Broadway Melody: So You Think You Can Dance?

I guess it was hard out there for a plain girl in 1929. The plot of The Broadway Melody of 1929 unfolds thusly: Girl and Boy are in love; Boy meets Girl's prettier sister; Boy and Pretty Sister fall in love and marry; Girl accepts her plain fate and lives the rest of her life alone. And this is presented to us as a happy ending. Geez. I was pretty excited about watching the super-old movies when I started this race, but this one really wore on me. I am not a lover of the musical genre, and there wasn't much else in this film to keep me watching. But I did learn one thing: tap dancing is possible on pointe. Seriously, look at this madness (toe tapping starts at 0:45): I wish I could find a longer version of that woman's performance -- the...

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Posted in: BestPicDeathRace

Bimini: Destination #1

The infinity pool at Bimini Bay Resort So I'm getting ready to fly to Bimini, the closest Bahamian island to Miami, at 4:30 a.m. last Friday, and I think, I'll only be on the island for the afternoon. I'll just throw a little sunscreen on my face. We can't possibly be outside for the entire day. As it turned out, we could absolutely be outside for the entire day. I'm sunburned all the way down to my knuckles. But you know what? They stamped my passport in the right place. No regrets. Passport to Everywhere: 38 stamps to go.0. Little Whale Cay1. Bim...

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Posted in: PassportToEverywhere

Little Whale Cay, Destination Number Zero

Photo by thomashawk, Flickr. The Passport To Everywhere challenge was born, naturally, on a plane. Joe was flipping through my passport and speculated that I'd need to add more pages soon. I have issues with our country's passport agencies -- my name is misspelled on the front page of my passport, even after I sent it back to have it corrected -- so I wanted to know exactly how long I'll be able to put off dealing with them again. So I counted my remaining empty spots for stamps, assuming four per page: 39. And I'll renew my passport in 2014. "The way you travel?" Joe said. "That could actually happen." Sounds like a challenge to me. Our plane was headed to Nassau in The Bahamas, and I was so excited to knock one stamp off the list immediately....

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Posted in: PassportToEverywhere

Wings, or My Own Private Clara Bow

I kicked off the Best Picture Death Race yesterday with Wings. (No, not that Wings. And not that one either.) It's the only silent film to have won a Best Picture Oscar, and with the exception of Steamboat Willie, it's also the only silent film I've ever actually seen. And I kind of loved it, in a MST3K kind of way. There's not so much a plot here as propaganda: Our Boys are going to War! They are Doing the Right Thing! Let's all Learn some Important Lessons! But once you accept that fact, and spend some time settling into the genre, it's easy to appreciate the little things. Little things like the school of acting that tells the audience a character is dead when he simply falls down, as if he's lost his balance all of a sudden. There's also...

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Posted in: BestPicDeathRace

Forever, starting now

Photo by FLEECIRCUS When the Oscars Death Race ended this year, I felt ... kinda sad. It was time-consuming, a bit stressful and often torturous (see: The Wolfman) going through it, but when I didn't have any more movies to squeeze into my busy schedule, I realized how much I was enjoying it all. I also realized that with a deadline, I'd gotten through way more of the movies on my list than ever before. I work under deadlines professionally, so I know they can be great motivators. But I'd never really thought about implementing them for fun before. As it turns out, I'm the kind of masochist who enjoys living under pressure. So why not use it for good? Here, I'll be laying out goals and deadlines, then tracking my progress as I (hopefully)...

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Posted in: BestPicDeathRace,PassportToEverywhere,TwiceBakedChallenge