I love lists! I mean, I LOVE lists!! They are the gateway to educated choice. You how “they” are always selling you something? Well, it’s because they have learned that when you don’t really know what you want, it’s much easier to make you act on impulse. When you know what you want, you don’t give away your money stupidly. Informed choice allows you to get more of what you want. Informed choice makes you more satisfied and thus happier. Who wouldn’t want to have more stuff they like and to be happier?
So you have to learn what you want. And that is where lists come in. I have lists that are so full I have more than enough films to keep me satisfied well past my life expectancy. I won’t run out of movies I WANT to watch until I am 110. And since they are going to keep making them, by the time I am 110 I will probably have enough movies I have CHOSEN to see to carry me past the age of 200.
So what do you want to watch? Or, perhaps, what do you want your children to watch? Did you know that the British Film Institute has a list of the Top 50 Films To See Before You Are 14? It’s darn awesome. And there are some on that list that I still haven’t seen and I am almost 50. I better live to be 110. I am going to start exercising just so I can watch more movies.
These are the BFI’s Top Ten To See Before You Turn Age 14:
- Bicycle Thieves (1948)
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
- Kes (1969)
- The Night of the Hunter (1955)
- The 400 Blows (1959)
- Show Me Love (1998)
- Spirited Away (2001)
- Toy Story (1995)
- Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
But you know what? The BFI is not the only entity that has made a supercool list of movies to see. Filmmakers Mark Cousins and Tilda Swinton made some great lists and then did it up one step better, helping really cool kids everywhere organize parties around great flix. A party AND a movie? Does it get much better than that. Check out 8 1/2 Foundation now!!!!!!!
One last question: why are all these lists from British institutions? Where are the American counterparts? Or Swiss? Or Chinese? Or Australian? Help!
