My movie education has been lacking for years, when others ask have you seen ______?  My response is generally no.  We’ve only been to the theater twice this year, once for Rich’s birthday (it was raining) and once to get out of the 100+ degree weather for the afternoon.  Even before our life on the road, I hadn’t seen many films, so one of my goals for my 50^th year is to watch 50 of the AFI Top 100 movies.  We chose to stick to the original list, not the updated one because if I had seen a movie, it would probably be on that list.  So now, when we have a couple hours to kill, since it is, technically, the off season, we download Netflix and watch a classic movie.  Our selection process is highly scientific, Rich picks a number between 1 and 100.  The first night we watched #69 (figures, he’s a boy) and watched Shane.  A classic western, well done, we noticed the Grand Tetons were always in the background, no matter what angle the camera seemed to be at.  Made me laugh.

Our selection last night was #12 Sunset Boulevard, with Gloria Swanson and William Holden.  What a great movie, the narration was incredible, the concept was great and the set, WOW! that was fantastic.  It made me want to go find Schwab’s Drugstore and 10086 Sunset Boulevard when we get to LA this week.  Probably Paramount won’t let me on the studio lot.  I knew all of the dialogue from the movie, but only because Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical by the same name and very closely used the script for his songs.  In my previous life, we listened to musicals in the car (my daughter is a theater major).  So the story was familiar to me, but I have to say my favorite line was towards the end of the movie when Joe says to Norma, “there’s nothing tragic about being 50, unless you’re acting 25.”  Maybe that just hit home since I’m in that 50^th year thing, please someone, tell me if I start behaving like I’m 25.