Our New and Improved Countries We Want to Vist Bucket List

Greetings to our blog readers in Cambodia, Spain and Portugal, which are three countries which missed our cut.

Since we have recently arrived back from Costa Rica, a country that always made it onto my top 10 countries to visit list, we thought we'd provide an update, which once again has Iceland (see top image) at the top.

Morocco is second (middle image, strawberry vendor in Tangier) and Norway is third (bottom image of Bergen), and with some research as to suggestions by both Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide, countries like Georgia and Macedonia made it on to the list, as did one of the world's tiniest nations.

We were delighted to see Turkey, my late father's country, ranked high in the Rough Guide, but since we have been there 15 times, we thought we'd focus on countries we've never visited.

Here is the bucket list:

1) Iceland

2) Morocco

3) Norway

4) Georgia

5) Chile

6) Panama

7) Scotland

8) Malaysia

9) Macedonia

10) San Marino (the tiny country we were referring to)

http://www.lonelyplanet.com

http://www.roughguides.com

http://www.visiticeland.com

http://www.visitmorocco.com

http://www.visitnorway.com

A Top Ten Random List of English-Language Films I've Seen Multiple Times.........(except "The Godfather")

Here in America, National Public Radio (NPR) has had an interesting series of interviews with film directors, actors and other celebrities have talked about films they can watch over and over again.

Among the surprises is that David Fincher ("Zodiac," "Fight Club") loves "Mary Poppins"!

There aren't that many films I've watched more than five times. As someone with a wide interest in films, it is simply challenging to watch every film of social or historical merit over and over again.

There are also many world and European films like Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless," which I've seen multiple times, but for the sake of 'making it simple,' we are just going to focus on English-language films here.

I have also not decided to list films I watched often as a child, like "The Absent Minded Professor" or films I watched once too often as a teenager, such as "Bachelor Party."

And, this is not in order of preference:

1. "The Graduate" (1967)

2. "Planet of the Apes" (1968)

3. "Stagecoach" (1939)

4. "Psycho" (1960)

5. "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex........." (1972)

6. "Dr. Strangelove........." (1964)

7. "Pulp Fiction" (1994)

8. "Taxi Driver" (1975)

9. "Chinatown" (pictured, 1974)

10. "Life of Brian" (1979)

http://www.npr.org


SIDEBAR: I have an article in a national Washington-DC based blog regarding the politically charged events happening in Turkey:

http://www.dcmiccheck.org/2013/06/06/gezi-park/

The Last 10 Films We've Seen: Reading the Movies

Here are the last ten films we've seen, many of which are based on novels. We will indicate which ones those with an asterisk (*); amazingly enough, "The Deer Hunter" which last three hours and 15 minutes was the filmation of an original screenplay! There are also two Oscar-winning films on the list, they will be marked by an at symbol (@).

We got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine; I expect there will not be an intellectual examination of the film "The Devil and Max Devilin" with Bill Cosby and Elliot Gould for quite some time (forgive the film connoisseur humor).


Here they are:

1. "Humpday." 2009. dir. Lynn Shelton

2. "Gigi." (pictured top) 1958. dir. Vincente Minelli *@

3. "Pretty Persuasion" 2005. dir. Marcos Siega

4. "The Devil and Max Devilin" (pictured center) 1981. dir. Steven Hilliard Stern.

5. "The Deer Hunter" 1978. dir. Michael Cimino @

6. "The Landlord" 1970. dir. Hal Ashby *

7. "East of Eden" (pictured bottom) 1955. dir. Elia Kazan.*

8. "The Chosen." 1981. dir. Jeremy Kagan *

9. "Far from the Maddening Crowd" 1967. dir. John Schlesinger.*

10. "The Great Gatsby." 2013. dir. Baz Luhrmann

http://www.filmcomment.com

Break from Politics-Top 10 Things Under My Kitchen Sink

There seem to few things as annoying as product commercials, but campaign ads seem to take the cake and if you are in a swing state and have to watch WSOC-TV (Channel 9, Charlotte, NC), WDBJ-TV
(Channel 7 Roanoke, Va.) or WHOV-TV (Channel 13, Des Moines, Iowa), you will stuck with them for the next 11 days, so we thought we'd offer a break with a random top ten list of things in under my kitchen sink.

Here they are:

1) Draino toliet cleaner

2) Garfield cat bowls

3) Comet Bathroom Cleaner

4) recyclable shopping bags

5) old silverware

6) Mop N Glo

7) plates

8) Armor All car cleaner

9) tissue boxes

10) garbage bags

http://www.whotv.com

http://www.wsoctv.com

http://www.wdbj7.com

http://www.garfieldminusgarfield.net

Top 10 Worst Ways to Break-Up

We are being tres lazy today, so we are going to use this Top 10 Worst Ways to Break-Up with Someone list from shine.yahoo.com

I would say from personal experience that one shouldn't take someone out to The Olive Garden and then tell them: "It's Over." Yeah, that sorta sucks.

1. By Cheating- Amazingly enough, Warren Beatty has not done this to Anette Benning!

2. By Doing Nothing- Whatever that means.

3. On Valentine's Day- Ouuuuch!

4. In Bed- Hmmm....we'll skip the commentary on this one.

5. At Your 'Special Place'- which is hopefully NOT the Olive Garden or that truck stop restaurant off I-81 in Toms Brook, Va. (two hours south of Washington, DC)

6. At a Wedding- Yeah, that would be bad and rude!

7. Around the Family- especially if it's a mafia family!

8. On Facebook- I left you for a guy in Mumbai....hmm, yeah I would really hate that. Amazingly enough, it hasn't happened to me....yet!

9. In a Text Message- I know someone in Greensboro, NC, who had this actually happen to them!

10. On Vacation- Hope the hurricane hits you while you're in Cancun!

SIDEBAR: Meredith Fineman, 23, of Washington, DC, recently told "The Washington Post" about her more pleasant experiences dating. Before taking a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, she decided to sign up for the Jewish dating service JDate.

She then decided after having some strange and unique experiences to post them on a blog called FiftyFirst-JDates.com (site was down at press time).

Fineman told the WP that she simply wanted other Jewish singles to know what might be in store for them:

"There are just so many little awkward intricacies of the site and the way it works," Fineman said in the story.

The last time I checked her blog, she said she was getting responses from as far away as Israel. And, Fineman told the WP that she isn't sure if she will actually get to 50 Dates or not. But, at least, she does not live in Welch, West Virginia, where we assume it would be a bit hard to find a 20-something Jewish single.

Alas, I am not Jewish (though as a Turkish-American, I'm most certainly ethnic!) and I am 17 years younger than Fineman. And, unfortunately, I do live in a place like Welch, West Virginia!

Perhaps, we should start a Turkish-American dating site, but then again, the pool would be rather slim....

NOTE: Since there was a glitch with a post on my other blog, today is "No Tag" day, but you can file this entry under Jewish, dating, Turkish-Americans, The Olive Garden, and.....?! Well, maybe we'll see if this works after all....

UPDATE: Hey, the tags did work after all!

Village Voice Names Wall-E Film of the Year

Normally, our Top Ten lists run on "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" and "The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" runs here, but I effed things up (this marks the third consecutive blog entry where I've used a derivative of the verb eff).

Today's star was Imogene Coca, who is dead.

Here are the Top 10 Films of the Year, according to the always hip/suave "LA Weekly/Village Voice" poll which includes the participation of esteemed critics like J. Hoberman and Nathan Lee:


1. "Wall-E"*

2. "The Flight of the Red Balloon" (France)*

3. "Happy Go Lucky"

4. "Still Life" (China)

5. "A Christmas Tale" (France)

6. "Waltz with Bashir" (Israel)

7. "Milk"*

8. "Wendy and Lucy"

9. "Let the Right One In" (Sweden)*

10. "Synecdoche, New York"

My Premature Top 10 Movies of the Year List

I don't live in New York or LA or even Bethesda, Md., and I definitely haven't seen enough films compared to most film critics, but since everyone else posts a top ten movies of the year list, my thinking is simply: "Well, gee, why can't I?"



























To show this is not merely an exercise in narcissism, I will post the respective top 10 lists of my friends Phil Nugent (who lives in New York) and Joe Scott (who doesn't!) on my other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

I will post my Official Top Ten List some time right before the Oscars on Feb. 22 on one of my two blogs. For right now, this is what I have. I regret to inform my sister Lale Lovell that "Kung-Fu Panda" didn't make the cut:

1. "Taxi to the Dark Side" (doc)

2. "Edge of Heaven" (Germany/Turkey)

3. "Doubt"

4. "In Bruges"

5. "Elegy"

6. "The Visitor"

7. "Milk"

8. "The Dark Knight"

9. "The Counterfeiters" (Austria)

10. "Recount"*

*-Yes, I know it's an HBO movie, but it was great! And, this is a political year.

Honorable Mention:

"Brideshead Revisited," "Gonzo (doc)," "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes(doc)," "The Last Mistress (France),"Tell No One (France)," and "Vicky Christina Barcelona."

Top Ten List- Last Films Seen by Charlie Kaufman

.........As told by "Film Comment" magazine. The screenwriter from Pasadena, Calif., is best known for "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich." He made his directorial debut with "Synedoche, New York," which is playing at the Galaxy Cinema in Cary, NC, and other theatres around the country.


1. "The Eye"

2. "Leatherheads"

3. "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"

4. "My Winnipeg"

5. "Kung Fu Panda"

6. "Wall-E"

7. "Sky High"

8. "Night at the Museum"

9. "High School Musical"

10. "Chronicles of Narnia: Prince of Caspian"


http://www.filmlinc.com


Based on this list, one has to wonder if Mr. Kaufman has kids.........


For a list of the last ten movies I've seen go to our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."