Summer Movie & Book Lists
Today I went downtown with a friend and we scoured Barnes & Noble for stuff to read and compiled rough versions of summer reading lists. Then we got distracted and came up with lists of movies we need to see this summer as well. I typed all of mine up just now and decided to post them here for you guys to see. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!
I don't want to tackle anything too difficult this summer reading-wise, and I decided to revisit a lot of American literature I never got around to reading junior year when we studied it. As far as films go, I'm missing a TON that I remember hearing about in my film class this year that I forgot to write down. :/ Please help me fill in these lists with suggestions for the future!
Summer Reading List
1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - Keasey
2. Cat’s Cradle - Vonnegut
3. Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut
4. Sirens of Titans - Vonnegut
5. Lolita - Nabokov
6. On The Road - Keroac
7. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
8. The Three Muskateers - Dumas
9. Brave New World - Huxley
10. Portnoy's Complaint - Roth
11. Kite Runner - Hosseini
12. Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close - Foer
13. Madame Bovary - Flaubert
14. The Amazing Aventures of Kavalier and Clay - Chabon
15. Captain Blood -- Sabatini
16. Stuff by Agitha Christie
17. Fool - Christopher Moore
18. King Lear, Macbeth - Shakespeare
19. Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas -- Thompson
20. The Stand -- Stephen King
21. Jane Eyre - Bronte
22. Something by Jane Austen
Summer Movie List
1. Casablanca
2. Gone With the Wind
3. A Streetcar Named Desire
4. Romance And Cigarettes
5. Frieda
6. Slings & Arrows Season 3
7. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Too Afraid To Ask
8. Kill Bill
9. Pulp Fiction
10. A Clockwork Orange
11. Full Metal Jacket
12. The Shining
13. Goodfellas
14. Good Will Hunting
15. The Dead Poets Society
16. It’s a Wonderful Life
17. Citizen Kane
18. The Pianist
19. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
20. Singin’ In The Rain
21. Cool Hand Luke
22. The Philadelphia Story
23. It Happened One Night
24. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
25. The Graduate
26. Bonnie and Clyde
27. Pillow Talk
28. Brick
29. His Girl Friday
And I also compiled a list of book & movie suggestions for you guys... just because. Take it or leave it. I tried to leave out more mainstream type stuff, and am just including some more off-beat things that not everyone may have heard of or watched, plus a short description.
Books:
1. "Hotel New Hampshire" or "The Cider House Rules" by John Irving - I'm sure I've mentioned these here before. They are two of my favorite books ever. Funny and quirky beyond belief, but they deal with serious issues. Cider House has a lot of substance to it, but Hotel New Hampshire is a little more grossly interesting in that it deals with some things that are, erm, disgusting (yet riveting) to say the least. Both fantastic reads, and an amazing author who you should read at least one book by in your life. "The World According to Garp" is excellent as well!
2. "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller - Read it. It's hilarious. It's black satire at it's finest, and if you haven't been forced to read it before in your life you're sincerely deprived. I actually still need to read the end of it. Set during WWII and follows the adventures of a huge cast of all extremely weird and quirky characters, including but not limited to: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, Major Major Major Major, and "Nately's Whore".
3. "Odd Thomas" by Dean Koontz - Seriously a great summer read. It's a mystery-thriller with bits of humor, and it sucks you in right away as you follow the protagonist on his journey to hunt down a serial killer before said killer can kill a whole ton of people (yeah, I know, I'm really getting good at the specifics here). The book's like a ticking time bomb in terms of the plot. The suspense it builds is just AMAZING. I'm actually going to re-read this sometime soon.
Movies:
1. "The Palm Beach Story" directed by Preston Sturges - OMFG. This is on my list of Top 10 Greatest Movies I've Ever Seen. HILARIOUS, satirical, and just all-around fun. The ending is a total "wtf" ending, but you can tell the director did it to directly make fun of the studios' policy that happy endings were a must (back in the day, anyway). Talk about a deus-ex-machina. He manages to make mundane things ultra-sexy to get around the production code, and the movie itself & all its characters are just fabulous. See it now.
2. "My Man Godfrey" - Mentioned this one before, probably. It's HILARIOUS. It made me laugh so freaking hard, I swear. Just go see it. It's about the ultra-rich adopting a homeless man into their household as their butler. They find him in the beginning of the movie on a scavenger hunt, of all things.
3. "Memento" - This movie is so unique and fantastic. The whole concept that the story is being told backwards by a character with short-term memory loss is utterly brilliant, and executed amazingly.
4. "Dr. Strangelove" directed by Stanley Kubric - Some people may not get this movie, but I thought it was genius. Black satire, again, and pretty fantastic. Set during the Cold War, and all about the tension between USSR & America, and what happens when lots of nuclear power is thrown into the mix.
5. "Death at a Funeral" - I haven't seen this movie in a very long time, but a friend was talking to me about it tonight and I remember parts of it being pretty damn funny if I think back. Everything that could possibly go wrong as a funeral pretty much does... Enough said.
6. "Everything Is Illuminated" - I watched this two nights ago and highly recommend it. It's a good combination of fun/goofy and heart-warming/touching. Not to mentioned the Ukrainian and/or Russian soundtrack is pretty much the epitome of awesome. Oh, and Elijah Wood is in it and plays a cute, neurotic little Jewish boy.
Hah. I know I sound a bit like a broken record with some of these, but I honestly cannot stress enough how awesome some of this stuff is, in my opinion. :P Hope that was helpful to at least someone out there.
I don't want to tackle anything too difficult this summer reading-wise, and I decided to revisit a lot of American literature I never got around to reading junior year when we studied it. As far as films go, I'm missing a TON that I remember hearing about in my film class this year that I forgot to write down. :/ Please help me fill in these lists with suggestions for the future!
Summer Reading List
1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - Keasey
2. Cat’s Cradle - Vonnegut
3. Slaughterhouse 5 - Vonnegut
4. Sirens of Titans - Vonnegut
5. Lolita - Nabokov
6. On The Road - Keroac
7. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
8. The Three Muskateers - Dumas
9. Brave New World - Huxley
10. Portnoy's Complaint - Roth
11. Kite Runner - Hosseini
12. Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close - Foer
13. Madame Bovary - Flaubert
14. The Amazing Aventures of Kavalier and Clay - Chabon
15. Captain Blood -- Sabatini
16. Stuff by Agitha Christie
17. Fool - Christopher Moore
18. King Lear, Macbeth - Shakespeare
19. Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas -- Thompson
20. The Stand -- Stephen King
21. Jane Eyre - Bronte
22. Something by Jane Austen
Summer Movie List
1. Casablanca
2. Gone With the Wind
3. A Streetcar Named Desire
4. Romance And Cigarettes
5. Frieda
6. Slings & Arrows Season 3
7. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Too Afraid To Ask
8. Kill Bill
9. Pulp Fiction
10. A Clockwork Orange
11. Full Metal Jacket
12. The Shining
13. Goodfellas
14. Good Will Hunting
15. The Dead Poets Society
16. It’s a Wonderful Life
17. Citizen Kane
18. The Pianist
19. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
20. Singin’ In The Rain
21. Cool Hand Luke
22. The Philadelphia Story
23. It Happened One Night
24. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
25. The Graduate
26. Bonnie and Clyde
27. Pillow Talk
28. Brick
29. His Girl Friday
And I also compiled a list of book & movie suggestions for you guys... just because. Take it or leave it. I tried to leave out more mainstream type stuff, and am just including some more off-beat things that not everyone may have heard of or watched, plus a short description.
Books:
1. "Hotel New Hampshire" or "The Cider House Rules" by John Irving - I'm sure I've mentioned these here before. They are two of my favorite books ever. Funny and quirky beyond belief, but they deal with serious issues. Cider House has a lot of substance to it, but Hotel New Hampshire is a little more grossly interesting in that it deals with some things that are, erm, disgusting (yet riveting) to say the least. Both fantastic reads, and an amazing author who you should read at least one book by in your life. "The World According to Garp" is excellent as well!
2. "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller - Read it. It's hilarious. It's black satire at it's finest, and if you haven't been forced to read it before in your life you're sincerely deprived. I actually still need to read the end of it. Set during WWII and follows the adventures of a huge cast of all extremely weird and quirky characters, including but not limited to: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, Major Major Major Major, and "Nately's Whore".
3. "Odd Thomas" by Dean Koontz - Seriously a great summer read. It's a mystery-thriller with bits of humor, and it sucks you in right away as you follow the protagonist on his journey to hunt down a serial killer before said killer can kill a whole ton of people (yeah, I know, I'm really getting good at the specifics here). The book's like a ticking time bomb in terms of the plot. The suspense it builds is just AMAZING. I'm actually going to re-read this sometime soon.
Movies:
1. "The Palm Beach Story" directed by Preston Sturges - OMFG. This is on my list of Top 10 Greatest Movies I've Ever Seen. HILARIOUS, satirical, and just all-around fun. The ending is a total "wtf" ending, but you can tell the director did it to directly make fun of the studios' policy that happy endings were a must (back in the day, anyway). Talk about a deus-ex-machina. He manages to make mundane things ultra-sexy to get around the production code, and the movie itself & all its characters are just fabulous. See it now.
2. "My Man Godfrey" - Mentioned this one before, probably. It's HILARIOUS. It made me laugh so freaking hard, I swear. Just go see it. It's about the ultra-rich adopting a homeless man into their household as their butler. They find him in the beginning of the movie on a scavenger hunt, of all things.
3. "Memento" - This movie is so unique and fantastic. The whole concept that the story is being told backwards by a character with short-term memory loss is utterly brilliant, and executed amazingly.
4. "Dr. Strangelove" directed by Stanley Kubric - Some people may not get this movie, but I thought it was genius. Black satire, again, and pretty fantastic. Set during the Cold War, and all about the tension between USSR & America, and what happens when lots of nuclear power is thrown into the mix.
5. "Death at a Funeral" - I haven't seen this movie in a very long time, but a friend was talking to me about it tonight and I remember parts of it being pretty damn funny if I think back. Everything that could possibly go wrong as a funeral pretty much does... Enough said.
6. "Everything Is Illuminated" - I watched this two nights ago and highly recommend it. It's a good combination of fun/goofy and heart-warming/touching. Not to mentioned the Ukrainian and/or Russian soundtrack is pretty much the epitome of awesome. Oh, and Elijah Wood is in it and plays a cute, neurotic little Jewish boy.
Hah. I know I sound a bit like a broken record with some of these, but I honestly cannot stress enough how awesome some of this stuff is, in my opinion. :P Hope that was helpful to at least someone out there.