55 Movies You Have to Watch by the Time you're 30

As an OCD, I love lists. An even better than lists are to do lists. Or the best is following the to do list. The satisfaction of crossing out items are something you either know or not.

But one thing I don't like is lists of the movies I should watch or books I should read. Probably because I would not be crossing out so many and feeling accomplished in my assumed semi intellectual lifestyle.

But Today I stumbled upon a list which was very much align with my taste, of the movies you should watch by the time you are 30. In my remaining 1 year and 9 months I would try to finish this list and write the review of the movies that I watch from the list. This would be a good practice for me to watch the stupid shows on Amazon prime or rewatch "Devil Wears Prada" for the 555th time.
Please add anything you feel is missing from this list. I love suggestions.
P.S. I would start from number 24 and skip the movies I already watched and remember vividly. And when I am done I go back and do 1-23.

The list is as follows:

1. Casablanca (1942)  - Watched, Amazing Love Story, Cried
2. Some Like it Hot (1959) - To Watch, no clue
3. Breathless (1960) - To Watch, Don't Remember
4. Psycho (1960)-  To Watch, no clue
5. The Graduate (1967)- Watched, Actually Funny
6. Midnight Cowboy (1969)-  To Watch, no clue
7. A Clockwork Orange (1971)- To Watch ( mixed feelings)
8. The Godfather (1972) - Watched, no description needed
9. Chinatown (1974)- To Watch, no clue
10. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)- Watched, Amazed, Unexplainable experience
11. Month Python and the Holy Grail (1975)- To Watch, Love the name (LOL)
12. Taxi Driver (1976)- Watched, Amazed
13. Annie Hall (1977)- Watched, Woody Allen Blah
14. National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) - To Watch,  (LOL), I was born that year
15. Apocalypse Now (1979)- Watched, Amazed
16. E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)- Watched, Amazed
17. This is Spinal Tap (1984)- To Watch, no clue
18. Back to the Future (1985)- To Watch, Don't Remember, probably overrated
19. The Breakfast Club (1985)- To Watch, no clue
20. The Goonies (1985)- To Watch, no clue
21. Blue Velvet (1986)- To Watch, no clue
22. Stand by Me (1986)- To Watch, no clue
23. Heathers (1988)- To Watch, no clue
24. Coming to America (1988)- To Watch, no clue ( I start from here cause I think it is really funny)
25. Beaches (1988)- To Watch, no clue
26. When Harry Met Sally (1989)- To Watch, Don't Remember
27. Edward Scissor-hands (1990)- Watched, Amazed
28. Goodfellas (1990)- To Watch, Resisted Watching for Long Time
29. Reservoir Dogs (1992)- To Watch, no clue
30. Leon: The Professional (1994)- Watched, Amazed
31. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)- Watched, Amazed
32. Pulp Fiction (1994)- Watched, Amazed
33. Reality Bites (1994)- To Watch, no clue
34. The Usual Suspects (1995)- To Watch, no clue
35. Kids (1995)- To Watch, no clue
36. Clueless (1995)  - Watched, Overrated
37. Walking and Talking (1996)- To Watch, no clue
38. Swingers (1996)- To Watch, no clue
39. Good Will Hunting (1997)- Watched, Amazed
40. Rushmore (1998)- To Watch, no clue
41. The Truman Show (1998)- Watched, Amazed
42. American Beauty (1999)- Watched, Amazed
43. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)- To Watch, no clue
44. Requiem for a Dream (2000)- To Watch, Don't Remember
45. Lost In Translation (2003)- Watched, Amazed
46. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)- Watched, Overrated
47. The Departed (2006)- Watched, Amazed
48. Inception (2010) - Watched, Overrated
49. Melancholia (2011)- To Watch, no clue
50. The Artist (2011)- Watched, Amazed
51. Bachelorette (2012)- To Watch, no clue
52. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)- To Watch, Resisted Watching for Long Time
53. Frances Ha (2012)- To Watch, no clue
54. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)- Watched, Amazed
55. Her (2013)   - Watched, Overrated

When Marnie was there

I have long been MIA on this blog since something called school was happening, and now it is over, for the rest of my life. I am still in a good shock from it, since I have never not been at school. But my first reaction was watching a lot of movies, well for now this is the plan.

I came across this movie on the Fandango website, where you can just say you want to watch a movie   now and it shows you all the show times around you.

You all know about my obsession with studio Ghibli and in general with good animations. and when I saw this movie is from Ghibli, I could not hesitate.

As always, the animation was very well made. With the flowiest scenes and softest colors and magical music.

The story line though was weird. The movie is about an adopted girl, 10 years old, who suffers from Asthma and is sent to a village to get better in a good weather. She is in general not a very happy kid and recently been more reserved.

In the village she finds an old empty mansion and starts imagining hanging out with a very pretty girl who lives there with her evil nannies.

This is where the movie gets weird since the relationship between two girls get awkward. They keep saying they love each other and I got a feeling that is this an LGBT movie?! or what is the message they want to deliver? Is this a kid's movie? In general my mind was very occupied with figuring this out for a long time.

Ghibli has always some sort of magic in their movies. That made me even more skeptical that what is this movie about.

But later everything sorts out and I do not want to be a spoiler, but there is nothing mind blowing about it (LOL), they simply have touched some Fruedian concepts.

I would certainly recommend the movie to any animation lover and give 7/10.

Ida

Winning the best foreign movie Oscar is enough motivation to watch a movie, right?
Well that, and the movie being in black and white with a touch of WWII, are enough for me, though half way through the movie, I was expecting it to be another movie I wanted to watch some months ago.

Ida is a simple beautiful movie, about a young polish nun who in search of her dead parents, she meets her not so conservative aunt and realizes that she actually is Jewish. During the war, her parents were kept in the woods and fed by a guy, and at the end were killed by him. The girl and her aunt go on a journey to find the guy by asking from his son who refuses to help.

The movie is very smooth and well made, the acts are amazing and very believable. The conflict between the girl and her aunt's belief, the girl's innocence and how the connect. The movie has a very sad theme, specially that it is in black and white and in another language.

I would not recommend watching this movie if you are not into foreign films, since you will be bored.
I give a 6/10 to this movie

The tale of princess Kaguya

I remember when I was very young, they used to show this Chinese movie on tv about a princess coming from the moon, or going to the moon !??! I wonder if this the same story.

I am most biased when it gets to animations and even more biased when the animation is from studio Ghibli, because they are so perfect and so talented and make these cute things that you don't even need a story to follow, you just want to sit and watch.

The story is about a girl who comes from the moon into the life of a poor couple, and she brings a lot of gold with her. The husband decides with all this money they have to take her to the city and build a mansion and raise her like a princess.They give her best lessons and make her wear the nicest clothes until she become famous in the city and legitimate bachelors start asking her for marriage. The girl is not happy and feels trapped in her castle and she wants to go back to the village and live freely.

It sounds a little bit of a cliche, but believe me you won't notice that. This animation is very well made with plots all hand drawn with soft colors and very flow y. The music is amazing and everything came together so well that you feel all their feelings and make connection with the character. This is certainly not your flamboyant Pixar or Disney animations and you would certainly not expect that from Ghibli, but they always made amazing animations like spirited away which already won an Academy awards best animation.

I would certainly recommend this to anyone who likes well made animations and give a 7.5/10 to it.

Whiplash

IMDb 8.7, metacritic %88 , everyone would think they have to watch this movie, and I think you should really, It is a good movie but how are all of these movies competing with boyhood? or we simply do not have better movies? or I am turning into an old lady who nags about everything?!?

I like all the movies that are somehow music related, and this movie is no exception. The movie is neat, smart, sneaky, emotional and all together but then on average it does semi perfect.

The story is about a guy studying drums at a famous music school when he is noticed by the conductor of the school's orchestra, who happens to be a guy looking for THE talent and he spots him and brings him into his orchestra and push him to his limits by mocking and cursing and throwing stuffs at him only to make him brings out the star but at one event the student couldn't take it anymore and attacks the conductor which then gets him expelled from the school and then a series of attempts for revenge happen.

In general the movie is short, to the point, clear and that is what I like comparing to all the 3 hour movies that I'm afraid is becoming a new trend. It shows the emotions, pain and the struggle and although you see tears and cuts and bloods but you are gonna smile and love it.

I would recommend watching this movie but warn you that the movie has a fast tone and can get harsh, definitely not a relaxing happy go lucky movie and I give a 7/10 to it.

Birdman

I am trying to watch all the academy award nominees before the event and JUST because I have so much free time (lol,kidding, I am defending my thesis in a month or so also) and every movie is disappointing me after the other one.

Me and my friend have been debating whether to watch this movie or not because from the trailer and all the awards it won it looks kind of a conceptual movie and I am not good with understanding conceptual movies even in my own language and culture, but then I gave it a shot and to my surprise, there is nothing sophisticated about this movie.

Birdman is about the struggle of a lead actor of an old superhero series called birdman who refused to continue playing in it with the dream of going to Broadway, but simply he is not a broadway material.

The acts are good in this movie, but the whole story is very mundane , and the birdman accompanying the guy throughout the movie is a little bit annoying.

Unless there are several layers of understanding and I am stuck at level one, this is an OK movie and I would only say watch it if you are very much into theater and shows and movies and how critiques work ( the concepts I mean) and will give a 5/10 to this movie !

Big eyes

We love Tim Burton,we go and watch whatever he makes or slightly is associated with and  have we ever been disappointed? NO, except his recent break up with the long time girlfriend whom we love as much (dude seriously?!?)

He always gets this deep but small things about life that we rarely notice and add lots of magic and weirdness to it and we watch it, we get excited and later we think about it and say ahaaa!!!

Big eyes is not an exception, the story of a divorce painter and her daughter who ran away to SF and they meet this con artist fake painter. He later gets married to the painter and sells her art under his own name, makes a fortune and becomes famous by keeping the woman suppressed , making her draw these pictures of kids with giant eyes.

The movie shows how one can simply gets trapped in a situation and never gets the courage to get out simply by not using their brains. Also it hows how in an unhealthy relationship one can simply loses their identity by making a monster out of the other person.

But most importantly this movie is weird, in a beautiful way, something between beetle juice and well I am not sure, maybe this is the most conventional movie from Tim Burton.Also very good act from Amy Adams, of a woman whose divorce made her lose herself where there are multiple times you want to shout at the screen and say WOMAN, please!!!


I give a happy 7/10 to this and recommend it to everyone, you will thank me later , tata

P.S. apparently the movie is based on a real story !