#70 AFI's Top 100 Movies: #6 The Wizard of Oz

#6 on the AFI's Top 100 Movie List is the Wizard of Oz.

*sigh*

Even as a little kid I didn't like this movie. I used to run out of the room every time the flying monkeys came on screen. Those things are still really creepy, as I discovered when I re-watched it.

I was hopeful that perhaps the long years since the last time I'd watched this movie and my subsequent aging, that perhaps I might enjoy it more now.

Meh.

My childhood impression still remain the same. The flying monkeys are still uber creepy.  Glinda's a bitch. The celebration of the dead witch is morbid and creepy, making the munchkins into something kind of terrifying (village full of Chuckie's AH!). Scarecrow is still annoying. The lion is both obnoxious and amusing. And the Tinman still fails to really catch my notice.

My Mom LOVES this movie, which always makes me wonder what I'm missing out on.  I just don't get it.

Hubby and I synced it up with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, as recommended by How I Met Your Mother, and that made the beginning a lot more interesting, but the album ends long before the movie does. Which was kind of a shame.

The best thing I can say is, I didn't mind watching it once it started. I didn't feel like turning it off anything. I just don't know if I agree that it's one of the best 100 movies I've ever seen, although it probably deserves its place on the list just by virtue of its place in movie history.

#97 New Restaurants: Parva

When Parva first opened in Bethesda I was interested but not that interested. It's not in the best location; the building it resides it tends to change hands pretty frequently.  I ended up taking advantage of a Living Social deal to get me there... holy crap, WORTH IT.

First of all, the menu is pretty reasonably priced for Bethesda and the food is incredible. South American deliciousness and SO MUCH FOOD with every order, whether it's an appetizer or an entree.  I haven't been back yet, but I definitely want to go.

Their corn cakes are delicious, the specialty drink menu has some unique and tasty offerings, the paella was fantastic, the chicken dish that I had somehow got completely eaten despite how full I was, and the desserts were to die for.

Definitely a good option for a date night or a ladies' night happy hour because they have some fantastic specials!

#70 AFI's Top 100 Movies: 10th Anniv. #83 Titanic

Titanic is actually not on the original AFI Top 100 list, it's on the 10th Anniversary List that was made and included a bunch of new movies. Well, not a bunch. Maybe fifteen movies that aren't also already on the original list. But Titanic was one of them!

I went to see it when it came out in theaters again. Not because it was in 3D, although that was pretty cool for the most part, but because this is a movie that is worth seeing on the big screen, in so many ways.

What a freaking fantastic movie. I'd forgotten how much I loved it. Are there some historical inaccuracies? Sure. But the sheer amount of stuff they got right has always boggled my mind. I've had a minor obsession with the Titanic ever since I was a little girl, I read up on it, studied the schematics, and I still have the giant book that has all the information I could ever want to know and more, including eye witness accounts of what happened the night it sank.

It's such a dramatic story, not so much because of Kate & Leo's characters, although they do provide plenty, but because of the sheer amount of human choices that had to be made over so many hours. Even before it hit the iceberg, the captain and the ship designer were arguing about how fast the ship should be going, the iceberg warning came a little late thanks to a breakdown in communication between the telegraphers and the ship's officers. The boat did not go down quickly. There was time, SO MUCH TIME, for the earlier lifeboats that only had a few people in them, to return to the ship and save more lives. There was time for them to have been filled to capacity, and yet the crew sent the boats off with less than twenty people in them.

The captain stayed with the ship. The designer of the ship got on a lifeboat.  People in the third class cabins were trapped down below, along with the lower level workers, sealed in by the crew who were trying to keep the decks from becoming too crowded.  Women and children first, as long as they were first or second class. So many tiny human decisions that effected so many lives.

And the movie did such a good job showcasing all of that, even around the somewhat ludicrous love story. Although, I have to admit, I do enjoy the love story as well.