'A Place In The Sun'

It's hard to believe that Montgomery Clift's George Eastman could have attempted such a poor murder. Eastman was an ill-fated kid from the beginning. His total lack of brains trying to undo the tangled web he weaved just exacerbated his ineptness.

Eastman was a poor son of a street evangelist when he met a rich, industrialist uncle. He moves to work for the family company and he quickly rises through the ranks through hard work. He starts dating Al Tripp, but also catches the eye of the glamorous Angela Vickers, portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor.

After a while, he wants to marry Vickers, but he got Tripp preggers and is being forced to marry her. One finding out about the other ruins him professionally and personally.

So he comes up with a dumb plan to murder Tripp. Generally, murder hardly ever works. But it's the early 1950s where most crimes were solved via eye witness accounts. If Eastman could avoid witnesses, he'd be in the clear. Instead, he engaged the boat ramp guy and the kid hanging out in the woods in the middle of the night (what exactly was he doing?)

Under the premise that there are numerous deaths in the lake the previous years, he gets a boat and right as he's ready to murder his girlfriend, the boat overturns, Al is lost and drowns. The body is drudged up a day later and they automatically look at Eastman as the main culprit.

For one, why not just dump the girl? Send her to her mother's in order that baby is cared for. There are ways to get out of this. It's the 1950s!

The whole plan is flawed. Once Eastman learned that he'd need to talk to the boat vendor, he should have called it off. Or killed the boat vendor.

Two, why not commit the murder and go directly to the police? If Eastman kills Tripp, he should have gone to shore and autmatically called the police. And he would have been exonerated. What killed Tripp was the silence and uncooperativeness of Eastman during the investigation. He clearly had something to hide and Raymond Burr knew it.

A Place in the Sun was nominated for nine Academy Awards. Won six, but missed out on Best Film, Actor and Actress. Of the top awards, it won for Best Director.

'Around The World In Eighty Days'

I read Around the World in Eighty Days and I just want them to hop on an airplane and just shoot over to England and win the bet.

It's frustrating as a modern traveller to see Phileas Fogg and his crew be beholden to the rail system and boat schedules. These are problems that we now nothing about. Even our primitive forms of travel are better and a lot more reliable than the state-of-the-art accomodations of the latter part of the 19th century.

Going around the world in 80 days seems so elementary and easy. Even of you considered boats and trains. Seems like there was a bunch of sitting around. Even as they were moving, it was sitting -- on trains and boats. Yes, there's movement. However, there's an amount of idleness to sitting and waiting for a boat to cross an ocean.

Around the World in Eighty Days also chronicles a high point in the development of modern travel. Within one year, the transcontinental railroad in the United States and Suez Canal were opened. In addition, the railroads across India were connected.

The technology to travel was inconsequential. The steam engine and boat had already been put into wide use. However, without the foresight to provide the means to get across these countries was a gigantic step in flattening the world, if I can borrow Thomas Friedman's phrase. Of all the transports, the wind-propelled sled across the American plains was probably the most vital.

I was a bit disappointed in the ending. For Fogg to win the bet based on a coincidence (him asking Passepartout to fetch a priest for his marriage and learning it was Sunday) seems a bit cheap. All the while, Fogg meticulously and strategically circumnavigated the world in 80 days and the only reason he won was due to coincidence. Not even luck.

'The Leopard' & 'The Leopard'

I read this book and I kept wondering, "How the hell are they going to make this into a semi-interesting film?

Turns out, they didn't. The film is only mildly more interesting than the book, which is an absolute snoozefest. In fact, it's a borderline mystery why you'd even make the film.

The book is semi-autobiographical, published posthumously in 19058 after Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa died of lung cancer. Lampedusa was himself a prince although he was not alive for the unification of Italy in the 1860s.

Italy's an odd country. It's the nation of the Roman empire, the epicenter of the Renaissance and home to some of the most notable and beautiful sites in the world.

However, since the fall of the Roman empire, Italy was in shit shape. A bunch of different republics ruling independently as the Pope in the Vatican just sat there surrounding by an awkward hodgepodge of countries.

They unified in the late 1800s and then fell back as Mussolini got into power and the fascists had their way for two decades or so.

No greater country with as much history, lore, art and science has had its collective wheels shot off as much as Italy.

The only redeeming quality of this film and book is the casting of the drop-dead gorgeous Claudia Cardinale.

'Illinois'

And they call me ambitious. Actually, no one calls me ambitious. Not even my mother.

Sufjan Stevens -- a quiet multiinstrumentalist with the voice of a choir boy -- decided to record a record for every state in the union. To little aplomb, he did Michigan. Then he completed Illinois.

It was not only state No. 2. It was also Stevens' breakthrough record. For a neo-folkie independent record, it did really well and got insane reviews from those that give insane reviews. I think it's a pretty neat idea. Ambitious and probably insanely hard to finish (although, considering his touring, you'd think he have quite a bit of material for the lower 48), it was a neat idea to advance songwriting and a brilliant piece of Americana.

I was duly disappointed to read that he considered the project kind of a joke. It's actually a quote I do not wholeheartedly believe. Why start it and get two albums in -- one of which is insanely good whether it was about a state or foot ailment -- if it was always a joke? I don't think Stevens has the ability to joke.

Side note: When Stevens broke out, I just assumed he was the son to Yusuf Islam, or Cat Stevens. It was the last name. then the profession. Sufjan being a bit of a folk artist. Then the first name. All these cluses pointed to him being Islam's son. But no. All coincidences. So sue me.

'Blood & Chocolate'

About a year and a half ago I asked my friend Rajesh whether or not he owned any records from Elvis Costello.

He said his wife had all of them. I asked if I could borrow them.

"Sure."

I had yet to see one Costello record to borrow. Over the past year and a half, I wound up getting the Costello records. A couple through vinyl. A couple through CD. Another through my local library. Now, I've listened to the Elvis Costello records I need to listen to before I die.

No thanks to Rajesh.

Another great album from Costello. Still kicking 11 albums in, his wit, songwriting ability and knack for melody just bleeds from this record. It was one of the last with the Attractions until he recorded Brutal Youth eight years later in the 1990s. It is the second newest record on the 1,001 list after Brutal Youth. A bit less raucous than his previous installments in the 1970s.

Elvis Costello was growing up.

'Strangers On A Train' & ' The Wrong Man'

Alfred Hitchcock has 15 of his films included in the 1,001 list. I've now seen 14 of those. Shadow of the Doubt, the only hold out.

These two were very similiar to me in theme. Two innocent guys wrongly accused and as the tension and drama builds up we find resolution for our heroes. Meanwhile, both protagonists have faithful female partners that react differently to the issues of the film. In Strangers on a Train, Guy's girlfriend remains confident and poised as she helps reveal the real killer. Unlike The Wrong Man, we know who the killer is and he's easily hated.

In The Wrong Man, we don't know the real killer, but we're not supposed to hate him as much as we're supposed to hate the system that could nearly prosecute a man based merely on eye-witness accounts, which, as we now know, are worthless without substantial physical evidence.

Peter Fonda gives a fantastic performance in The Wrong Man as Manny. Probably one of the top two or three starring performances in Hitchcock's filmography. Fonda wasn't in as many Hitchcock films as Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant, but he was equally -- if not better -- as good.

What I loved about The Wrong Man is that Hitchcock gets me to believe, even if it was a thin suggestion, that Manny was actually guilty. I didn't realize the film was based on a true story, so the idea that Manny was wholly innocent never came into play. Yet, it was particularly clear that a man like Manny could not have done those crimes. Still. Back of my brain, I kept re-thinking things.

'Histoire de Melody Nelson'

I think scrubs on females in the healthcare industry make them look 10-25 percent hotter. It might turn a "4" into a "6," easy.

I think being French makes you 5-25 percent cooler. Hell, knowing the language automatically puts you at 10 percent cooler.

For instance, Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991 having had sex with Jane Birkin and Brigitte Bardot.

All of that and you can record a concept record about sexing up an underaged girl.

I'm far too much of a chickenshit to have been French. I would've been the worst French ever.

'Sticky Fingers'

I'm in the middle of collecting all of the late-1960s, early-1970s Rolling Stones records on CD or digital format.

I found this one at a Half Price Books. For a compact disc, it's as old as it gets. The protective hard plastic is yellowed with age. It also doesn't open like other discs. The cover, liner notes, a second, flimsier protective sleeve and the disc slide in like an LP. This format had to be from the mid-1980s.

Depending on how you feel about the Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers might signal the beginning of the end of the band as a legitimate rock outfit.

It was the first with no contributions from Brian Jones. It was the first to include the lips and tongue logo. It was the first with Mick Taylor full-time. It was also the first to go No. 1 in England and the United States, making them certifiable worldwide superstars. The next two -- the exemplary Exile on Main Street and Goat's Head Soup -- concluded a string of records that went No. 1 in both countries.

It's also a key in what I consider the creative peak of the Rolling Stones. Getting passed Brian Jones' histrionics and ultimate death was huge. I think Mick Taylor's infusion means more than we might consider.

I think the Stones had been making "albums" instead of a collection of singles for a while dating back to Beggar's Banquet in 1968. Sticky Fingers signals probably the heart of the Stones' ability to create something bigger than a hit single. Only "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" (a Gram Parsons song) were released as singles.

Sticky Fingers also serves as a benchmark in rock music as sex. The cover is obvious. One of Andy Warhol's minion's crotch with zipper. Inside photo: Same man in his underwear. Penis outlined in the cotton white.

For the first time, a rock band admitted that it was all about sex. That's commendable. Why hide it anymore?