It's a simple concept (my favorite kind) - pick your favorite film for each letter of the alphabet. Some will be tough because there's too many choices (R, S, T, L, N, E...wait a sec - that's Wheel of Fortune) and others will be tough because there are so few choices that you have trouble finding much of anything (Q, anyone?). I'm sure I missed some great ones and I'm hoping that you find them.
The Rules
1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.
The rules don't specify any criteria, but each of these is a particular favorite of mine -- except for one which is an obvious ringer that I've never even seen and probably never will. See if you can spot it! All the rest of these have strong personal associations for me and would be on any list of my favorite films regardless of alphabetical necessity:
Ali
Blazing Saddles
Casino Royale (1967)
Dick
Excalibur
Fantastic Voyage
Ghost Dog
Help!
Idiocracy
Johnny Dangerously
King Kong (1933)
Letter to Brezhnev
M.A.S.H.
North by Northwest
Office Space
Pee Wee's Big Adventure
Quadrophenia
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Sexy Beast
Tommy
Until the End of the World
Viva Las Vegas
Witness for the Prosecution
Xanadu
Young Frankenstein
Zabriskie Point
I won't tag anyone; I'm looking for five volunteers to step up and take the challenge. Or are you all cowards?
Update: Indeed you are not, as the stalwart crew of TS, Mark, Johnny Bacardi, Walaka, and Sea of Green have each risen to the occasion. And honorable mention to plok for fessing up, which also takes courage.
Impossible! I'll never get to sleep!
ReplyDeleteI plead cowardice, I guess.
I'll tackle this, once I finish my work today. In the meantime, here's a nice memory-jogger - there's even an alphabetical index.
ReplyDeleteSure, I'll participate. I'll post my list tomorrow. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks to a little translational rule bending, it's done. And I so wanted to list Ghost in the Shell as Kōkaku Kidōtai, but filing it under K kept setting off my geek alarm; so it's nice to know that as it is, I won't be perceived as, you know, obsessive or anything.
ReplyDeleteIt's done.
ReplyDeleteHere.
This comment's word verification (no kidding):
biblesin
Okay, Rab, the dirty deed is done. ;-)
ReplyDeletehttp://hoosierinanity.blogspot.com/2008/11/movie-alphabet-silent-films-to-z.html
Some nice choices there, made up about 50/50 of films I've seen & not seen.
ReplyDeleteQuadrophenia was the first film I could think of that started with Q. The only other film I could think of was the new Bond film, but I thought that as being too recent to include in the list.