an expansion team not even a decade old that had known nothing but futility for their entire baseball life — and I mean epic futility. In 1962, their first year, they lost 120 games, and were only marginally better in subsequent years. Still, they had a lovable charm to them that New York embraced. Then they acquired some legitimate talent, as well as a manager who refused to tolerate losing, and dreamt of becoming a contender, but no one expected the leap forward they made in that summer when men walked on the moon and anything seemed possible.

Five Hollywood actors who ran for public office

...The ongoing woes of New York City’s subway system, which are run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — overseen by Mr. Cuomo — are widely seen as one of Mr. Cuomo’s greatest political vulnerabilities.

[Cynthia] Nixon has been openly critical of Mr. Cuomo for many months as she has mulled a campaign. But her conversations with two Democratic strategists, Bill Hyers and Rebecca Katz, who are aligned with the party’s left flank in the state, appear to be a sign of her growing seriousness.

I can't say I've ever had much interest in Sex and the City, so I know little about Cynthia Nixon beyond what I've read in the past few weeks. If she thinks she can take out Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primaries and go all the way to Albany from there, well, who knows for sure?

I know I'm dissatisfied with Cuomo for his  indifference to the public transportation crisis here in New York, and the slow pace he has taken to not only finding a solution to that, but to enact tougher laws to deter reckless driving on city streets. 

I would need to know Nixon's ideas about transit before I could endorse her, but I have to admit, the thought of a Hollywood celebrity as governor of my home state is intriguing. (IMDB says she has played both Nancy Reagan and Eleanor Roosevelt in the past, and was in a Robert Altman TV mini-series about politics, Tanner '88.)

Celebrities running for public office is certainly nothing new. Ronald Reagan, of course, was governor of California long before he became the 40th US president. I recently provided a link to a review of a new book about how the Reagans used the movies to inform their politics. (The Amazon reviews are almost overwhelmingly positive so far, for what it's worth.) And who can forget Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent gubernatorial reign in California?

Here are a few more examples; some you probably know, others you might not, with varying levels of success.

Five classic film chicks (and one dude) in glasses

I've worn glasses most of my life, going all the way back to grade school, in different shapes and colors. I can't say exactly when I first became conscious of how I looked in them. I had my high school yearbook photo taken without them, so it was probably sometime when I was a teenager. Even today, I prefer being photographed without them, so yeah, I guess that makes me a little vain — not that I look like a movie star or anything without them.

I remember when Jen got contacts because she said her husband preferred her without the specs, but I always thought she looked better with them because her eyes are small and glasses make them look bigger. Most of the time, I tend to not have a real preference when it comes to chicks, unless the glasses themselves look ugly.

Four-eyed movie characters are not uncommon throughout film history, but for a long time they were a sign of nerdiness and/or unattractiveness (even if it was only Hollywood Homely), especially the ladies, and you can be damn sure they were often meant to make the lead actress more glamorous.

No other movie drives this portrayal home more, to me at least, than Vertigo, featuring the patron saint of four-eyed movie chicks, Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge. Every time I see this movie, I think the exact same thing: why, oh why, was Jimmy Stewart so blind to her? She dug him (Zod knows why) but she was in the wrong movie. She should have been in a late 30s romcom with him instead!

The specs were like a bright shining neon sign above poor Midge's head that said "number two," "consolation prize," "bridesmaid," but give her credit for having the audacity to paint her portrait in a fancy 19th-century dress — with her specs! That takes a certain level of self-confidence, folks.

Vertigo is an all-timer, but I wonder how it would look if Kim Novak was the "plain Jane" — as much as it was possible to have made her look ordinary, anyway? Would Jimbo still have pursued her the way he did?

Anyway, I wanna show some love to a few more bespectacled beauties from the good old days of film — plus one token guy:

Five films based on self-published novels

...Bestselling self-published authors attract producers because they have a proven track record if they stay on Amazon sales charts over time, Howey said. “Hollywood is always looking for a built-in audience. They want to know they’ll recoup their investment,” he says. “Modern films easily cost $100m to make, usually more. There isn't much room for risk here.”

I've reached the end of the manuscript for my novel, though I can't call it finished yet; as a story, it's coherent, but there's more I can do to make it stronger, like streamlining the characters, removing excess detail, researching certain legal and medical plot points. I won't start until next month, though. After living with these characters for four years, I could use a break.

At some point, though, I'll have to make a serious decision about this novel's fate: will I get it professionally published, or will I do it myself? Neither option will guarantee success, but from what I've read, self-publishing sounds like a more sensible option, even if it's also the harder one.

No matter which way I go, I definitely don't expect Hollywood to notice. I wouldn't have thought self-published books were high on their radar, but if the article at the top is any indication, a tiny handful have beaten the odds and gotten made into films.

The 50 Shades franchise is the reigning champ so far. E.L. James created a website to publish her disguised Twilight fanfic, which got some notice and took off in a big way. Andy Weir took the same approach for The Martian. I don't know if that approach would work with me; besides, it's not considered a good idea to use outliers like these as a model.

Self-publishing has become easier than ever thanks to the rise of e-books, but it's certainly not new, and Tinseltown has taken chances on self-published novels before, as you can see in the following examples:

- Peter Rabbit. The manuscript for Beatrix Potter's turn-of-the-century children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit drew more interest for her illustrations than the story itself, so in 1901, she made 250 copies for family and friends (including Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle). One friend took it upon himself to revise it and send it to a publisher, Warne, and after some debate over the pictures, among other things, Potter signed a contract the next year. In 1938, Potter turned down a Disney adaptation over marketing issues, but Warner Bros. made a short film inspired by the book called Country Boy Rabbit. In later years, the book led to a ballet film and several animated series, and next year, it'll become a CGI movie.

- Spartacus. When Howard Fast got thrown in the slammer by Congress for not ratting on his Communist pals, he wrote this sword-and-sandal book in 1951 in response and got a bunch of supporters to fund the printing. When Kirk Douglas got a hold of a copy, he bought an option on the book with his own money, and set up the film adaptation at Universal. (Little-known fact: Yul Brynner also wanted to make a Spartacus movie, at United Artists.) Fast struggled with the screenplay, so Douglas got blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo instead, who finished it in two weeks.

- Eragon. Christopher Paolini wrote the first book in his fantasy saga as a teenager, if you can believe that. His parents happened to run a small publishing company of their own, so maybe it's not entirely accurate to say this was self-published. While touring the country to promote the book, in which Paolini would dress up in a medieval costume, the stepson of author Carl Hiaasen bought a copy. Hiaasen showed it to Knopf, and they republished it in 2003. A year later, Fox bought the film rights, but the movie bombed big time.

- Still Alice. Neuroscientist Lisa Genova self-published this women's fiction story in 2007 through iUniverse, one of a number of websites that offer publishing services. In 2009, Simon & Schuster republished it. Before it became an Oscar-winning film, it was a play. Christine Mary Dunford of Chicago's Lookingglass Theater Company adapted the story for the stage; it lasted a little over a month. British producers Lex Lutzus & James Brown bought the rights for co-directors Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland. Glatzer had recently been diagnosed with ALS, and his experience factored into the development of the film, in which the main character has Alzheimer's disease.

- The Shack. William Young wasn't going to publish his Christian fantasy novel, a Christmas gift for his kids, until he was talked into it, working with two ex-pastors and a filmmaker to self-publish the book in 2007. Word of mouth, through churches and blogs, plus a website, pumped it up to the top of the New York Times best-seller list for paperback fiction in its debut week. Some religious critics didn't like the book, calling it heretical (the main character encounters three avatars of the Holy Trinity, in non-traditional forms). Summit Entertainment made a film version that came out earlier this year. It made $96.4 million on a $20 million budget.

Writing a novel and getting it published is one thing; having that novel turned into a movie is something else altogether. The thought of the latter is mighty enticing, but I think I'll worry about the former first. It's a hard enough goal on its own.

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Related:
Five books I read after seeing the movie

Five movies to represent me

With thanks to Michelle for the idea, however indirectly.

What five films would you tell a significant other to watch to know what kind of person you are?

Chasing Amy

The reasons why are in the post. Also here. This movie alone would be more than enough.

Love Jones

I wanted to be like the characters in this movie, or at least meet them in reality. Eventually, I did, in more ways than one - only they all live too far away from me.

Frequency

Not just the Mets, not just baseball, but sports in general. And my father. Duh.

Higher Ground

Again, the reasons why are in the post.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

I've actually never seen this... but for a movie about the joy of biking, I can't imagine a better choice.

Five movies with eclipses

So have you heard about this big-deal solar eclipse that's supposed to happen this month? Bibi first told me about it; she and Eric wanna travel to the west coast to see it because the view is better there, or so she says. I don't recall the last time I actually witnessed one - and yes, I know you're not supposed to look at it directly; you know what I mean - but I figure this is noteworthy enough to pay tribute to it here with a list of movie eclipses. There are more of them than you'd think.

- King Solomon's Mines. H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain novel about the search for the legendary African treasure has been brought to the big (and small) screen five times. The first, with Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson, was in 1937. The eclipse happens during the outbreak of a rebellion led by Robeson, the rightful chieftain of his tribe, against the usurper who killed his dad. I'm sure it's a great scene if he's in it.

- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Mark Twain's sci-fi classic has seen numerous interpretations across multiple media. In 1949, Bing Crosby starred in a musical film version (also with Cedric Hardwicke). Here, the eclipse helps der Bingle get out of being burned at the stake. He knows it's going to happen, you see. He tells everyone he caused it, because they missed the Cosmos episode on how eclipses really happen, and he'll stop it if they let him go. Clever, huh? (Thanks to Paddy for assistance on this one.)

- Little Shop of Horrors. Who'da thunk this list would have two musicals? Audrey II, the carnivorous, murderous sentient plant of this bizarre but highly entertaining adaptation of the stage musical (itself an adaptation of the Roger Corman flick), is born of an eclipse. How? Eh, that's not really important. It's an eclipse. They're funny like that.

- Dolores Claiborne. One of the best films based on the work of Stephen King is this Kathy Bates/Jennifer Jason Leigh thriller about a bitter New England woman accused of murder. Why does everyone think she did it? Because she killed her husband years ago during, you guessed it, an eclipse - or did she? You thought Kathy was great in Misery? Her performance here blows that one out of the water. How she wasn't Oscar nominated is a total mystery.

- Pitch Black. You ever have one of those days where you're stuck on a planet with three suns and the darkness from an eclipse releases deadly underground creatures ready to tear you limb from limb? I hate it when that happens... Anyway, this is the scenario of the Vin Diesel action flick, the first in the Riddick series, which also spawned an animated film and some video games.

The real eclipse happens this Monday. If you see it live, let me know how it went.

More NYC theaters facing the wrecking ball

...Landmark — which opened in 2001 in the 1898 building that had been a Yiddish vaudeville house — struggled to keep up with rising rents and hoped to reinvent itself a few years back as a dining destination like Williamsburg’s Nitehawk Cinema. Locals, however, fought those plans, with Community Board 3 rejecting the theater’s liquor license application.The art house theater's lease ends January 2018, and it will likely be pushed out, though, Pagoda said he'd be open to negotiating with Landmark.

I've been writing way too much lately about movie theaters in the New York metropolitan area dying off. When they are replaced, they're usually pricey Alamo Drafthouse-style luxury joints in Manhattan (and occasionally Brooklyn). I'm thinking of possibly putting together a guide evaluating the best first-run theaters in the other four boroughs (maybe beyond) and where they are, while we still have them. For now, here's the last rites for the latest batch:

- Landmark Sunshine. While it's a good theater, it's on Houston Street, which is well-serviced by the Angelika and the Film Forum, not to mention the IFC Center a few blocks north on Sixth Avenue, and even some newer venues across the river in Williamsburg, almost all of them catering to the same indy crowd. Sunshine had a decent run, given that heavy competition, but I tend to think this won't be a great loss. Moviegoers on the Lower East Side are still spoilt for choice.
What I saw there: 127 Hours, The Room, The Contender


RKO Keith's

- RKO Keith's. I recently had a nice Twitter conversation about the Keith's with Debbie from Moon in Gemini. Turns out she's from Flushing, though she doesn't live in NYC anymore. It's hard to believe such a primo piece of real estate, in a busy part of Queens, has lain fallow for over thirty years (!), but now they got somebody who wants to turn it into condos. Yay. From the looks of the design, it'll be the tallest building east of CitiField. Can't say I care for the way this will change the character of the neighborhood, but then, my Flushing vanished with the Keith's.
What I saw there: Rocky IV

- Brooklyn Heights Cinema. Never made it there. As I recall, it was a fairly small venue. It would've benefited greatly from the sprucing up of the surrounding area.

- Pavilion Theater. If Nitehawk Cinemas is indeed expanding south from Williamsburg to Park Slope, that will be the best thing to happen to this perpetually shat-upon theater. I never felt bedbugs in any of the times I went there, though there's no denying it had (has?) a run-down feeling about it. The last time I was there, a few years ago, they were in the middle of some renovations. This is an area starving for a quality theater. The Brooklyn Academy of Music is great for the art-house crowd, but there should be a place for the blockbusters east of Court Street. If only the renovated Kings Theater showed movies.
What I saw there: Sin City, Precious, The Lost World

Center Cinemas

- Sunnyside Center Cinemas. Never liked this place much. The seats were tiny, the décor threadbare. It was in a great location, however: right under the 7 train in a growing neighborhood. Its sister theater in Kew Gardens Hills (not to be confused with Kew Gardens) is still hanging in there, perhaps because it's in a part of town in no danger of gentrifying anytime soon. With a little love and investment, this could've been another Cinemart. Sunnysiders probably schlep to the UA Kaufman in Astoria now.
What I saw there: The Town, Drive, The Hunger Games

- Ridgewood Theater. Before my time. I don't go to this part of town often. I imagine if you live in Ridgewood, you have to go all the way to Williamsburg for a movie.

Maybe this only amounts to changing deck chairs on the Titanic - Netflix, VOD and streaming video are as popular as ever - but I still believe in the communal experience that comes from seeing movies in theaters. I'm not ready to let that go yet.

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Related:
What if more theaters were non-profit?
To save the drive-in, you must destroy it
My dream movie theater

Five movies about musicians who died young

I hope you don't mind; I gotta talk about Chris Cornell for a minute. When I think of Soundgarden, I think of John, who first introduced me to them (though I do remember hearing them on the radio in the early 90s). He's always two or three steps ahead of me musically. He was the one who first told me "Smells Like Teen Spirit" wasn't some Weird Al-like novelty song. John believed SG was the real deal. I figured he was probably right.

The first SG album I bought was Badmotorfinger, on cassette. I had initially thought the "grunge" sound was something akin to metal. Indeed, SG used to get played on MTV's Headbangers Ball. I'm still not sure what exactly defines grunge musically other than being from Seattle. Ultimately the labels don't matter. As far as SG was concerned, I was hooked right away.

Superunknown came out in 1994. Hearing the apocalyptic "Black Hole Sun" puts me in mind of the sleepaway camp I worked at in the blissful, glorious summer of '95: A-frames, canoeing in the river, hot chocolate on those cold nights in the Adirondack mountains of Massachusetts. I remember organizing a "band" of 10-year-old campers to lip-sync to "Outshined" (a cut from Badmotorfinger) on talent night. I wore a wig of fake dreadlocks as I "sang" lead.

Audioslave was a better fusion between Chris and Rage Against the Machine than I could've imagined. As for his solo stuff, it wasn't as intense, but I liked most of it, the highlights including the James Bond song "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale, and a dirge-like cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" that's almost as good as the original.

When I was much younger, the whole rock-star-dying-young concept had more... I don't wanna use the word "glamour," but it's true, in a way. Yeah, it sucks that they're dead and all, I had thought, but that made them larger than life. It added to their legend and made their music immortal. I don't think that way anymore. Chris' death was a suicide, just like his Northwest contemporary Kurt Cobain, just like way too many rock superstars over the years.

Maybe rock has lost its standing in American pop culture. Maybe it's only for old fogeys like me. God knows I hardly ever hear it anywhere near as much on the radio anymore. All I know is another of my favorite singers is dead before his time, by his own hand, and it doesn't feel cool or glamorous.

The movies have given us a number of biographies of musicians who died young. Not all of the deaths in the following examples were by suicide, but they were as shocking at the time. These films are how we remember them.

- La Bamba. The day the music died, it took Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper along with Latino guitarist Ritchie Valens in that fateful 1959 plane crash. He was a mere babe at 17! I was in eighth grade when this movie came out. The Los Lobos soundtrack was all the rage, and even if I didn't understand the words to the title track, it still rocked. Lou Diamond Phillips personified Valens perfectly, and that ending... Omigod, that ending.

- Lady Sings the Blues. Cirrhosis of the liver took the life of jazz legend Billie Holiday at 44, a life defined as much by drugs and drink as by her distinctive voice. In 1972, Diana Ross gave an Oscar-nominated performance as Lady Day in this biopic. If IMDB is to be believed, co-star Richard Pryor coached her in how to act like a drug user. I guess she couldn't have asked for a better teacher...

- Beyond the Sea. Multiple-genre crooner (and Oscar-winning actor!) Bobby Darin died of a heart condition at 37. He was portrayed by Kevin Spacey in this recent biopic. I didn't see it, but Pam did. In fact, she's a really big fan...

- Sid and Nancy. One hesitates to put the Sex Pistols' bassist in the category of "musician," but there's no doubt he contributed to the punk movement of the 70s before his death of a drug overdose at the age of 21. Truly, one of Gary Oldman's finest moments in film was as Sid in a biopic that was equal parts tragic, comedic, and just plain surreal.

- Amy. The latest member of the infamous "27 club," contemporary jazz/blues singer Amy Winehouse, was the subject of this recent Oscar-winning documentary. I've discovered more of her music through Pandora. She could've easily been one more pop diva, but she followed another path, one which gave her a much more individual sound. Like Holiday, however, Winehouse battled with inner demons before drinking herself to death, in 2011.

I've probably depressed you big time. Sorry. Here, listen to some Puffy AmiYumi. You'll feel a million times better, I guarantee it.

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Related:
Marley
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

Toy Story 3

The "No, You're Crying" Blogathon is an event devoted to movies that make us cry (for whatever reason), hosted by Moon in Gemini. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the host site.

Toy Story 3

Top five favorite toys from my childhood:

5. Hess trucks. Whenever I went out with my parents and we passed a Hess gas station, I had to have a toy Hess truck. If you put batteries in them, the headlights and tail lights would light up. The doors to the cab would open. I had one with a retractable hose. To this day, I could not tell you why I was so into them. I just was.

4. Lincoln Logs. I was a fiend for building toys. With this, I liked the way the logs fit into the notches at the ends so neatly. I wasn't very creative in building my log cabins, but that was okay. I just liked putting the logs together, little by little.

3. Tinkertoys. These, on the other hand, were the kind of building toys with which you could go nuts. I think I favored abstract sculpture-type designs. I didn't care what they looked like. The weirder the better.

2. Lite Brite. Loved this one! It was a bunch of colored lights that you stuck in specific patterns into holes on a kind of light box. You'd get images like a clown face, or a sailboat or a house, stuff like that. When it was finished, you turned off the lights in your room and turned this on and voila! 

1. Domino Rally. Oh. My. God. I could not get enough of this. You would line up these small colored tiles shaped like dominos and knock them down. They came with all these cool accessories that you could add to your rally, like bridges, contraptions with rolling marbles and moving parts, etc. I would set it up on the kitchen floor, which always pissed my mother off because she wouldn't be able to walk through the front door until I knocked the dominos down.

I don't recall imagining my toys having lives of their own. I didn't have many dolls or action figures or stuffed animals, though, so it likely didn't occur to me much. Given how big action figures have become, I kinda regret not having any. I saw the same commercials for GI Joe and Transformers and He-Man and the Superfriends as everyone else, but I never bugged my parents for them. They probably would've gotten them for me. My interests were in other kinds of toys.

The Toy Story films, as far as I'm concerned, stack up with any live-action movie, past or present, foreign or domestic, you care to name. They show how cool it is to be a toy. Buzz has delusions of being an actual person (sort of) in the first movie, but Woody sets him straight. Why? Because nothing is more important to a toy than the bond between it and its human owner. It's what they live for. That's the theme that runs throughout the entire trilogy. They're not miniature people. They're toys - and they're meant to be played with.

Okay. The crying. I'm gonna proceed on the assumption you've seen Toy Story 3 (if you haven't, what are you doing reading this? Go watch it; it's great) and jump straight to the climax of the movie: the part where they're trapped on the garbage conveyor belt, about to be melted into slag by the incinerator.

I saw TS3 theatrically. As this scene took place, a part of me knew they weren't really gonna die... but I wasn't sure! It was one of those no-way-out situations in which the hero(es) somehow finds a way out, but I didn't see a way out. I was on the edge of my seat, dog!

Then the Pizza Planet aliens snatched them up at the last second ("THE CLAAAAAW!"). I swear to you, I cannot remember the last time a movie left me feeling so euphoric. My tears at that moment were mixed with laughter. It was one of those rare moments where it felt good to be alive! That animated characters could make me feel this way was a tribute to the remarkable work Pixar put into making them real over the course of these movies... and the story wasn't even over yet.

The ending. Omigod, the ending. Even now, I can't think of it without choking up. Why? Perhaps seeing grown-up Andy hand off his toys to little Bonnie triggered some latent paternal instinct in me - which is odd, because the last thing I want is to be a parent. Perhaps it was coming to the end of the road, the parting of ways between Andy and Woody, that made me so emotional. Perhaps it was a little of both. Either way, I was a puddle of goo afterward - and I don't think I was the only one in the audience in such a state.

Toy Story 4 is happening. I would say, "How can they possibly top the last one?" but I said that after 2, about 3. So I guess I'll reserve my spot in line now... with extra handkerchiefs.

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Related:
TS3 and Oscar's anti-animation bias

Other movies that have made me cry (that I'll admit to):
Field of Dreams
Breaking the Waves
The Children's Hour

Top 5 movie-going moments of 2016

So the most eagerly awaited movie-going moment of the year for me - the grand opening of the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn - turned out to be less than I had hoped due to the high cost of the theater, at least in comparison to its Yonkers location. I'd be willing to go back there, but it would have to be for something super-special, not on a semi-regular basis as I had hoped. Still, all movie lovers should see a movie at the Alamo at least once. I have no problem recommending it to the uninitiated. Just be prepared to unload some dough.

At any rate, I still had some wonderful moments seeing movies at other venues this year. And here are the best:

5. Spaceballs at Syndicated Bar. Other venues are starting to replicate the Alamo experience, and Syndicated, also in Brooklyn, is one of them. It's a repertory house and not a first-run, but I enjoyed their food and drink, their seats are very comfortable, and they're a whole lot cheaper. Seeing a great movie like Spaceballs with my friend Alicia was the icing on the cake. I hope to go back there this year.

4. Lust for Life on video at Vija's place. If for no other reason than seeing her cat and Chris' dog interact, which was pretty funny. It would've been nicer to have had a DVD that didn't act up, too, but the company and the food more than made up for that. Also, Vija didn't find the DVD at first. I had told her that was okay, I'd watch something else, but she kept on looking until she found an available copy. This is why she has been my friend for over twenty years. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

3. Nosferatu/Dracula's Daughter at the Loews Jersey City. With Aurora, no less! Halloween at the Loews is always a special time. This wasn't on October 31 exactly, but it was close enough for another huge crowd to turn out for this sweet vampire twin bill.

2. Run Lola Run at Prospect Park. In case it wasn't apparent, none of the versions of the story I told about seeing this movie at Celebrate Brooklyn was 100% accurate. I was aping the storytelling style of the movie itself. The stuff about the music - the musical guest, Joan as Police Woman, and the band live-scoring the film, The Bays - that was true. Most of the time, CB makes excellent choices with the films they show, and this was no exception.

1. Star Trek Beyond in New Paltz with Bibi & Eric. Yeah, this is a pretty easy choice. A Trek movie, during the 50th anniversary year, in a slightly peculiar-shaped theater, outside of NYC, with two of my favorite people in the world. It simply does not get any better than this. And I got to hang out with them three times last year! Highly unusual for us. What luck!

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Previously:
2015 top five
2014 top five
2013 top five
2012 top five
2011 top five

Five movies about coping with boredom

...When public places provide constant entertainment they’re undermining my parenting decisions and depriving my child of what he could learn while bored. I understand what motivates them to install televisions and DVD players – no one wants to deal with a screaming toddler, and other patrons might get upset at the noise — but in my opinion their ubiquitous presence indicates a deeper problem.

I was running late for my writers group meeting. The subway was stalled. A bus would've taken too long. I was flush with money, so I decided to take a taxi, something I almost never do unless it's really necessary. It was a spur of the moment decision (and at $24, I'm not likely to do it again for awhile).

I got inside and there was a video screen affixed to the back of the passenger front seat. I wanted to sit and read my book, but a news report was playing, loudly. It was a touch screen. There was a mute button at the bottom, but either I was all thumbs or it was too small. I couldn't get it to work. I had to ask the driver to kill the sound for me. He did, but I still had to deal with the images on the monitor playing out of the corner of my eye as I read. There wasn't much room in the back of the taxi; the screen was fairly close to my face. Ignoring it completely was almost impossible.

Taxis, restaurants, cafes, bars, hospital waiting rooms - it seems like someone passed a law requiring public places to have video screens and/or music playing to keep you from being bored. (My "favorite" is music in the bathrooms. This is a thing now. Zod forbid you take a dump without Katy Perry to keep you company.) If you don't want to look or listen to them, though, if you'd rather quietly read or write, or - here's a wild thought - engage in a conversation with another human being - you're SOL.

This article, which I saw a mere week after the taxi adventure, focuses on children, but I'm here to tell you, it's not only kids who have to deal with the problem... and it is a problem, because what's gonna happen to us when we run out of spaces to unplug, to sit in silence and not be bombarded by man-made sounds and images for two seconds?

I never thought about it before, but I'm beginning to see the virtue in boredom as a sharp contrast to constant sensory stimulation. When you are your only source of entertainment, your mind is absolutely forced to come up with something, anything, to keep yourself alert and active. If we lose touch with that ability to make something outta nothing, then it's game over for us as a species. We might as well go back to living in caves for all we'll be worth.

So here are five examples of how people have dealt with boredom in the movies. If this post bores you, by the way, just make believe I'm Roger Ebert writing about the new Scorsese movie. Or get away from this computer screen altogether and go out and play. Does anybody remember playtime?

- Daydreaming. "Whaddya feel like doin' tonight?" In the Best Picture Oscar winner Marty, this is a familiar query between Ernest Borgnine and Joe Mantell, desperate as these two working-class schlubs are for some action of a Saturday night. In this early scene, they imagine going out with girls they like. Borgnine's Marty, in particular, dreams of finding the right one and getting married, like his family and his culture expect. When you have plenty of unwanted time on your hands, imagining something better can become habit-forming, until dreams are all you have. Such is the case with Marty, until he does find a girl later on in the story.

- Bickering. For a teenager, few things are more boring than serving a stretch in detention, especially with people with whom you have nothing in common. The John Hughes 80s classic The Breakfast Club throws a brain, a princess, an athlete, a basket case and a criminal together in one room (in what could be seen as a precedent for MTV's The Real World), and the initial result, naturally, is infighting. The five of them would never be put together under any other circumstances, even though they all go to the same school in the same town. This is partly by choice. Is it any wonder, then, they struggle to coexist, never mind get along? By the end, though, they do reach a kind of detente.

- Sex. One can hardly go wrong here, but what if the old in-out-in-out is dull and perfunctory? If you're gonna be bored, you might as well be bored in French, and in 1998, a film actually called L'ennui had this covered. The main character's a philosophy teacher, for Pete's sake, so he's already on that existential, life-is-meaningless tip. He meets a young chick who's his polar opposite, so naturally, they have sex! It's not a lot of fun for either of them, though. I haven't seen this one. Few of the reviews for it were raves. Most of the positive ones were qualified in their judgments. Perhaps that's appropriate for a film named "boredom"?

- Mockery. Laughing at other people and imagining them as all sorts of things is easy and fun, as the girls of Ghost World demonstrate. Thora Birch and a pre-fame Scarlett Johansson get their kicks making up stories about strangers and putting down their slowly-gentrifying neighborhood. Things kinda sorta happen when they meet Steve Buscemi, but on the whole, this is a very character-driven film, following Enid and Rebecca wherever they feel like going.

- Wandering. Eventually there comes a time when you're all alone with nothing to do. Walking around town is an easy solution to stave off boredom. In this wordless vignette from Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, Johansson (again) strolls through Kyoto, simply taking in the sights and sounds around her, occasionally interacting with this foreign world.

Additional suggestions for dealing with... [yawns] boredom are... welcome...

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