As a birthday gift from me to you I present two different lists. The first of which are the thirty movies that I find most influential to me either artistically or sentimentally. As a challenge to myself I made sure there were no directors with more than one movie on the list, otherwise it would be very Scorsese-centric, or Tarantino-centric, Hitchcock-centric, etc. Also, I couldn't bring myself to rank the films because I take something different out of each one. Also, I've included a couple of trilogies but that's because I couldn't justify splitting them up. So it's really more like 34 movies, but y'all get the drift.
Annie Hall
Breathless
Citizen Kane
Chinatown
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Dog Day Afternoon
La Dolce Vita
Do the Right Thing
The Double Life of Veronique
Dr. Strangelove
E.T.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Faces
Fargo
George Washington
The Godfather II
The Graduate
The Hustler
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Lost in Translation
Night of the Living Dead
Nothing But a Man
Pulp Fiction
Raging Bull
Riffifi
The Russian Ark
The Seventh Seal
Slacker
Star Wars (the 1st trilogy)
Vertigo
The second list consists of the thirty albums that have served as inspiration throughout the years. I have ranked these because, well, I freaking wanted to. Like the movie list, I limited each artist to only one entry so the list wouldn't be OutKast-centric, Springsteen-centric or Ryan Adams-centric.
1. Aquemini - OutKast
2. Heartbreaker - Ryan Adams
3. OK Computer - Radiohead
4. Is This It - the Strokes
5. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E. Street Band
6. What’s Going On? - Marvin Gaye
7. Thriller - Michael Jackson
8. Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest
9. A Love Supreme - John Coltrane
10. London Calling - the Clash
11. Paid in Full - Eric B. & Rakim
12. Fear of a Black Planet - Public Enemy
13. Repeater - Fugazi
14. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams
15. My Life - Mary J. Blige
16. Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
17. Kiko - Los Lobos
18. In a Silent Way - Miles Davis
19. The Score - the Fugees
20. The Meadowlands - the Wrens
21. At San Quentin - Johnny Cash
22. In Utero - Nirvana
23. The Infamous - Mobb Deep
24. Tidal - Fiona Apple
25. Evil Empire - Rage Against the Machine
26. Marquee Moon - Television
27. Soft Bulletin - the Flaming Lips
28. Summerteeth - Wilco
29. Mule Variations - Tom Waits
30. Return to Cookie Mountain - TV on the Radio
Oh and one more thing...I'm thirty now.
