Monday, September 29, 2014

The ladies of CLC get nostalgic

Since authors shared their top 10 lists for different decades and genres, we wanted to do the same. Take a trip down memory lane to see our favorite 90s movies, 80s songs, and 70s TV shows! We'd love to hear your favorites, as well!

Melissa A:

I'm such a 90s girl...I love the music, TV shows, movies, etc. A lot of it just brings back good memories from high school and college. I had a hard time choosing which genre to share, but kept coming back to movies in the end.

Top Ten 90s movies:

1. Clueless-I'm not a Jane Austen fan, but I am thankful to her for inspiring such a fabulous teen movie.
2. Beauty and the Beast-Why it didn't win the Oscar for Best Picture, one will never know.
3. The Wedding Singer-I still love Adam and Drew together (seeing Blended confirmed that) and this started everything off. So cute, funny, and romantic. A great throwback to the 80s too, with lots of fun music!
4. The Lion King-I saw this movie countless times between the summer of '94 and spring of '95...and even more beyond that. Hakuna Matata!
5. Life is Beautiful-In my opinion, the best movie ever made about the Holocaust. I cried way more for this than I ever did for Schindler's List. So incredibly touching.
6. Mrs. Doubtfire-Not just saying this because Robin Williams recently passed away. I was drawn into this movie from the first time I saw it. It's funny, clever, and heartbreaking all at the same time.
7. Ten Things I Hate About You-One of my other all-time favorite teen flicks. I cry every time Kat (Julia Stiles) reads her poem out loud.
8. Home Alone-I still think this movie is hilarious. The humor never gets old. And I love that Kevin only wants cheese pizza. It's not just me!
9. Groundhog Day-One of my favorite "time travel" movies. So quotable too!
10. The Shawshank Redemption-I wasn't expecting to be so moved by this film, but it has definitely stayed a classic for me 20 years later.

Amy:

Great minds think alike when it comes to decades and genres (and at least one movie). Now you have 19 movies from the 90s to check out!

Top Ten 90s movies:

1. The Cutting Edge - This is one of those movies that I have watched over and over again over the years, and I will continue to do so. I can recite almost all of the lines by heart. It's definitely cheesy but I just love it!
2. Face/Off - Normally I avoid these kinds of movies. However I LOVE John Travolta so I always have to see his movies. Both him and Nicholas Cage have great chemistry. This is also one I can watch over and over again.
3. Titanic - No need for a reason why. One of the best movies of all time.
4. The Birdcage
5. Mrs. Doubtfire
I absolutely love Robin Williams and my two favorite movies that he was in were Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage. Robin Williams rocked the role of Mrs. Doubtfire. I can't see any other actor doing this amazing of a job. Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in The Birdcage are just fantastic together. I laugh every time I watch this movie. And of course this is another that I can watch over and over again.
6. Pretty Woman - Another one where there's no need for a reason why. Come on, it's Pretty Woman people!
7. Good Will Hunting - Another fantastic performance by Robin Williams. He won his first oscar for his role.
8. Practical Magic - Sandra Bullock is another one of those actors that I love, and therefore have to see any movie that she stars in. I also love anything having to do with magic on tv or in the movies.
9. Miss Congeniality - Girl Power!
10. Father of the Bride - Steve Martin is hilarious. Pair him with Diane Keaton and you have a winner. I also loved the father daughter relationship between Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams-Paisley.

Becky:

I've chosen music from the 80s, and I've just gone with 10 songs which stay particularly memorable for me, whether they're any good or not..well that's each to their own, I liked them at the time! I watched Top of the Pops religiously back then and taped my favourite songs onto my cassette player from the radio.

Top Ten 80s Songs

1. Bananarama, "Love in the First Degree" (Some school friends and I used to put on dances during school assemblies, and that included a dance to this, we had a lot of fun as we were allowed to use the hall during lunch breaks to practise)
2. Kylie Minogue -"Hand on Your Heart" (I was a massive Neighbours/Kylie fan and this is one of my favourite song's of hers from the '80s)
3. Jason Donovan - "Too Many Broken Hearts" (as above I of course had to be a Jason fan too..we made up dances to his songs too and i had a pillowcase with his face on)
4. Salt n' Pepa - "Push It" (I bought their album and I remember hearing it was a bit controversial at the time but I was probably too young to think anything of it)
5. Wet Wet Wet - "Angel Eyes" (Popped in, Souled Out was one of my first albums and I was lucky enough to see them perform recently)
6. Starship - "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" (Mannequin was by far my favourite film of the 80's so this had to feature)
7. Glenn Medeiros - "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You" (I remember this seemed to be number one for ages, i remember being on a family holiday in spain and in a pub which had Top of The Pops on and it was STILL number one, it reminds me a lot of that summer)
8. Bros - "Drop the Boy" (I was a huge fan of Bros, I particularly liked Matt..)
9. Pet Shop Boys - "Heart" (my brothers used to be fans of the Pet Shop Boys so I'd always hear their music, I saw them supporting Take That and they were great)
10. Madonna - "Live to Tell" (we used to have the True Blue album on in the car a lot and this is my favourite track from that album)

I could go on....!!

Jami:

TV critics say that we’re in the midst of a Golden Age for Television. But Gen Xers like me know that the real Golden Age of TV was not the 1950s, or now, but that glorious wonderful decade of the 1970s. And it wasn’t just because you could buy a lunchbox featuring your favorite TV show!

Here are 10 reasons the 1970s had the best TV ever:

1. The Mary Tyler Moore Show – the pioneer program featuring the single girl in the city. Begat Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, and every show with a strong female protagonist who’s looking for love and succeeding at a professional job.
2. All in the Family – Archie Bunker is the original anti-hero. A frank look at race and racism that is too controversial for today’s audiences. Tony Soprano and Walter White are Archie Bunker’s spawn.
3. M*A*S*H – The first comedy-drama, M*A*S*H could make you laugh one minute and cry the next. I spent my middle school years quoting lines from the show. I still think it features some of the best TV dialogue ever written.
4. The Love Boat/Fantasy Island – Yes, these shows ran into the 1980s but they started in the 1970s. They were a great way to spend Saturday night when you were too young to date but longing for love anyway.
5. Little House on the Prairie – I wanted to be Laura. All my friends wanted to be Laura. I’m way too excited that Laura Ingalls Wilders’ real autobiography “Pioneer Girl” is finally going to be published.
6. The Six Million Dollar Man/The Bionic Woman – If these shows weren’t iconic, then why do people still say “We CAN rebuild him” nearly forty years later? And I will always have a huge debt of gratitude to the Bionic Woman, who turned my name from a boy’s nickname into a legitimate girl’s name.
7. Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley – Happy Days taught 70s kids how to be a 50s teenager. Laverne and Shirley made sure we went to college. Can anyone explain the appeal of Carmine?
8. Mork & Mindy – Nothing I can say that hasn’t been said in light of Robin Williams’ death.
9. The Brady Bunch – Who didn’t want to be "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia?"
10. General Hospital – Yes, it premiered in 1963, and yes it’s still going on today, but many devout fans would argue that its single best year was 1979. I fell in love with GH in 1978, so I’m putting it here.

It’s amazing to think there were so many good shows back in the days when we only had three channels. (And no, I’m not counting UHF.) And now, due to the double magic that are DVDs and Netflix streaming, we can watch these shows again and party like it’s 1979

2 comments:

Jackie Bouchard said...

Great lists, ladies. Making me all nostalgic! I know they say TV is so great right now (and there are a lot of great shows) but I always fondly remember back when the Mary Tyler Moore show and Bob Newhart and The Carol Burnett Show were all on. Such good shows back then! Luckily those were all on the same channel, since I'm old enough to remember having to get up and cross the room to change the channel!

Janine said...

What a fun post. I enjoyed reading everyone's lists.