Ten Movies Flock Thinks You Should See

Yes, you. Flock has seen more movies than you. No, I don't care who you are or where you work or any of that other crap, he has seen more movies. Just trust me on this one. I have paraphrased his reasons below, since we hashed this out verbally in my living room. And no, Flock is not his real name. It's a long story. Forget that, check out these movies:

1. Citizen Kane He didn't have much to add about this one, except that you can't miss it for the young Orson Welles, and even if you know about Rosebud, the journey is what makes this movie great.

2. The Godfather The first two, really. If he had room, Goodfellas would have made it, too.

3. Seven Samurai Every western you have seen is based on this movie, the granddaddy of them all. If you have already seen Star Wars, you can see where the inspiration was obtained. Yeah, I'm going to geek hell for that one. I don't care.

4. Andrei Rublyov This one everyone should try and get through. It is long. And in Russian with subtitles. But what makes it all worth it is the emotional impact it has on you once you have finished.

5. Gone with the Wind Although he had seen it before, he caught this when they re-released it in theaters, also. Watching this movie, you forget that they made it in the 30's. Well-made, and the epic of all epics, everyone should have it at least on their viewing resume.

6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb This, if you haven't seen it, is the one everyone in the world has seen that one part of. You know, the part where the guy jockeys up on the falling bomb? It's also very funny, and one of Kubrick's best films.

7. Taxi Driver He didn't have much comment about this, except that it's a great movie. If nothing else, see Jodie Foster before she lost all her baby teeth.

8. 2001: A Space Odyssey One of the rare movies where the script doesn't get in the way of the movie. This movie was done way before any of the special effects technology caught up to how Kubrick wanted it to look. With painstaking attention to detail, they created what would be the most expensive movie of all time if it were done with today's technology. It shows.

9. Children of Paradise At first, I thought he was talking about City of the Lost Children, which is also French, but no. This movie is an epic film on par with Gone with the Wind, but takes place in 1800's France. They actually made this movie under the nose of the Germans right before France was occupied in WWII.

10. The Third Man A film noir mystery. Good eats.

11. Our amplifiers go all the way to eleven! OK, he couldn't finish the list without adding Alfred Hitchcock movies. Start maybe with Vertigo, move on to Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt... yeah, the biggest problem he had was with limiting the list to ten.

I am ashamed to admit that I have only seen three of these movies, so obviously I have my work cut out for me. Perhaps if I didn't spend so much time playing Dark Age of Camelot...