The Mirror

The Bicycle Thieves

Watching All the Sight and Sound Best Films 2012

I just feel terrible. So, I've had FilmStruck for a few months now and have been using it every once and awhile. I watched The Mirror and The Bicycle Thieves yesterday, but as I wrote this blog, I almost forgot that I had also watched Bicycle Thieves!  One might say: "well The Mirror is just so powerful both visually and narratively, you just forgot the more tame BT."  Nope, The Mirror was a dreamlike, visual masterpiece, but now that I'm thinking about it, I remember liking BT better, especially as a first-year law student who is thinking about what motivates others to commit crime on an almost daily basis. BT is subtler, but contains a much more fully realized, albeit complex, moral.

With this in mind, I feel like, even though I titled this blog: "Briggs' Music" I should use it to better retain the memory of the great films I've seen. Also, I just don't want to make a different blog cuz I don't feel like it. I went on listchallenges.com and checked how many of the Sight and Sound films I've watched. It was 82, a pretty respectable number at age 26. Four-stars. But there are some that I had trouble with. Have I seen Casablanca? Have I seen Gone With The Wind? I feel like I have, but I don't remember much about these films. So I didn't count them, I set a new goal that I have wanted to do for a while: watch every film on Sight and Sound's critic's list of 250 greatest films of all time and write my thoughts on each of them.

My "Attempt" at a Greatest Country Songs List

Combination of lyrical & musical excellence, influence, & historical significance. A certain amount of bluegrass, americana, country-rock, and alt-country allowed although I will steer clear of southern-rock.

(I have marked RE on songs I know require an explanation for their position, which I will be adding soon)

1. Willie Nelson: "Red Headed Stranger" (1975)-----------RE

2. Tammy Wynette: "Stand By Your Man" (1969)-----------RE

Also: "D.I.V.O.R.C.E."


3. Hank Williams: "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (1949)

Also: "Your Cheatin' Heart"

4. David Allen Coe: "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" (1974)

Also: "Spotlight" (1976)


5. Patsy Cline: "Crazy" (1961)

Also: "I Fall To Pieces"


6. Willis Alan Ramsey: "Ballad of Spider John" (1972)-----------RE

7. Gene Clark: "Life's Greatest Fool" (1974)----------RE

8. Johnny Cash: "I Walk The Line" (1957)

9. John Prine: "Sam Stone" (1971)----------RE

10. Lefty Frizzell: "If You've Got The Money (I've Got The Time)" (1950)

Favorite Folk Albums

Not many flower children on this list

1. Van Morrison: Astral Weeks (1968)

Favorite Stand-Up Comedians

In no particular order, just as they came to my mind.


Dave Chappelle

My Favorite Films

This has nothing to do with music. This is also, like my music lists, not a list of the greatest films of all time, just a list of the movies that I have enjoyed watching most and would definitely watch again (in alphabetical order). So yeah no Ozu, no Welles, no Hitchcock, no Lynch. Although I have seen many films by these directors none sticks out to me as personally changing my life or the way I watch film even though Citizen Kane is certainly an objective masterpiece and everyone should see it. Also, it's not super original... get over it?

8 1/2 Fredrico Fellini (1963)