80′s Movies

Three years ago I began a journey to catch up on culture defining movies I’d missed throughout the years. It was quite a lengthy list, which eventually led to me joining the Netflix fraternity and adjusting my nightly schedule. Needless to say, I’ve watched a LOT of movies recently, and a good chunk of those have been from my favorite decade—the 80′s.

This last week I watched two pretty big 80′s flicks, Wall Street and 1984, which had me wondering how many 80′s movies I’d actually watched since I started. So I did a quick check and came up with the following list. Ironically, 2010 is being dubbed the year of the 80′s remakes.

80′s Movies Watched In The Last Three Years:
The Abyss (1989)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Earth Girls Are Easy (1989)
Glory (1989)
Say Anything (1989)
Bull Durham (1988)
Eight Men Out (1988)
Stand and Deliver (1988)
U2: Rattle and Hum (1988)
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
The Lost Boys: Special Edition (1987)
The Pick-up Artist (1987)
Predator (1987)
Raising Arizona (1987)
The Untouchables (1987)
Wall Street (1987)
The Color of Money (1986)
Highlander (1986)
Platoon (1986)
Stand by Me (1986)
American Flyers (1985)
Better Off Dead (1985)
Commando (1985)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
1984 (1984)
Blood Simple (1984)
Dune (1984)
Footloose (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Top Secret! (1984)
All the Right Moves (1983)
Risky Business (1983)
Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983)
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
The Road Warrior (1981)
Taps (1981)
Ordinary People (1980)
Raging Bull (1980)
The Shining (1980)
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)

80′s Movies Still In My Que:
Friday the 13th (1980)
Brubaker (1980)
The Howling (1981)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Poltergeist (1982)
Gandhi (1982)
A Nightmare on Elm Stree (1984)
Amadeus (1984)
Out of Africa (1985)
Hot Pursuit (1985)
Murphy’s Romance (1985)
Shadowlands (1985)
Fright Night (1985)
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Aliens (1986)
Legend (1986)
The Wraith (1986)
Manhunter (1986)
The Living Daylights (1987)
Less Than Zero (1987)
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)
The Dead Pool (1988)
Cocktail (1988)
License to Kill (1989)

80′s Movies Being Remade In 2010:
Clash of the Titans (April 2)
Nightmare on Elm Street (April 30)
A-Team (June 11)
Karate Kid (June 11)
Predators (July 9)
Wall Street (September 24)
Red Dawn (November 24)
Tron (December 17)

Filed under: 80's, Culture, Music

The Fight

The Fight — MuteMath

[embedded audio]

[embedded video]

Faults have weighed on my confidence
The years have stolen my innocence
It’s hard to pay the price for this
Tonight could be the last to spend

Just see me through the night
Just see me through the fight
Somehow
Somehow

Well I’m, I’m looking for ways to hide
From the walls between every voice inside
I’m caught It’s something I can’t describe
So I, I wait just for you tonight

Just see me through the night
Just see me through the fight
Somehow

Maybe hope will buy us another day
And time will fix what I can’t erase
But it all feels millions of miles away
And I don’t think I’ll get there anyway

Can you change my thoughts around?
And I pray you’ll stay for now,
Can you save whats breaking down,
Just see me through the fight somehow

Somehow
Somehow
Just see me through the night
Just see me through the fight
Somehow
Somehow

» Download The Fight from MuteMath.com

Filed under: Lyrics, Music

Staring At The Sun

*click to enlarge

Up close, the solar surface is a striking patch work of granules in this very high resolution picture of the quiet Sun. Caused by convection, the granules are hot, rising columns of plasma edged by dark lanes of cooler, descending plasma. But the high-resolution view reveals that the dark lanes are dotted with many small, contrasting bright points. Constantly present on the solar surface, the bright points do not seem to be related to sunspots that come and go with the magnetic solar cycle. Nonetheless, the bright points are regions of concentrated magnetic fields and are bright because the magnetic pressure opens a window to hotter deeper layers below the photosphere. For scale, the white bar at the lower left corresponds to 5,000 kilometers across the Sun’s surface. The sharp, narrow-band image was recorded in September, 2007 using the Swedish Solar Telescope on the astronomical island of La Palma.

In honor of this Astronomy Picture of the Day, I’ve decided to make a little sun-themed playlist.

» Click here to download

Or simply enjoy one of my favorites right here:

The Shadow Proves The Sunshine — Switchfoot

You can view more intergalactic greatness here.

Filed under: Music, Science

Rights vs. Responsibilities

“If your success depends on sickening the poorest and least educated portion of your customer base (and the ones that buy the most from you), it’s time to redefine success.”

Seth Godin
http://sethgodin.typepad.com

Filed under: Quotes

Review: Everyone Communicates, Few Connect

**UPDATE** – Thomas Nelson has offered to give away 20 cases of ECFC to 20 lucky blog commenters! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post on johnmaxwellonleadership.com by April 12, 12:00AM EDT.

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You know how a dog starts twitching his back leg when you scratch his belly ? Well, consider me the dog in this analogy, and John Maxwell (through his newest book) the belly scratcher.

Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently is the first book I’ve read by Maxwell. I’m not sure why it took me so long, he’s only got 586 books out there. Perhaps I’ve never considered myself much of a leader. Regardless, when this book became available the title sounded like something I could really connect with (pun intended)… and I was right.

Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently by John C. Maxwell takes readers through the Five Connecting Principles and the Five Connecting Practices of top-notch achievers. He believes that a person’s ability to create change and results in any organization—be it a company, church, nonprofit, or even a family—is directly tied to the ability to use the teachings of this book.

Here are his Five Connecting Principles
» Connecting Increases Your Influence in Every Situation
» Connecting Is All About Others
» Connecting Goes Beyond Words
» Connecting Always Requires Energy
» Connecting Is More Skill Than Natural Talent

Here are his Five Connecting Practices
» Connectors Connect on Common Ground
» Connectors Do the Difficult Work of Keeping It Simple
» Connectors Create an Experience Everyone Enjoys
» Connectors Inspire People
» Connectors Live What They Communicate

To say this book was quotable is an understatement. One of my favorites is this:

“The true test of inspiration is action.”

This book had me putting its concepts not just into the forefront of my mind, but also into immediate action. I think my biggest takeaway is that I need to focus more on others. I’m often reminded how self-centered I am. John’s personal stories were incredibly inspirational to me, and had me wanting to create experiences for others in the same way.

Not only do I highly recommend this book, I’m looking for more John Maxwell books to put on my reading list. 5 out of 5 stars.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program.

Filed under: Books, Reviews

ReflectionOf.Me

I recently added another blog to my RSS reader that has quickly moved into the Must Read folder. There were so many great things to share this morning from ReflectionOf.Me that had been posted since I last checked, I had to make a blog post out of it rather than post them all to my tumblr blog.

Filed under: Blogosphere

March Debrief

As I mentioned earlier, I knew March was going to be pretty sweet.

The Switchfoot concert was probably the highlight, but the NCAA tournament has been great, baseball is finally in the air, historic legislation has been passed, Breaking Bad is off to another tremendous start, daylight savings time has begun, the running posse is clocking more miles (we hit our highest distance yet—8 miles), and it’s finally getting warmer!

And I got a bonus at work! How’s that for a good month?

Tweet of the Month

Just told Tanner I’d give him .25¢ for every thawing turd he picks up in our lawn. I think I’m going to need to take out a loan.
—@mudpuppy 3:43 PM Mar 7th

Books Read in March:
Scared — Tom Davis
Everyone Communicates Few Connect — John C. Maxwell

Movies Watched in March:
Red Rock West – 4/5
Gentlemen Broncos – 2/5
2012 – 4/5
For Your Consideration – 3/5
Saw – 4/5
Barton Fink – 3/5
American Flyers – 4/5
The Boondock Saints II – 3/5
Up in the Air – 5/5
The Crazies – 4/5
The World Is Not Enough – 2/5
U2: Rattle & Hum – 5/5
Michael Collins – 4/5
All The King’s Men – 3/5
Angels & Airwaves: Start the Machine – 5/5
Miller’s Crossing – 3/5
Fantastic Mr. Fox – 5/5
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – 3/5
The Ladykillers – 3/5
The Men Who Stare at Goats – 3/5
The Informant – 4/5
Alice In Wonderland – 3/5
All the Right Moves – 4/5
Blood Simple – 3/5

Filed under: 2010, Books, March, Movies