make a list of the top 20 movies, books and CDs to be issued to a person at birth

Time (and new films) could change this list, but for now it is complete and part of this goal met.

The full list, some of which are true stories, some fiction, some entertaining, some profound… but each movie on this list has left me thinking about it for days, even years to come…

The Last Emperor
12 Angry Men
The Truman Show
Schindler’s List
Gone with the Wind
Cinema Paradiso
Glory
Monsters Inc
The original Italian Job
Fight Club
Cry Freedom
ET
Big Fish
Fried Green Tomatoes
Touching the Void
Hotel Rwanda
Crash
The Color Purple
The Mission
The Matrix

Here are two more that I think need to be seen, one I just saw:

Hotel Rwanda – wow what a good film. I watched it by accident on TV late at night. Absolutely gut wrenching but worthwhile. I was in college when this happened, yet heard very little about it. Truly saddening, and it makes me wonder what we don’t hear about places like Darfur, Kosovo, or other ethnic conflicts.

Crash – I saw this a few years ago in the theater. Makes you think about your assumptions, to be sure.

I am up to 17 films. I think I can finish up with three more soon. Then, I’ll have to see where I am for books and music.

5 movies:
Cry Freedom
ET
Big Fish
Fried Green Tomatoes
Touching the Void

3 books:
No Exit – Jean Paul Sartre
The Prophet – Khalil Gibran
Letter from a Birmingham Jail – Martin Luther King, Jr

I’m tired, have to go to sleep, will come back and edit these entries tomorrow.

Books:
English Composition and Grammar : Complete Course by John Warriner
Thus Spake Zarathustra – Friedrich Nietzsche
Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration – John Locke
The Art of War – Sun Zhu
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Movies:
The Last Emperor
12 Angry Men
The Truman Show
Schindler’s List
Gone with the Wind

Music:
At Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash
Five Leaves Left – Nick Drake
Puta’s Fever – Mano Negra
Every Breath you take (the singles) – The Police
Free to be you and me – Cast recording

also in no particular order… note that theoretically this could be given at the appropriate age (example, the kid’s books)

5 CDs:
U2 Actung Baby
The KLF Chill Out
Peter Gabriel – soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ
The Beatles – Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (I’m not a Beatle fan but it was a big moment in contemporary music history)
Rimsky Korsokov – Scherazade

5 books:
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Trumpet of the Swan – E.B. White
Goodnight, Moon – Margaret Wise Brown
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Walking – Henry David Thoreau

5 movies:
Cinema Paradiso
Glory
Monsters Inc
The original Italian Job
Fight Club

more to come…

(edit, like m750, I may alter this list before it’s final form – my memory is only so good)

I saw a variation of this on another site, but I really liked the idea. So I decided to borrow, expand it a bit, and make it a 43 things goal – what would I give to a newborn to help them have a broad perspective and enrich their lives, if I could? Obviously, someone would have to be of an appropriate age to appreciate the materials, so maybe it’d be more accurate to add “to be held in escrow until an appropriate age is reached” or something.

In any case, I will have to start thinking of my top 20 lists for each category. Feel free to add your own lists.