JillBlake250
Let us come together to celebrate 250 of the things I love
Since I’m not feeling very patriotic these days, I’m compelled to counter [waves hands] whatever is going on this weekend for our shitshow of a country’s semiquincentennial with something positive and personal. So in an act of extreme self-indulgence, I’ve put together a list of 250 things I love— movies, music, food, places, ideas, etc. Those who know me are well aware that I’m actually terrible at putting together lists or logging things or any sort of ranking. Analysis paralysis is one of my weaknesses, currently evidenced by the stacks of records cluttering my living room as I agonize over how to organize them. Do I go full insufferable Rob Gordon and risk ridicule from my family? ("If I want to find the song 'Landslide' by Fleetwood Mac, I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 pile, but didn't give it to them for personal reasons.") In an effort to keep my neuroses in check and still see this ridiculous exercise through, I’m just going full stream of consciousness here with no order, no ranking, no reasonable anything. Just pure, unfiltered Jill because this is ‘Murica, dammit!
Enjoy.
Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer
Hydrangeas
The way Catherine O’Hara as Sheila Albertson explains her “less is more” acting method
Merry Clayton’s vocals on Gimme Shelter, with the added bonus of Mick’s “Woo!”
Baseball
Robert DeNiro as young Vito Corleone worrying over a sick Baby Fredo
Nugget ice aka “The Good Ice”
Pee-Wee Herman
A Sunday drive
Judy Holliday in anything
A good knickknack
Art produced by damaged, vulnerable men
The backstage credits scene in Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970)
The Beatles’ I’ve Got a Feeling
Paul Newman’s eyes
Fried okra
Compassion
Old Hollywood candid photographs
Dogs, especially mine
Joni Mitchell’s Song for Sharon
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Edited videos by Vic Berger
The Hollywood Bowl
The B-52s
Watching my daughter swim
The idea of time traveling to be in the audience during the recording of Frampton Comes Alive! and be one of the assholes whooping during Do You Feel Like We Do but more importantly just be there for that performance of Lines On My Face because it’s so good
David Niven in A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Roger Livesey in I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
Oh hell, let’s just keep it going with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
More emotionally draining British cinema with A Taste of Honey (1961)
Seth Rogen’s laugh
A great guitar riff
Linda Belcher saying “Bye, bye, bye stay out of my room!”
A really rich chocolate dessert
Stickers, especially ones with pithy sayings
Watching old restaurant training videos
The Allman Brothers Band
That video of the man who trips and falls and yells at his wife “get the dog, get the dog” and she is completely unbothered and tired of her husband’s antics
Double order of Waffle House hash browns, extra crispy.
The fact that I’m going to point out that Cary Grant lost one of his front teeth so he just rubber banded them to close the gap and made one of his canines a front tooth and now you’ll never unsee it
Mimosas, the tree ones (yes, I know they’re invasive here)
The perfection of Prince’s Computer Blue right into Darling Nikki (and the drums at the end!)
Sound of an orchestra tuning before a performance
Isaac Hayes’s cover of Walk On By
That scene in The Lady Eve (1941) when Barbara Stanwyck rattles off the made up list of former lovers. “I wonder if now would be the time to tell you about…Herman?”
Myrna Loy’s autobiography Being and Becoming
Handwritten letters
The Beastie Boys
A good baked potato, loaded
An ice cold pint of Smithwick’s
Expensive candles
The residents of Boone City
Introducing a movie I love to someone who hasn’t seen it
Babylon Sisters by Steely Dan
The knowledge that I’m in the background of some stranger’s vacation pictures and when they see it they talk about how I’m a dumbass. Something like “Ha! Look at this photo. Remember this dumbass?”
That old man smoker’s laugh. See Keith Richards.
The click of an old 35mm camera
Emo Phillips in UHF (1989)
The Last Waltz (1978)
Rick Danko’s muppet voice
Life before cellphones
William Wyler and his ability to direct any kind of movie
Mickey Rooney in National Velvet (1944)
A Tale of Two Cities
David Rose saying “I have never heard someone say so many wrong things one after the other, consecutively, in a row."
The Masturbating Bear
Thrifting
The Average White Band
Buster Keaton
Bad taxidermy
The Moses dance in Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Collecting pins and buttons
The fact that Robert Smith is still Robert Smith-ing
Halloween
Middle of the Night (1959)
Mitch Hedberg one-liners
Leon Russell
Generosity and selflessness
Sleazebag culture in theory. Like as a sociological observation,
Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
Bob Dylan’s Desire
Sam Shepard
David Strathairn
The smell of really good weed at an outdoor concert
St. Nicholas by Conor McPherson
The Rankin/Bass version of The Wind in the Willows (1987)
An old cast iron skillet
Buckingham Nicks
Making friends with a stranger during a shared experience, despite knowing you’ll never see them again
David Lean’s Summertime (1955)
Cream’s Badge
Graphic t-shirts
A grilled cheese, especially if I didn’t have to make it
Beck’s Sea Change
A broken-in pair of Chucks
Toshirō Mifune
Jaws (1975)
The indulgent superpower that is Tori Amos playing two pianos at the same time
Tamarins
Warren Zevon’s thoughts on dying: “You put more value in every minute…it's more valuable now. You're reminded to enjoy every sandwich."
Sinéad tearing up that picture of the Pope
William Friedkin’s black leather jacket and serial killer glasses
The Thermos Song
Gonzo
Return to Oz (1985)
SCTV
Fire on the Mountain by The Grateful Dead
A really fresh Moonpie
Cute woodland creatures
When The Weather Channel used to sometimes play Jessica or Tweezer (Reprise) during Local on the 8s
“Hello, I’m Troy McClure. You might remember me from…”
Alice In Chains Unplugged
Notorious (1946)
The Talking Heads
Crepe Myrtles
That portrait of Fredric March smoking a cigarette on the set of Design for Living
A denim jacket
Paul McCartney’s Ram
Gosford Park (2001)
The New Scooby-Doo Movies
Neil Young
The idea of a picnic
Werner Herzog’s Instagram
Introducing kids to classic films
The Apartment (1960)
Burt Reynolds
Writing, even if I never do anything with it
Traveling with a friend, especially road trips
Otis Redding at Monterey Pop
John Waters
Strawberry ice cream
That scene in The Big Lebowski (1998) when The Dude is in the back of the limo rambling about his theory on Bunny’s disappearance to a confused Mr. Lebowski and Brandt
You Can’t Kill the Rooster by David Sedaris
The Americans
Barney Fife
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
A Soap Opera Slap
A good meat and three
Muttley
Seeing liberal bumper stickers on a pickup
“Nat Kinkle, K-I-N-K-L-E. What are you hearing?”
Ben Gazzara
My bespoke hand-knitted Aran cardigan
Reading thoughtful, personal commentary on film
A black El Camino with red interior, my dream car (related to #79)
Ozzie Albies
Mme. Sebastian lighting and taking that insanely creepy drag off her cigarette in one fluid motion
Dazed and Confused (1993)
The 1988 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championships
Melodrama
The Soul Train line dance
Columbo
Bozo’s Grand Prize Game
The Loved One (1965)
Terry Kath
Bo Jackson
Rachel Dratch as Debbie Downer
Shrimp in all its forms
Wayne White
Get a Life
W.I.N.C.
What About Bob? (1991)
Bob Hoskins in anything
David Lee Roth
Coffin Flop
David Bowie going off on MTV for not showcasing Black artists
The ‘Burbs (1989)
The Chicken Lady
Billy Barty
Orson Welles’s love of Fresca
George Costanza caught on camera eating a sundae and getting it all over his face
Dennis the Constitutional Peasant
Peter Gabriel
Jim Rockford
Midnight Run (1988)
Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place
John Frankenheimer’s Paranoia Trilogy
Nick and Nora
The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley
Danny McBride
Johnny Guitar (1954)
James Cagney dancing down the stairs in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) (this is as patriotic as I’m gonna get)
Joe Walsh
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Snuffleupagus
Watching footage of James Caan rollerskating at the Playboy mansion
Mariet Antionette (2006)
Paths to Freedom
Justin the rat from The Secret of N.I.M.H. (1982)
David Letterman’s Big Ass Ham
Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (aka Charters and Caldicott)
The Price is Right
Fry’s 100th cup of coffee
Downton Abbey
Carl Sagan
Random Harvest (1942)
Sylvia Sidney
The “May 11, 1980, 6:55 am” sequence in Goodfellas (1990)
Edith Massey, who sorta reminds me of
Lil from Squidbillies
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Agent Dale Cooper going undercover at One Eyed Jacks and joining forces with
The Bookhouse Boys
Did I mention Fredric March yet?
Traffic (the band, of course)
The infomercial for The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast
Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter (1945)
Crooklyn (1994)
The hallucination scene in Murder, My Sweet (1944)
The Moira’s Rose’s Garden 4856
David Lynch
Jean Arthur wearing Ronald Colman’s pajamas and posing in front of the mirror in The Talk of the Town (1942)
Clifford (1994)
Nashville (1975)
Eddie Vedder’s long hair
Toast of London
Head (1968)
The gymnastics/emergency surgery montage in The Visitor (1979)
Ran (1985)
“Never mind that shit! Here comes Mongo.”
James Stewart’s poem Beau
Eleanor Powell’s high leg kicks
When I actually take the time to bake Totino’s Pizza Rolls instead of microwaving them aka self-care
Ron Kirby’s buffalo plaid jacket in All That Heaven Allows (1955)
The extreme close-up of that word in Atonement (2007)
A good bench-clearing brawl
John Payne, gritty Film Noir star
“Would You Like to Buy a Monkey?”
Gene Kelly in The Pirate (1948), especially during The Pirate Ballet sequence
Tom Petty’s Wildflowers
Kurt Russell’s entire look in The Thing (1982)
Freedom of Choice (the philosophy and the song)
College basketball
Vincent Price’s courtroom showdown in Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
“Shushi meat’s a big ripoff. It’s just cat scraps.”
Bougainvillea by Dickey Betts & Great Southern
If I Could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby
Ringo Starr reading the novelization of Anatomy of a Murder (1959) in A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Dick Shawn in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Clue (1985)
Bette Davis saying “I hate men” in All About Eve (1950)
The Nightfly
Topanga Canyon
They Live (1988)
Parker Posey fanning a chicken wing on a charcoal grill while smoking a cigarette in Waiting for Guffman (1997)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
“They’ll say ‘Aww, Topsy’ at my autopsy.”
Kid A
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Camping. And by “camping” I mean staying in a cabin and sitting in front of a fire
