Making Lists

The end of the year is traditionally the time of making lists, as evidenced by Kevin on his blog, where I did a shitty job by avoiding the hard questions.

I suppose the best-known end of the year list is that of Humo . I filled that out of course, since there are prizes to be won :)

- Man/Woman of the year: I didn't have an effing clue what to put there, really. The old pope for dying? The new pope? One of the many politicians that were all over the news this year? Oprah Winfrey? One of the royal babies? Paris Hilton. Truth be told, I actually don't remember what I settled on in the end. But I do know it weren't any of those last 3, no worries :)

- Dick of the year: Filip Dewinter seems a bit of an overobvious choice, but I have to say: I barely saw or heard from him this year. He's still a dick of course, but this time I voted for Anke Vandermeersch, who bothered me a hell of a lot more the past 12 months.

- Best movie: Turned out I had only seen two movies that were released this year. Yes, two. All the other movies I saw were from before 1970 or something :) So choosing between 'The Brothers Grimm' & 'Een ander zijn geluk' wasn't particularly hard. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one I picked.

- Best actress (international): Bit problematic since I didn't really see any international actresses that are still alive. Except for that chick from Brothers Grimm and there's no chance in hell she's gonna win by default :p So I stuck with Nicole Kidman.

- Best actor (international): I don't have the foggiest notion who I voted for here.

- Best actress (national): Maaike Cafmeyer, for no specific reason.

- Best actor (national): Jan Decleir, because he is :)

- Best book: once again a little problem since I only read books from over a century old. It didn't say anywhere you couldn't vote for those, so Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens it was.

- Sportfigure of the year: Kim Clijsters, because of her amazing come-back from injury, winning a grand slam and being just so darn peachy nice.

- Most exciting sporting event: US Open semi-finals.

- Belgian politician of the year: Karel de Gucht.

- Most annoying Belgian politician of the year: same as the dick.

- Best television program (national): De Slimste Mens

- Best television program (international): Dead Like Me

- Worst television program: Paradise Hotel.

- Who would you like to see naked: I humoured my boyfriend and voted for the guy he wants to see naked (Tom Boonen), because he actually has a shot of making the top 10. If I had my pick, it would be Olivier Rochus *rrrrrr* but I doubt a lot of people will be voting for him.

While in the process of making lists, here's a long one (I don't have anything to do today and I'm a little ill, so I got time and no one reads this, so it doesn't matter if it's boring).

The Internet Movie Database is a great website for info on movies, actors, directors, affiliated, and for opinions of people (some so clever, some so painfully ignorant) and well, just about anything you can think of that has something to do with movies and television. Furthermore you can register and participate, by roaming the message boards, or simply by voting for the movies you've seen.

So here's a list of movies that have gotten a 10 or a 9 from me :) Some of 'em aren't exactly great, but I saw them when I was pretty young, or I just liked their simplicity. As people that know me can guess, most of them are just plain old :) There's not really an order to them, imdb ranks them from top to bottom and the ones with the same points alphabetically.

- Dogma (1999, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Linda Fiorentino, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, ...) . No idea why I like this movie so much. It's about two fallen angels making their way back to heaven, an abortion doctor having to stop them with the help of the 13th apostle, a muze and two prophets, and there's a lot of angels and demons. Funky.

- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, ...) . Odd and magnificent.

- Freeway (1996, Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Brittany Murphy, Brooke Shields,...). A modern day version of Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf. Witherspoon is abused by her stephdad and he and her hooker mum are arrested for drug possession. She hitchhikes across the country to visit her grandmother and is picked up by psycho Sutherland. It all gets very strange from then on and Witherspoon is great as foul-mouthed teenage hussy.

- Gone with the Wind (1939, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia De Havilland, Leslie Howard, Hattie McDaniel, ...). One of my two favourite movies. I just love this epic , melodramatic story.

- Jezebel (1938, Bette Davis, Henry Fonda,..). The other favourite, with Davis as spoiled and headstrung southern belle, scheming and plotting to get her way. Awesome!

- The Lion in Winter (1968, Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Nigel Terry, John Castle, Timothy Dalton, ...). The story of the intrigues revolving around the throne of Henry II. The facts are true, but were compressed to one place in time for better story-telling. Great acting from these Hollywood greats, and biting sharp dialogue.

- Pleasantville (1998, Reese Witherspoon, Tobey Maguire, William H. Macy, Joan Allen,...). The story of two modern day loser teens that are sucked into a black and white 50's television show and teach them a lesson, whilst being taught one themselves. Aow.

- The Shawshank Redemption (1994, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman,...). I've never really liked Tim Robbins but he blew me away when I saw this years ago. I watched it again recently and it didn't lose any of its power.

Those were the 10s, 9's are for later :p