Note: This is a re-posting of a pretty long list of “Must-See” Movies that I compiled in 1994. I’ve written a brief introduction today for context, and I include for posterity a lengthy introduction originally written in 1994. You can read it all below, or just skip to the list itself.

BRIEF INTRO (WRITTEN TODAY)

Some of the projects I’ve done on-line over the years have disappeared into the ether, no longer hosted anywhere. I recently found one of my very first internet projects, from way back in 1994 when I was in college. I’m posting it here on Ironic Sans for posterity, with slight embarrassment looking back to this 13-year-old project. I was clearly not much of a writer back then. I used lots of exclamation points and even a smiley. And I coined the term “Netters” to mean “People who use the internet.” It never caught on.

There wasn’t much of a World Wide Web back then, but there were lots of interesting conversations happening on Usenet Newsgroups, including one called “rec.arts.movies” which was a message board for discussing movies. One day in May, I posted a message asking people to recommend “Must-See Movies.” I got dozens of e-mails in response, each with dozens of movie recommendations, including several suggestions from a guy named Col Needham, who was working on a relatively new project of his own called the Internet Movie Database.

I also got lots of requests to share the list once it was compiled. So I posted the list to rec.arts.movies. I suggested that people add up their total and post it to the group.

Eventually, the “Official Netters’ Must-See Movies Checklist” did make its way to the web, where I added interactivity. You could go down the list, and check off the movies as you go, and at the end the website calculated your total, and told you what the average was of everyone who came before you, so you could see where you ranked. Col turned out to be incredibly helpful in automating the process of linking all the movies to their IMDb listings. But sadly, the company hosting my website had a crash sometime around 1997, and lost my whole site. I had no backup and neither did they.

So the following is all that survived. Hopefully it has aged well with time. You can scroll down to read the embarrassingly badly-written and too-long introduction (like the one you’re reading now?) as it appeared in 1994, or you can skip the intro and go straight to the list itself.

INTRODUCTION *

Here’s the Introduction:
This is the Official Netters’ MUST-SEE MOVIES Checklist!!! Version 1.1

This is NOT a FAQ. At the time of the first version, there had yet to be any questions asked about it, let alone any Frequently Asked Questions. There WAS a section, however, of Infrequently Asked Questions. These were questions that I anticipated people having while reading the list, but they hadn’t been asked of me yet. Since then, I have gotten lots of questions from lots of people. So there now are Frequently Asked Questions among the Infrequently Asked ones. But just because I feel proud to have coined a new phrase (Infrequently Asked Questions), I’m still calling the questions and answers section Infrequently Asked Questions.

CHANGES IN EACH VERSION

1.1 -Lots of things are cleared up in the Infrequently Asked Questions section.
-The Star Wars Rule has been ammended and explained more completely.
-The Leonard, Part 6 rule has also been ammended and explained in detail.
-About 75 more movies have been added. Any new movies are indicated with an asterisk.
-Any of the Infrequently Asked Questions that are new or have been somehow changed are indicated with an asterisk. Anything else that’s been changed or added is also indicated with an asterisk.
-Miscellaneous other things have been changed, mostly just slight changes. Thoroughly read the Infrequently Asked Questions for more details.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

No table of contents. I always thought they were a waste of space. Just keep reading…

INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS about The List

1. Why do we have The List?

Well, that’s quite simple. It’s best summarized by putting here some excerpts from the post that started it all. Read:

—-START—-
A friend of mine recently asked me to help her come up with a list of must-see movies that she should watch over vacation. Being put-on-the-spot, I was only able to come up with about forty or fifty. So I ask all of you to send me titles of what YOU consider to be must-see movies. The guidelines are as follows:

No OBVIOUS must-see movies that chances are everybody has already seen (e.g. Star Wars). “Everybody” in this case is defined as “a reasonably educated person of 20 years of age who has enough of an interest in movies that she has seen plenty of them but would like to further educate herself.”

No rarely-seen movies. She wants to see must-see movies that might actually come up in an intellectual conversation about cinema without other people saying “Huh? I’ve never heard of that one.”

A good tip: If you’ve ever been discussing cinema with an equally-educated movie buff, and you’ve mentioned a movie to which they replied “I’ve never seen that one. Always wanted to, but never got around to seeing it,” prompting you to say “WHAT?! You’ve NEVER SEEN So-And-So?! You’ve GOT to see it!” Send that title. Chances are, she’s never seen it either.
—-END—-

I got a vastly overwhelming response to this single post. Many people requested that I send them the completed list. So I decided to compile it all. These are the titles that YOU people said were MUST-SEE MOVIES. I didn’t make up the list, I only typed it all up. The members of rec.arts.movies made this list, so I give it to the members of rec.arts.movies. That’s why the apostrophe comes AFTER the word “Netters” in the title. It is by the Netters and for the Netters.

2. How on Earth can you justify calling [insert movie here] a MUST-SEE MOVIE?

Since the titles are things that people sent me, I felt it beyond me to decide that even though they feel a certain movie is a MUST-SEE, I don’t and therefore it doesn’t deserve to be on The List. So for the most part, if someone sent me the movie title, I added it to the list. I did use SOME discretion, though. For instance, I’m sorry but I could not justify calling _Leonard, Part 6_ a MUST-SEE MOVIE. I tried to make sure that most of the titles followed the guidelines listed above, but I did let some slip by.

3. How on Earth can you NOT include [insert movie here] as a MUST-SEE MOVIE? *

Well, first of all, it’s possible that nobody sent me that title. Secondly, it’s possible that I felt it didn’t meet the guidelines listed above. Thirdly, it’s possible you’re talking about _Leonard, Part 6_. If you’re really concerned, e-mail me about it and I’ll either add it to the list or tell you why I decided against adding it. No, wait. There IS a fourth possibility. It’s possible that you sent me the title among a whole big list of other titles and I was so damn tired that I decided to skip around a bit to make my life easier. I didn’t do this often, but I suppose if I’m gonna be honest I have to admit that I did do it from time to time. The way I justified it was thusly: If someone else wanted it, too, I probably already added it or will when I come to it on their list. If nobody else wanted it on the list, then really only one person is gonna miss it. Sorry, but I’ve got finals to worry about!

4. What are those question marks scattered around some of the years or directors on the list?

Well, if there is a question mark, it means that I either did not know the year or director of the film or I wasn’t certain. If you know the answer, please e-mail me so I can update it. I’m pretty sure that I got all of them right, but I’m only human. And considering the fact that I requested everyone to send me the YEARS and DIRECTORS for all the movie titles they sent me if they knew them and only got a couple who actually DID, I think I did a pretty decent job getting all those titles and names pretty accurately.

5. So what’s the deal with the Star Wars Rule? *

Okay… Here’s the deal. Initially, movies like Star Wars and Jurassic Park were not to be on the list because they were deemed too obvious. But after careful consideration, it has been determined that it’s okay to have obvious movies on the list because if this is going to be a complete list of MUST-SEE MOVIES, there really isn’t any good reason to NOT have them all, including the obvious ones! Besides, for every obvious on that I omitted, I got at least a dozen e-mail letters asking why they were omitted. And I must have gotten at least as many letters from people asking why some obvious movie or other is on the list. And incidentally, not a single person did request Jurassic Park, but just in case anyone wants to know (or doesn’t know for some odd reason) it was a 1993 film directed by Steven Spielberg.

6. And what about the Leonard, Part 6 Rule? Why doesn’t it apply to _The Beastmaster_ and others? *

Here’s why: Just because a movie is bad does not mean that it can’t be a MUST-SEE. For example, _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_ is certainly not the greatest piece of cinema in the world. Neither is _Better Off Dead_ or _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ or any other number of films people mentioned for that matter. But they still have something to offer. They may just be a fun film. I mean, _Plan 9 from Outer Space_ is by no means a great film. In fact, it has long been heralded as the WORST film. But it’s still definitely a MUST-SEE because it’s so damn fun to make fun of! Ya see what I mean? The same holds true for _Killer Tomatoes_, _The Day of the Triffids_, and a bunch of others. This never claims to be a list of great films, just MUST-SEE MOVIES. One thing I kept in mind when trying to determine whether or not the Leonard, Part 6 Rule applies to a certain film was this: Does this movie have any relevence to cinematic history? If so, I would go ahead and add it to the list. Leonard, Part 6 has, in my mind anyway, no place in cinematic history. The only place it has in ANY history is only in a complete biography of Bill Cosby that wants to include his embarrassments as well as his accomplishments. If I decided that a film has as much place in history as Leonard, Part 6, I ommitted it from the list. And hey, if you have a problem with it, compile your own damn list! :)

Likewise, every good movie isn’t necesarrily a must-see either. For instance, I enjoyed _The Hand that Rocks the Cradle_ very much, but I would never call it a must-see movie.

7. Why are there little lines in front of all the movie titles?

It’s a checklist, silly! There has to be a space for putting a check-mark next to the movies you’ve seen!

8. Well now that I’ve got this large list, what am I supposed to do with it?*

For starters, print it out! Then go down your list and check off all the movies that you’ve seen already. The total number is your List Factor. The way I figure it, List Factor scores break down as follows:

0 - 15: Time to get a VCR
16 - 50 Not too bad if you live in a small town with a one-screen theatre that gets a new movie once every six months or so.
51 - 80 Not bad at all, considering the wide variety of movies that are on The List.
81 - 120 Good going! Keep watching ‘em!
121 - 200 Wow…! Quite the movie-goer!
201 - 300 Who do you think you are? Gene Siskel?!
301 - 400 Slow down! You’re gonna wear out your VCR!
400 - 499 I think SOMEONE has a WEE bit too much time on their hands! Mighty impressive!
500 + Do you realize that you’ve spent a total of about a month and a half watching just the movies on this list?! Now add all the time you’ve spent on ones that aren’t even MUST-SEE MOVIES and see how much of your life you have wasted away sitting in a darkened room watching light being projected through celluloid. Hmm… Gives ya something to think about, doesn’t it!?

9. So now that I’ve got my List Factor, what am I supposed to do with it?

Get on over to rec.arts.movies and let us all know what it is! We can all post our List Factor numbers and learn just how much each person has seen. Perhaps the average List Factor can tell us something about the average rec.arts.movies poster. I dunno, I’m not much of a statistician.

10. And once I’ve done that, what am I supposed to do with this large print-out that I’ve just made? Recycle the paper?

Hardly! Keep it handy! How many times have you gone to a video store only to find that the movie you really wanted was out. You walk around the store thinking, “Gee. There’s nothing here I really want to see.” Well now you’ve got a whole List of MUST-SEE MOVIES! Get yourself one of those Video Movie Guides (I recommend the Martin & Porter version) and look up some of the movies on the list that you haven’t seen. You’ll be surprised to find that you’ll want to see quite a few of them! You’ll learn quite a bit. Are you a big Jack Nicholson fan who always wanted to know where you could find a musical where he SINGS? Try _Tommy_. Are you wondering why the scene in _The Untouchables_ where the baby carriage falls down the stairs looked familiar? Rent _The Battleship Potemkin_ and find out why. Work on increasing your List Factor!

11. How often are you going to update and repost this thing? *

Well due to the average of 15-20 e-mail letters a day I’ve been getting, the first revision came out only four or five days after the original, and with quite a few changes and additions. But my life is pretty busy, so I don’t know when the next one will come out. Hopefully a new one won’t be needed for quite a while… I don’t know that exactly “quite a while” means but I guess when it rolls around I’ll know.

12. Is this file available via ftp someplace? *

Well you already have it, so you don’t really need it again, do you? Just kidding… Um… I’m working on it. If it is made available, it will be announced in rec.arts.movies.

13. How come you wrote “Dr. Strangelove” instead of “Dr. Strangelove; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” which is the real entire title?

Well it just wouldn’t all fit. I’m sorry. But if you go to your local video store and ask for “Dr. Strangelove,” they should know what you’re talking about. Incidentally, that is the same reason that you won’t find “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)” on the list. But just for completeness, it was directed by Woody Allen and released in 1972. A couple other films were abbreviated to fit also. But not so you’d notice. Only one, maybe two films had to be cut to fit.

14. Hey! Ya know what you could do that would really make this thing a million times better?!

No, but if you e-mail me, you can let me know!

15. Do you realize that some of your movie titles are out of order?

Really? Oops… Let me know which ones and I’ll fix it. I tried to do it all alphabetically, but I made some mistakes I guess.

16. What are the strange numbers and names after the movie titles?

The year of release and the name of the director. Duh.

17. Hey… Are you getting hostile with me?

No, I just kinda thought it was sorta obvious… I mean, you did ask about the years and directors way back in question number four.

18. Yeah well did you stop to think that maybe I forgot?

Insert rolling-eyes-towards-the-ceiling emoticon here
(if anyone has an emoticon to express this, please let me know)

19. And besides, you’re not quite mister wonderful yourself if you had so much time on your hands that you could actually type this thing up. What, don’t you have a social life?

Well it just so happens that I used this thing as a diversion from studying for my finals, okay? Ya can’t blame a guy for procrastinating! Sheesh! Anyway, without any further ado, here is…

THE LIST!!!

_Abominable Dr. Phibes, The* (1971, Robert Fuest)
_Abyss, The (1989, James Cameron)
_Adam’s Rib* (1949, George Cukor)
_Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The (1989, Terry Gilliam)
_Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1939, Michael Curtiz)
_African Queen, The (1951, John Huston)
_After Hours (1985, Martin Scorsese)
_Akira (1990, Katsuhiro Otomo)
_Alien (1979, Ridley Scott)
_All That Jazz (1979, Bob Fosse)
_All the President’s Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)
_Amadeus (1984, Milos Forman)
_American in Paris, An (1951, Vincente Minelli)
_American Graffiti (1973, George Lucas)
_American Werewolf in London, An (1981, John Landis)
_Angel at My Table, An (1990, Jane Campion)
_Angel Heart* (1987, Alan Parker)
_Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)
_Antarctica (1984, Koreyoshi Kurahara)
_Apartment, The* (1960, Billy Wilder)
_Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
_Asphalt Jungle, The (1950, John Huston)
_Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1980, John DeBello)
_Autumn Sonata (1978, Ingmar Bergman)
_Backdraft (1991, Ron Howard)
_Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis)
_Barbarella* (1968, Roger Vadim)
_Barton Fink (1991, Joel Coen)
_Battleship Potemkin, The (1921, Sergei Eisenstein)
_Beastmaster, The (1982, Don Coscarelli)
_Beetlejuice (1988, Tim Burton)
_Being There (1979, Hal Ashby)
_Ben-Hur (1954, William Wyler)
_Better Off Dead (1985, Savage Steve Holland)
_Beyond the Valley of the Dolls* (1970, Russ Meyer)
_Bicycle Thief, The (1949, Vittorio de Sica)
_Big Chill, The* (1983, Lawrence Kasdan)
_Big Sleep, The (1946, Howard Hawks)
_Biloxi Blues (1988, Mike Nichols)
_Birds, The (1963, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Birdy (1985, Alan Parker)
_Birth of a Nation, The (1915, D. W. Griffith)
_Black Narcissus (1947, Michael Powell)
_Black Stallion, The (1979, Carroll Ballard)
_Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
_Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)
_Blob, The (1958, Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.)
_Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen)
_Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)
_Blues Brothers, The (1980, John Landis)
_Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969, Paul Mazursky)
_Bob Roberts (1992, Tim Robbins)
_Body Double (1984, Brian De Palma)
_Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn)
_Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam)
_Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961, Blake Edwards)
_Breakfast Club, The (1985, John Hughes)
_Breaking the Sound Barrier (1952, David Lean)
_Breathless (1959, Jean-Luc Godard)
_Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957, David Lean)
_Bridge Too Far, A* (1977, Richard Attenborough)
_Bringing Up Baby (1938, Howard Hawks)
_Broadcast News (1987, James L. Brooks)
_Buckaroo Banzai (1984, W. D. Richter)
_Bullitt (1968, Peter Yates)
_Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969, George Roy Hill)
_Cabaret* (1972, Bob Fosse)
_Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1919, Robert Wiene)
_Caligula* (1980, Tinto Brass)
_Candidate, The (1972, Michael Ritchie)
_Cannery Row (1982, David S. Ward)
_Cape Fear (1962, J. Lee Thompson)
_Cape Fear (1992, Martin Scorsese)
_Captain Blood (1935, Michael Curtiz)
_Carefree (1938, Mark Sondrich)
_Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma)
_Casablanca (1943, Michael Curtiz)
_Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958, Richard Brooks)
_Chariots of Fire (1981, Hugh Hudson)
_Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
_Christmas Story, A (1983, Bob Clark)
_Cinema Paradiso (1989, Giuseppe Tornatore)
_Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
_City Lights (1932, Charles Chaplin)
_Clockwork Orange, A (1971, Stanley Kubrick)
_Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg)
_Color Purple, The* (1985, Steven Spielberg)
_Coma* (1978, Michael Crichton)
_Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1990, Peter Greenaway)
_Cool Hand Luke (1967, Stuart Rosenberg)
_Conversation, The (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
_Cotton Club, The* (1984, Francis Ford Coppola)
_Creature from the Black Lagoon, The* (1954, Jack Arnold)
_Creepshow* (1982, George A. Romero)
_Cries and Whispers (1972, Ingmar Bergman)
_Crying Game, The (1992, Neil Jordan)
_Cyrano de Bergerac (1950, Michael Gordon)
_Cyrano de Bergerac (1990, Jean Paul Rappeneau)
_Dances with Wolves (1990, Kevin Costner)
_Dangerous Liaisons (1989, Stephen Frears)
_Danton (1982, Andrzej Wajda)
_Darkman (1990, Sam Raimi)
_Das Boot (1981, Wolfgang Petersen)
_Dave (1993, Ivan Reitman)
_Day of the Triffids, The* (1963, Steve Sekely)
_Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951, Robert Wise)
_Dazed and Confused (1993, Richard Linklater)
_Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982, Carl Reiner)
_Dead Poets Society, The* (1989, Peter Weir)
_Dead Ringers* (1988, David Cronenberg)
_Death of a Salesman* (1985, Volker Schlondorff)
_Decline of Western Civilization, The* (1981, Penelope Spheeris)
_Deep Throat (1972, ????????)
_Deer Hunter, The (1978, Michael Cimino)
_Delicatessen (1991, Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
_Devil and Daniel Webster, The (1941, William Dieterie)
_Dial M for Murder (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan)
_Diner (1982, Barry Levinson)
_Diva (1982, Jean-Jacques Beineix)
_Dirty Dozen, The (1967, Robert Aldrich)
_Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)
_Dr. No (1962, Terence Young)
_Dr. Strangelove (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
_Doctor Zhivago (1965, David Lean)
_Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet)
_Dominique and Eugene* (1988, Robert M. Young)
_Don’t Look Now* (1973, Nicholas Roeg)
_Double Indemnity* (1944, Billy Wilder)
_Double Life of Veronique, The (1989, Krystof Kieslowski)
_Down by Law (1986, Jim Jarmusch)
_Dracula* (1931, Tod Browning)
_Dracula (1979, John Badham)
_Dream a Little Dream (1989, Marc Rocco)
_Driving Miss Daisy (1989, Bruce Beresford)
_Drugstore Cowboy (1989, Gus Van Sant, Jr.)
_Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)
_Duel* (1971, Steven Spielberg)
_E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982, Steven Spielberg)
_Easy Rider (1969, Dennis Hopper)
_East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)
_Eating (1991, Henry Jaglom)
_Elephant Man, The (1980, David Lynch)
_Emerald Forest, The (1985, John Boorman)
_Empire Strikes Back, The* (1980, Irvin Kershner)
_Eraserhead (1978, David Lynch)
_Evil Dead, The (1982, Sam Raimi)
_Excalibur (1981, John Boorman)
_Exorcist, The (1973, William Friedkin)
_Face to Face (1975, Ingmar Bergman)
_Fail-Safe (1964, Sidney Lumet)
_Fantasia (1940, Ben Sharpsteen)
_Fahrenheit 451* (1967, Francois Truffaut)
_Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982, Amy Heckerling)
_Fatal Attraction (1987, Adrian Lyne)
_Father of the Bride (1950, Vincente Minelli)
_Father of the Bride (1992, Charles Shyer)
_Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, John Hughes)
_Fiddler on the Roof* (1971, Norman Jewison)
_Field of Dreams (1989, Phil Alden Robinson)
_First Nudie Musical, The* (1979, Mark Haggard)
_Fish Called Wanda, A (1988, Charles Crichton)
_Fisher King, The (1991, Terry Gilliam)
_Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)
_5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., The (1952, Roy Rowland)
_Fly, The (1958, Kurt Neumann)
_Fly, The (1986, David Cronenberg)
_Forbidden Planet (1956, Fred McLeod Wilcox)
_Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, Mike Newell)
_400 Blows, The (1959, Francois Truffaut)
_Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)
_Freaks (1932, Tod Browning)
_French Connection, The (1971, William Friedkin)
_Frenzy* (1972, Alfred Hitchcock)
_From Here to Eternity (1953, Fred Zinneman)
_From Russia with Love* (1963, Terence Young)
_Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick)
_F/X (1986, Robert Mandel)
_Gallipoli (1981, Peter Weir)
_Gandhi* (1982, Richard Attenborough)
_Gaslight* (1944, George Cukor)
_Gay Divorcee, The (1934, Mark Sandrich)
_General, The (1927, Buster Keaton)
_Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman)
_Giant (1956, George Stevens)
_Glass Key, The* (1942, Stuart Heisler)
_Godfather, The (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
_Godfather, Part II, The (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
_Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956, Inoshiro Honda & Terry Morse)
_Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)
_Gold Rush, The (1923, Charles Chaplin)
_Gone with the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)
_Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The (1966, Sergio Leone)
_GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
_Graduate, The (1967, Mike Nichols)
_Grand Canyon (1991, Lawrence Kasdan)
_Grand Hotel (1932, Edmund Goulding)
_Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
_Grapes of Wrath, The (1940, John Ford)
_Grease* (1978, Randal Kleiser)
_Great Dictator, The (1940, Charles Chaplin)
_Great Escape, The (1963, John Sturgis)
_Great Expectations (1946, David Lean)
_Greed (1924, Erich Von Stroheim)
_Green Card (1990, Peter Weir)
_Groundhog Day (1993, Harold Ramis)
_Guide for the Married Man, A* (1967, Gene Kelly)
_Gunfight at the O.K. Corral* (1957, John Sturges)
_Gunfighter, The (1950, Henry King)
_Gunga Din (1939, George Stevens)
_Guns of Navarone, The (1961, J. Lee Thompson)
_Hair (1979, Milos Forman)
_Hamlet (1948, Laurence Olivier)
_Handmaid’s Tale, The (1990, Volker Schlnodorff)
_Harakiri (1963, Masaki Kobayashi)
_Hard Day’s Night, A (1964, Richard Lester)
_Harold and Maude (1972, Hal Ashby)
_Head (1968, Rob Rafelson)
_Heathers (1989, Michael Lehmann)
_Heavy Metal (1981, Gerald Potterton)
_Hellraiser* (1987, Clive Barker)
_Henry & June* (1990, Phil Kaufman)
_Henry V* (1944, Laurence Olivier)
_Henry V (1989, Kenneth Branagh)
_Hidden, The (1987, Jack Sholder)
_Hidden Fortress, The (1961, Akira Kurosawa)
_High and Low (1962, Akira Kurosawa)
_Highlander (1986, Russell Mulcahy)
_High Noon (1952, Fred Zinnemann)
_His Girl Friday (1939, Howard Hawks)
_Hope and Glory (1987, John Boorman)
_Howards End (1992, James Ivory)
_Hudsucker Proxy, The (1994, Joel Coen)
_Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1923, Wallace Worsley)
_Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1939, William Dieterie)
_Impromptu (1991, James Lapine)
_Intolerance (1917, D. W. Griffith)
_Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)
_Irma la Douce* (1963, Billy Wilder)
_It Happened One Night (1933, Frank Capra)
_It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963, Stanley Kramer)
_It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
_Jacob’s Ladder (1990, Adrian Lyne)
_Jason and the Argonauts (1963, John Chaffey)
_Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
_Jazz Singer, The (1927, Alan Crosland)
_Jean de Florette (1987, Claude Berri)
_Jerk, The (1979, Carl Reiner)
_Johnny Suede (1992, Tom DiCillo)
_Jungle Book, The (1967, Wolfgang Reitherman)
_Kentucky Fried Movie, The* (1977, John Landis)
_King Kong (1933, Cooper and Schoedsack)
_Klute (1971, Alan Pakula)
_La Dolce Vita (1960, Federico Fellini)
_La Femme Nikita (1991, Luc Besson)
_La Strada (1954, Federico Fellini)
_Lady Eve, The (1941, Preston Sturges)
_Lady From Shanghai, The (1948, Orson Welles)
_Last Emperor, The* (1987, Bernardo Bertolucci)
_Last House on the Left* (1979, Wes Craven)
_Last Picture Show, The (1971, Peter Bogdanovich)
_Last Tango in Paris (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci)
_Laura (1944, Otto Preminger)
_Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
_Lenny* (1974, Bob Fosse)
_Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Max Ophuls)
_Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The* (1972, John Huston)
_Life of Brian (1979, Terry Jones)
_Liquid Sky* (1983, Slave Tsukerman)
_Little Big Man (1970, Arthur Penn)
_Little Caesar (1930, Marvin LeRoy)
_Local Hero (1983, Bill Forsyth)
_Lolita (1962, Stanley Kubrick)
_Longest Day, The* (1963, Annakin, Marton and Wicki)
_Lost Horizon (1937, Frank Capra)
_M (1931, Fritz Lang)
_M*A*S*H (1970, Robert Altman)
_Mad Max (1979, George Miller)
_Magnificent Ambersons, The (1944, Orson Welles)
_Maltese Falcon, The (1940, John Huston)
_Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1934, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1955, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The (1962, John Ford)
_Man Who Would Be King, The (1975, John Huston)
_Man With Two Brains, The (1983, Carl Reiner)
_Manchurian Candidate, The (1962, John Frankenheimer)
_Manhattan (1979, Woody Allen)
_Manon of the Spring (1987, Claude Berri)
_Marathon Man* (1976, John Schlesinger)
_Marriage of Maria Braun, The (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
_Masque of the Red Death, The* (1964, Roger Corman)
_Matador (1988, Pedro Almodovar)
_Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)
_Meet John Doe (1942, Frank Capra)
_Metropolis (1926, Fritz Lang)
_Midnight Cowboy (1969, John Schlesinger)
_Midnight Run (1988, Martin Brest)
_Mildred Pierce (1947, Michael Curtiz)
_Miller’s Crossing (1990, Joel Coen)
_Misfits, The (1916, John Huston)
_Mr. Mom (1983, Stan Dragoti)
_Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Frank Capra)
_Modern Times (1936, Charles Chaplin)
_Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974, Terry Gilliam)
_Moonstruck (1987, Norman Jewison)
_Much Ado About Nothing (1993, Kenneth Branagh)
_Muppet Movie, The (1979, James Frawley)
_Music Box (1933, Raoul Walsh)
_My Brother’s Keeper (1949, Alfred Roome)
_My Cousin Vinny (1992, Johathan Lynn)
_My Fair Lady (1964, George Cukor)
_My Left Foot (1989, Jim Sheridan)
_My Life as a Dog (1987, Lasse Hallstrom)
_Naked Lunch* (1992, David Cronenberg)
_Name of the Rose, The (1986, Jean-Jacques Annaud)
_Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
_National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978, John Landis)
_Natural, The (1984, Barry Levinson)
_Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)
_Night at the Opera, A (1935, Sam Wood)
_Night of the Hunter, The (1955, Charles Laughton)
_Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero)
_Night on Earth* (1993, Jim Jarmusch)
_Nightmare Before Christmas, The* (1993, Henry Selick)
_1984* (1984, Michael Radford)
_North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Nosferatu (1922, F. W. Murnau)
_Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Now, Voyager (1942, Irving Rapper)
_Nun’s Story, The (1959, Fred Zinnemann)
_Odd Couple, The (1968, Gene Saks)
_Odd Man Out (1946, Carol Reed)
_Officer and a Gentleman, An (1982, Taylor Hackford)
_Oliver Twist (1948, David Lean)
_Omen, The* (1976, Richard Donner)
_Once Upon a Time in America (1984, Sergio Leone)
_Once Upon a Time in the West (1969, Sergio Leone)
_One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975, Milos Foreman)
_On Dangerous Ground (1950, Nicholas Ray)
_On Golden Pond* (1981, Mark Rydell)
_On the Beach (1959, Stanley Kramer)
_On the Town (1949, Gene Kelly & Stanely Donen)
_On the Waterfront (1954, Ella Kazan)
_Orphee (1948, Jean Cocteau)
_Othello* (1952, Orson Welles)
_Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)
_Parent Trap, The* (1961, David Swift)
_Passage to India, A (1983, David Lean)
_Passion of Joan of Arc, The (1928, Carl Dreyer)
_Patch of Blue, A (1965, Guy Green)
_Paths of Glory (1957, Stanley Kubrick)
_Patton (1970, Franklin Schaffner)
_Pawnbroker, The (1965, Sidney Lumet)
_People Under the Stairs, The (1992, Wes Craven)
_Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)
_Peter Pan (1953, Luske & Geronimi & Jackson)
_Phantom of the Opera, The (1925, Rupert Julian)
_Philadelphia Story, The (1942, George Cukor)
_Piano, The (1993, Jane Campion)
_Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982, Alan Parker)
_Pink Panther, The (1964, Blake Edwards)
_Plain Clothes (1988, Martha Coolidge)
_Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959, Edward D. Wood)
_Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)
_Platoon (1986, Oliver Stone)
_Player, The (1992, Robert Altman)
_Poltergeist (1982, Tobe Hooper)
_Pope of Greenwich Village, The* (1984, Stuart Rosenberg)
_Popeye (1980, Robert Altman)
_Postman Always Rings Twice, The* (1946, Tay Garnett)
_Power of One, The (1992, John G. Avildsen)
_Pride of the Yankees, The (1942, Sam Wood)
_Prince of the City (1981, Sidney Lumet)
_Princess Bride, The (1987, Rob Reiner)
_Producers, The (1968, Mel Brooks)
_Proof (199?, Jocelyn Morehouse)
_Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Public Enemy, The (1933, Raoul Walsh)
_Purple Rose of Cairo, The* (1985, Woody Allen)
_Queen of Hearts* (1989, John Amiel)
_Quiet Man, The (1952, John Ford)
_Rachel, Rachel (1968, Paul Newman)
_Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
_Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)
_Rain Man (1988, Barry Levinson)
_Raising Arizona (1987, Joel Coen)
_Ran (1985, Akira Kurosawa)
_Rashomon (1951, Akira Kurosawa)
_Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Re-Animator (1985, Stuart Gordon)
_Rebecca* (1940, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Rebel Without a Cause (1954, Nicholas Ray)
_Remains of the Day, The (1993, James Ivory)
_Repo Man* (1984, Alex Cox)
_Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino)
_Restless Natives (1986, Michael Hoffman)
_Return of the Jedi* (1983, Richard Marquand)
_Ride the High Country (1962, Sam Peckinpah)
_Right Stuff, The (1983, Phil Kaufman)
_Risky Business (1983, Paul Brickman)
_River’s Edge (1987, Tim Hunter)
_Road to Utopia (1945, Hal Walker)
_Robocop (1987, Paul Verhoeven)
_Rocky* (1976, John G. Avildsen)
_Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975, Jim Sharman)
_Roger & Me (1989, Michael Moore)
_Roma* (1972, Federico Fellini)
_Romancing the Stone (1984, Robert Zemeckis)
_Room with a View, A (1986, James Ivory)
_Rosemary’s Baby (1968, Roman Polanski)
_Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1991, Tom Stoppard)
_Rules of the Game, The (1939, Jean Renoir)
_Running on Empty* (1988, Sydney Lumet)
_Sadie Thompson (1928, Raoul Walsh)
_Samurai Trilogy, The (1954, Hiroshi Inagaki)
_Saturday Night Fever (1977, John Badham)
_Say Anything… (1989, Cameron Crowe)
_Scanners* (1981, David Cronenberg)
_Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma)
_Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman)
_School Daze* (1988, Spike Lee)
_Schindler’s List (1993, Steven Spielberg)
_Sea Hawk, The (1940, Michael Curtiz)
_Searchers, The (1956, John Ford)
_Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The* (1947, Norman Z. McLeod)
_Serpico* (1973, Sidney Lumet)
_Servant, The (1963, Joseph Losey)
_Seven Samurai, The (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
_Seven Year Itch, The* (1957, Billy Wilder)
_Seventh Seal, The (1956, Ingmar Bergman)
_sex, lies, and videotape (1989, Steven Soderbergh)
_Shane (1955, George Stevens)
_Shining, The (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
_Shootist, The (1976, Don Siegel)
_Shot in the Dark, A* (1964, Blake Edwards)
_Sid and Nancy (1986, Alex Cox)
_Silence of the Lambs, The (1991, Jonathon Demme)
_Silent Running (1971, Douglas Trumbell)
_Singin’ in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen)
_Slacker (199?, Richard Linklater)
_Sleeping Beauty (1959, Clyde Geronimi)
_Sleuth (1972, Joseph Mankiewicz)
_Spellbound (1945, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)
_Something Wild (1986, Jonathon Demme)
_Sound of Music, The (1965, Robert Wise)
_Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick)
_Splash (1984, Ron Howard)
_Splendor in the Grass (1960, Ella Kazan)
_Stagecoach (1939, John Ford)
_Stalag 17 (1953, Billy Wilder)
_Stand by Me (1986, Rob Reiner)
_Starman (1984, John Carpenter)
_Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan* (1982, Nicholas Meyer)
_Star Trek III: The Search for Spock* (1984, Leonard Nimoy)
_Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home* (1986, Leonard Nimoy)
_Star Wars* (1977, George Lucas)
_Sterile Cuckoo, The (1969, Alan Pakula)
_Sting, The (1973, George Roy Hill)
_Strangers on a Train* (1951, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Student Bodies (1981, Mickey Rose)
_Stunt Man, The (1980, Richard Rush)
_Sullivan’s Travels (1942, Preston Sturges)
_Sunrise (1929, F. W. Murnau)
_Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder)
_Super Fly (1972, Gordon Parks, Jr.)
_Tall Guy, The (1990, Mel Smith)
_Taming of the Shrew, The* (1966, Franco Zeffirelli)
_Taras Bulba (1962, J. Lee Thompson)
_Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
_Tea and Sympathy (1959, Vincente Minelli)
_Ten Commandments, The (1956, Cecil B. De Mille)
_Terminator, The (1984, James Cameron)
_Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974, Tobe Hooper)
_Thief* (1981, Michael Mann)
_Thing (From Another World), The* (1951, Christian Nyby)
_Thing, The (1982, John Carpenter)
_Third Man, The (1949, Carol Reed)
_This Is Spinal Tap (1984, Rob Reiner)
_Three Men and a Cradle (1985, Coline Serreau)
_Through a Glass Darkly (1962, Ingmar Bergman)
_THX 1138 (1971, George Lucas)
_Time After Time (1979, Nicholas Meyer)
_Time Bandits (1981, Terry Gilliam)
_Time Machine, The (1960, George Pal)
_Tin Men (1987, Barry Levinson)
_To Have and Have Not (1951, Howard Hawks)
_To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)
_Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
_Tommy (1975, Ken Russell)
_Tom Jones (1963, Tony Richardson)
_Tootsie (1982, Sydney Pollack)
_Top Hat (1935, Mark Sandrich)
_Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
_Trading Places (1983, John Landis)
_Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The* (1948, John Huston)
_True Grit (1969, Henry Hathaway)
_True Romance (1993, Tony Scott)
_12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)
_Twelve O’Clock High (1949, Henry King)
_Two for the Road (1967, Staney Donen)
_2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
_Ugetsu (1952, Kenji Mizoguchi)
_Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood)
_Untouchables, The (1987, Brian De Palma)
_Valley of the Dolls* (1967, Mark Robson)
_Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
_Videodrome (1983, David Cronenberg)
_View from the Bridge, A (1963, Sidney Lumet)
_Vikings, The* (1958, Richard Fleischer)
_Village of the Damned* (1960, Wolf Rilla)
_Watership Down (1978, Martin Rosen)
_Way We Were, The* (1973, Sydney Pollack)
_West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins)
_Westworld (1973, Michael Crichton)
_When Harry Met Sally… (1989, Rob Reiner)
_Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978, Karel Reisz)
_Wild Geese, The (1978, Andrew V. McLaglen)
_Wild Strawberries (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
_Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory* (1971, Mel Stuart)
_Wings of Desire (1989, Wim Wenders)
_Witches of Eastwick, The* (1987, George Miller)
_Withnail and I* (1987, Bruce Robinson)
_Witness (1985, Peter Weir)
_Wizard of Oz, The* (1939, Victor Fleming)
_Woman in the Dunes (1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara)
_Woman Under the Influence, A* (1974, John Cassavetes)
_Women in Love (1970, Ken Russell)
_Woodstock* (1970, Michael Wadleigh)
_World According to Garp, The (1982, George Ray Hill)
_Wuthering Heights (1939, William Wyler)
_Yankee Doodle Dandy (1941, Michael Curtiz)
_Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brooks)
_Z (1969, Constantin Costa-Gavras)
_Zulu (1964, Cy Endfield)

-Total of 535 movies (I think)

* Denotes Additions Since Last Version

Posted by David at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (26)
Filed under: Entertainment | Long

[Update: All the photos are now available in larger sizes on flickr.]

Sometimes I get dangerous thoughts in my head, like “I wonder what it would look like to see every ad in Times Square all on one page.” So when I knew I’d be passing through Times Square this weekend, I made sure I had my camera. For the purposes of this nearly purposeless project, I considered storefront signs the same as ads if they were flashy and glitzy like Times Square ads tend to be.

I’m sure I missed a few, and there may be some I got more than once. I do know that some appear to be duplicates, but are actually similar billboards in different spots. Also, if an ad took up more than one billboard, I usually shot each billboard separately, unless it was a wraparound billboard on a corner, in which case I tried to get it in one shot.

So without further ado, here is every ad in Times Square. More or less.

Right now, you’re probably thinking one of two things. Either you’re thinking, “Does that ad really say that there’s a musical version of Legally Blonde coming to Broadway?” or you’re thinking, “Someone has too much time on his hands.” Well, I can tell you, it took about 20 minutes to take the photos, and about 2 or 3 hours to crop the images while I was listening to the pundits on Sunday morning TV. It wasn’t as bad as I feared.

And yes, there is a Legally Blonde musical coming to Broadway. I don’t know what they’re thinking, either.

Posted by David at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (64)
Filed under: Advertising | Favorites | Lists | Long | New York

My first year in New York, I lived on the top floor of an old building in Astoria, Queens, with rotted wood floors that creaked every time I took a step. I didn’t mind so much, because my schedule was so hectic I was rarely home. I got up early every day to get to my job by 9:00 a.m. I was happy to work in a photo studio, but it didn’t pay enough to survive in this town. So at 5:30 p.m. each day I left the studio and went to a bookstore across town, where I worked until 12:15 a.m. in order to make ends meet (and another 8 hours on Sundays). By the time I got back to Queens every night, hopefully before 1:30 a.m., I was beat. I’d take an hour to wind down before finally going to bed, getting a few hours sleep, and starting over.

One night, I came home to find the first in a series of notes slipped under my door. Small writing filled both sides of a sheet of loose leaf paper. I didn’t know what to make of it. The note began, “Dear Neighbor. When you arrive late every night, you are probably concentrating on your chores and don’t realize that this building, this street, the traffic, the people are all very still, very quiet.” The care and craftsmanship that went into writing this note was beyond anything I’d ever heard of from an angry neighbor. I continued reading.

Click the images below to see them larger for easier reading:

Wow. I had no idea I was keeping them up. But what could I do? I had to come home at that hour, and it wasn’t my fault the floor was squeaky. More importantly, who bothers to write such a long and detailed letter just to say “Keep it down up there?” It seemed like every word was carefully chosen, written, re-read, and reconsidered. I tested the floor in different areas, trying to find the creakiest spots so I could avoid them when I walk, and made an effort to be quieter when I came home from work.

Months passed. Then one night, I found a greeting card slipped under my door. A greeting card. They took the time to shop for the appropriate card to say exactly what they wanted to say.

I opened it. Inside it read:

Wow, that’s touching. They picked out the card, and even went through the trouble of using White Out to make it more relevant to the situation. Who does that? Who were these people? How did they know my name? After all this time, I’d still neither met them nor seen them. Well, I was sorry to hear that I was still keeping them awake, but I was honestly doing everything I could possibly do within reason to minimize my noise.

Several more months passed with no notes about the noise. I guess all my extra efforts to be quiet were paying off. Then this arrived, slipped under my door:

A leak? That’s much more serious than just some noise. I called the number on the note and left a message, explaining that I’d been having no plumbing problems, and no water was pooling in my bathroom or kitchen, so the water must be coming from somewhere else. I don’t recall exactly what I said, but I must have put forth some specific theory about water condensation and the shower, because later this note was slipped under my door:

Woah. Not only was I still too noisy for them, but they were taking advantage of my noise to entice an unwanted guest to leave. And that was so sweet of them to comment on my health. I guess they could hear that I was hacking up a lung when I had that cold. Well, at least the leaks had stopped. Or so I thought. A few weeks later, there was another note:

A waterfall? Coming from my apartment? Please! I’d had enough of this. No more notes. No more phone calls. It was time to march downstairs, knock on Apartment 5, and have a real conversation with these people face to face. I went downstairs and knocked. The door opened about 2 inches, and an eyeball stared at me. We had a brief conversation that way, through the crack in the door. I confess that I couldn’t pay attention to the conversation very much because I suddenly found myself wondering what it was that this woman didn’t want me to see. I remember she said something about her privacy and her beliefs being nobody’s business, and she didn’t want me to see what her apartment looked like. Okay. I told her I had no idea what the cause of these leaks were, and suggested she bring it up with the building manager to see if they can figure it out. I went back upstairs to my apartment.

It wasn’t long before I received another note:

That was the last note I ever received from Apartment 5. A few weeks later, I moved.

Update: This story now has a very interesting and surreal follow-up, which you can read here.

Posted by David at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (98)
Filed under: Favorites | Long | New York

This is the story of a Picasso painting, an art auction, celebrity multimillionaires, and a disastrous blunder that put a hole in the most expensive Picasso ever sold. If you keep up with news of the art world, you may have heard it already. But this is also the untold story of an original poster connected with the original auction, why I have it, how you can get it, and how you can make your own experience similar to those celebrity multimillionaires.

The poster of the auction of the paintingThe story begins in New York City in 1941, when Victor and Sally Ganz spent $7,000 to buy a painting called “Le Reve” (also known as “The Dream”) by Pablo Picasso, depicting his lover Marie-Therese Walter. This purchase began a lifetime passion of collecting works by just their five favorite artists: Picasso, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Eva Hesse. Over 50 years, the Ganzes spent around $2 million building their entire collection. Victor Ganz died in 1987, and Sally died 10 years later.

In late 1997, their art collection went up for sale at Christie’s auction house in New York. Le Reve sold for a record-setting $48.4 million to an anonymous buyer — the most ever spent on a Picasso, and the second highest amount paid for any painting ever (the record was held by Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which sold at Christie’s for $82.5 million in 1990 and has since gone missing, an interesting story itself). The entire 58-lot collection sold for $206.5 million, setting a record for the sale of a private collection.

At the time of the Ganz sale, I worked at Christie’s in the photo studio, where I photographed fine art and other collectibles for the auction catalogs. I’ll get back to that in a minute.

The anonymous buyer who purchased Le Reve sold it to casino magnate Steve Wynn in 2001. He in turn sold it to hedge fund mogul Steven Cohen for $139 million, setting a new record for the most money spent on a painting. All the formalities of the deal were finished, but the handover of the painting had yet to take place when a terrible event occurred. Just a few months ago, before turning the painting over, Wynn had several famous friends over to show it off. Among the guests were Barbara Walters, Nicholas Pileggi, and Nora Ephron, who described on Ariana Huffington’s blog what happened next:

The Ganz collection went up for auction in 1997, Wynn was saying — he was standing in front of the painting at this point, facing us. He raised his hand to show us something about the painting — and at that moment, his elbow crashed backwards right through the canvas.

There was a terrible noise.

Wynn stepped away from the painting, and there, smack in the middle of Marie-Therese Walter’s plump and allegedly-erotic forearm, was a black hole the size of a silver dollar - or, to be more exactly, the size of the tip of Steve Wynn’s elbow — with two three-inch long rips coming off it in either direction. Steve Wynn has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that damages peripheral vision, but he could see quite clearly what had happened.

“Oh shit,” he said.

Oh shit, indeed. As recently as last week, the story remained unsettled, as Wynn sued Lloyd’s of London in dispute over how much insurance is required to cover the damage.

As I mentioned, I worked as a photographer at Christie’s auction house from 1997 to 2000. It was pretty cool photographing priceless collectibles for every department at one of the most prestigious auction houses in the world. I photographed thousands of paintings and sculptures, including many by Picasso, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, and hundreds of other artists. I photographed documents hand-written by Presidents as far back as George Washington. I shot movie memorabilia including Edward Scissorhands’ gloves, the amulet from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and one of the Robocop costumes. I got to see the Archimedes Palimpsest first hand. And I shot photos of Neil Armstrong’s space suit. Okay, it wasn’t the one he walked on the moon in, it was just the one he did his training in, but still it’s pretty cool.

And I was there to see Le Reve sell for $48.4 million.

Working at Christie’s, I occasionally kept mementos of high profile auctions. I have a bookshelf overflowing with catalogs I photographed, but I only kept posters from one auction, the first high profile auction to happen during my time there. I kept the poster for the auction of the Collection of Victor and Sally Ganz, featuring Le Reve.

And now, history repeats itself on a much smaller scale as I am putting one of these original posters up for auction on eBay. I guarantee that as of right now, Steve Wynn has not punched a hole in it, and I will do my best to make sure that he does not punch any holes in it before the auction ends.

If you are the winning bidder, the poster will be sent to you in the same cardboard tube in which it has sat rolled up since I took it home nearly ten years ago. This poster has not been hanging on my wall, and is in excellent condition. It has no folds. There may be slight wear and tear on the edges, as might be expected of a poster rolled up in a tube for ten years. But you’d hardly notice unless you look closely.

Once the poster is yours, you are free to do with it as you please. Sell it to an investment banker at great profit. Hang it up. Invite your celebrity friends over to view it. Recreate a historic moment by shoving your elbow through it. I’m not sure whether or not you’ll be able to get Lloyd’s of London to insure it, but you’re welcome to try.

The auction can be found here.

Posted by David at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Filed under: Art | Business | Long

[Note: In the following bit-too-long rant, some information has been changed to protect identities. But the name of my no-good, awful, deceitful former web host Doteasy has been left completely intact. Avoid them at all costs.]

On June 23, I spent the day flying back to New York from a business trip in Los Angeles. Adam Sandler’s movie Click opened that day, and lots of websites were linking to an article I wrote about the movie’s overused plot device. It was a higher than usual traffic day for Ironic Sans. When I boarded my plane, web traffic was high.

I arrived home after midnight. I was exhausted. I just wanted to follow up on a few e-mails, see where my traffic plateaued for the day, and go to bed. So you can imagine my state of mind when I checked my e-mail and found this from my web host:

Hello David,

We have received spam complaints regarding your website. Please note that the use of spam, sent from our email servers or to promote a website hosted on our service, is prohibited by our service policy and we strictly enforce a zero tolerance for spam.

Our Service Terms and Conditions document may be viewed at the following URL:

http://www.doteasy.com/Terms/index.cfm?T=TAC

Due to the proliferation of SPAM abuse, we have no choice but to suspend your account from the Doteasy service due to a violation of the terms and conditions of the service. If your domain is registered through Doteasy, you may login to the Member Zone control panel to change your web host once you have found a new service provider.

Regards,

Miguel
Doteasy Customer Service

[ Offending message ]
Return-Path:
From: “TD”
To: [x]
Subject: Latest must-have fashion statement
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 20:47:04 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=”us-ascii”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510

http://www.ironicsans.com/2006/03/
idea_prepixelated_clothes_for_1.html

I was shocked. I hate spam. I wouldn’t send spam. I find spammers to be among the lowest forms of life. I have never sent a single mass e-mail about anything related to this website or pretty much anything else for that matter. No chain letters, no jokes, no urban legends, nothing. This did not come from me. This was some sort of misunderstanding. Looking at the “Offending Message” I could clearly see that it was not an e-mail I ever sent to anyone. For one thing, the header information says it was sent with Outlook. I don’t use Outlook. I do sell t-shirts on my site, but that’s meant to be funny more than anything else. It’s not the purpose of my site. If it makes a few dollars, that’s great, but this site isn’t a money making enterprise. I don’t sell Viagra, or Rolex replicas, or have any Nigerian money to offer. Even a glance at my site should have made that obvious.

There was a misunderstanding here somewhere. But their e-mail suggests they’ve already shut me down! Was it too late to do something?

I immediately sent the following reply:

I just received notice from you guys saying that I was reported for sending spam, and that this will affect my hosting service. The message I received quoted an e-mail supposedly sent by me. It has the subject “Latest must-have fashion statement” and links to one of my pages where I do indeed sell a t-shirt.

I have NEVER sent that e-mail, nor authorized anybody to send it on my behalf, nor ever asked anyone to do any such thing. And I will swear to that in whatever court you want. This is the first time I’ve heard or seen it. I’m as interested in you are in finding out where it came from, and will cooperate in whatever way you want. Is there header information that indicates anything useful? I normally use Time Warner Cable in NYC as my outgoing email host, and I have a gmail account I use also.

How many complaints have you received? I hope this is an overzealous fan of my site who sent an e-mail to a few friends, and not a widespread problem.

I will immediately post a message on my blog asking people not to do this. What more can I do?

I request that you not terminate my account, as I have most definitely NOT violated any terms and conditions.

What more can I do? Please advise.

I know, I know. That’s exactly what a spammer would say. “It wasn’t my IP address! It wasn’t my e-mail account!” Whatever I could say, a spammer would say, too. I was being screwed by a zero-tolerance spam policy for something I had nothing to do with, and had no knowledge of.

I then posted a quick message on my blog that said something to the effect of, “PLEASE DO NOT SEND SPAM ON MY BEHALF!” and explained why. But it was already too late. I could still access my site via http, but couldn’t get through on the ftp server. And when I checked the rest of my e-mail, I noticed someone had written to me complaining that they couldn’t reach my site anymore. The shutdown was already underway. Propagation had begun.

Around now you’re wondering why I didn’t just pick up the phone and call my web host’s 24-hour customer service line to explain everything. Well, they don’t have one. And they take at least 24 hours to reply to e-mails. Why was I with them to begin with?

I already knew that Doteasy wasn’t the best web host around. But I started using them years and years ago to host my photography website when I thought they were a pretty good deal. They’re free for the most basic hosting package, which was all I needed at the time. So when I needed a better hosting package, I just stayed with them out of habit and comfort, upgrading instead of switching to a better web host. I didn’t think I needed the immediacy of phone support. Until now.

Exhausted, I spent the next hour making sure I had everything backed up in case I lost my site forever. Once I was sure it was all safe, I finally went to bed. I woke up the next morning, and the website was gone. No Ironic Sans. No nothing. Just a generic Doteasy placeholder page.

So I took their advice and found myself a new web host. A few other photographers I know are using Media Temple as their web host, and while I’m sure other people can offer other suggestions, the 24/7 phone support of Media Temple was a good enough selling point for me. I immediately signed up (very quick and easy) and spent the rest of the day reinstalling Movable Type and restoring everything as best as I could. And at one point when I hit a stumbling block, I picked up the phone and called Media Temple. In less than two minutes I was talking to a real live person who was very friendly and helpful.

Then I logged back in to Doteasy, where my domain was still registered, and switched the Domain Name Server information to my new web host, making a mental note to move my domain registration away from Doteasy as soon as possible. By the end of the day, Ironic Sans was back on-line. The new DNS information was beginning to propagate. All I could do now was wait.

In the meantime, I took another look at that “Offending message.” It didn’t make sense. Why would someone send spam on my behalf? What benefit would there be? I examined the e-mail header. The “To:” information had been blocked out, but the “From:” address was still there. Since Doteasy thought I sent it, there was no need to hide it from me. So I did a Google search on the e-mail address and found a name to go with it: Tom Dalton (not his real name). Even better, I found a phone number. I called it. I got his voicemail. It was his office number, and he would be away until Tuesday. I’d have to call him back. Is it possible that this was just one person who sent one e-mail to a friend, and that person thought it came from me? Could it really be that simple?

By now my Saturday was gone. It wasn’t how I wanted to spend my first day back in town, but Doteasy made it a necessity. Whatever. Screw them. I was done with Doteasy. Or so I thought.

On Monday, I received the following e-mail:

Hello David,

Thank you for your response.

As an internet service provide [sic], we have the obligation to respond and take action on such reports. If we do not respond to such reports, our mail server IP address can get Blacklisted. This will affect everyone on that server plus servers on the same IP Sub-Block.

It is clearly stated that we strictly enforces a zero-spam tolerance policy:
http://www.doteasy.com/Terms/index.cfm?
T=TAC&bodyClass=pageCenter#13

Normally the account will stay suspended but since we have received a positive reply that this will not happen again, we offer you the opportunity to re-activate your account. We have re-activated your account, please allow 24 hours for your account to be fully functional.

Once your account is fully functional, please do as you have said about posting a message in your forum.

Regards,

Miguel
Doteasy Customer Service

Too little, too late, Miguel. I replied:

Because of the extreme unhappiness I have with Doteasy’s handling of this situation, compounded by the fact that there is no phone support and therefore no way for my to even discuss this situation with Doteasy, I am leaving Doteasy as a customer, and have already transferred my web hosting to another company. So there is no need to reinstate my account… [T]his would amount to a total of four days of downtime for nothing I did, and with no way to reach you in a timely manner. That is completely unacceptable.

I would appreciate a cancellation of my web hosting at ironicsans.com and refund for the remainder of my prepaid year of hosting ironicsans.com with Doteasy. I am not at all at fault in this situation, so a refund is the only appropriate way to make it up to me.

Please advise when I can expect a refund for the remainder of my prepaid hosting. Thank you.

On Tuesday, I left town again on business, but had some time to make a phone call while I was at the airport. I dialed Tom Dalton’s phone number. The conversation went something like this:

“Tom Dalton?”

“Yes?”

“Hi. My name’s David. You don’t know me, and I’m sorry for bothering you at work, but I think you may be able to help me solve a mystery.”

“Um…”

“Did you visit a website called Ironic Sans in the last few weeks?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my site. Did you see the post about the pixelated t-shirts?”

“Yes.”

“Did you happen to e-mail anyone about them?”

“Well yes, actually. I did.”

“I thought you might have. You’ll never believe what happened.”

I told him the story. He confirmed that he sent the e-mail to 7 or 8 people. One of them must have thought it was spam and reported it to Doteasy, thinking they were doing the right thing. I fell victim to Doteasy’s zero tolerance policy because someone thought they were doing the right thing. Tom was friendly and apologetic. He couldn’t guess which person might have reported me. I asked him to inquire, as I’d be interested in talking to whoever it was. How could they not notice the “From” address? What’s it like to actually report spam and have a successful outcome (from their perspective anyway)? Are they in the habit of reporting spammers? I wasn’t angry as much as I was curious. I haven’t heard from Tom, or whichever of his friends reported the “spam,” since then.

Unfortunately, the story didn’t end there.

Days went by. I couldn’t give this any more attention because I was busy with work projects. As soon as I could, I transferred my other sites away from Doteasy. But I still had to switch Ironic Sans to a new registrar. I know a lot of people don’t like Network Solutions, but since my photography domain is already registered with them, I decided to move ironicsans.com over there, too. Maybe I’ll move it somewhere else eventually. But for now I just wanted to be away from Doteasy.

So I logged into my Network Solutions account and began the process of transferring ironicsans.com from Doteasy. I received this reply from Network Solutions:

**IMPORTANT: One or more of the domain name registration(s) is in lock-status with your current Registrar. Please contact your current Registrar to unlock the domain. Once this domain is off of “lock-status,” please follow the instructions in the authorization e-mail to ensure our ability to process this transfer request.

Lock status? Doteasy offers lock-status protection, but they charge extra money for that. I never paid for that, never wanted that, and I just want to get my damn domain away from them! Why is it in lock status? Did those bastards lock my domain so I can’t escape them? I logged into their Control Panel, where a person who pays for the service is able to lock or unlock the domain at will, but the only option available is to lock the domain. So how the hell do I unlock it?

Meanwhile, it’s been more than a week since I last wrote to Doteasy. Then this shows up:

Hello David,

Because this account was suspended due to a violation of our terms and conditions, a refund on the unused portion of our hosting services will not be issued.

Regards,

Miguel
Doteasy Customer Service

Miguel doesn’t get it. I never violated their terms and conditions. I hate Miguel.

I wrote back:

I have contacted the person whose e-mail address appeared on the supposed SPAM that you think I sent. He said he sent that e-mail to EIGHT of his friends recommending my website. One of them must have thought it was SPAM and reported it to you. I did NOTHING in violation of your terms and conditions. This overreaction on your part is very frustrating.

But whatever. At this point I want as little to do with Doteasy as possible, so I’d like to transfer my domain to another registrar. But I see you have made unauthorized changes to my registrant information, and put my domain in “Locked” mode…

I understand why you have a strict SPAM policy. I also understand that I am screwed because of it… I now want to take my business elsewhere.

Please stop holding my domain name hostage, and allow me to transfer to a new host.

Thank you.

To this date, I haven’t heard back from Miguel.

So I started over. I opened a new customer request ticket:

I’m trying to transfer my domain away from doteasy, but the registrar I want to move to tells me my domain is in “lock” status with you guys. I don’t want to be in lock status, and never signed up for domain locking. I don’t see a way to turn off lock status myself (just plenty of places telling me that I can turn lock status ON for a fee).

Please tell me why I am in lock status, and remove the feature so I can transfer my domain away from doteasy. Thank you.

Please don’t let Miguel get it. Let it go to anybody in Customer Service but Miguel. Please not Miguel.

Finally, I heard back from “Steve.”

Hello David,

I have submitted a request on your behalf to have your domain unlocked and it should be completed shortly. Please note that if you transfer your domain name registration away from Doteasy, you may no longer be eligible for our hosting services free of charge.

Due to changes in registry transfer rules, we use domain registrar-lock to prevent unauthorized transfers and domain hijacking from occurring. This is a safety precaution we have implemented as a domain registration service provider.

Please refrain from making any DNS changes or updating any contact information as doing so will cause your domain to relock.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

Steve
Doteasy Customer Service

That’s right. They automatically lock every domain. This is a feature that they advertise all over their site as available for purchase for almost $10 per year. But if you don’t buy it, they give it to you for free anyway. That’s deceitful. If you know anyone on Doteasy that’s paying for the feature, tell them to stop.

Now, after all is said and done, I finally have moved everything away from Doteasy. They are not my host, and they are not my registrar. They have my money, and they better not charge me any hosting-renewal fees for anything they think I may have opted into when I signed up (I can see that argument coming). But the lessons I’ve learned are clear:

1) Doteasy asks you to pay for things they give you for free.

2) Doteasy has terrible customer service

3) Anyone can have any website taken down just by sending an e-mail, if it’s hosted by Doteasy

4) If you have a website hosted at Doteasy, you should leave them as soon as possible

5) Spam sucks, but zero-tolerance policies can screw the innocent

6) If you write a really long blog entry, you shouldn’t be surprised if people don’t read all the way to the end. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my rant.

Update: Having gotten strong responses from readers recommending various recourses I could take, I thought I’d try asking Doteasy for a refund one last time before I complain to the credit card company or Better Business Bureau. I sent Doteasy one last e-mail, pointing them to this blog entry, and letting them know about the thousands of people who have read it so far. I didn’t have high hopes, but I didn’t expect this, either:

Hello David,

Thank you for your email.

As per the Terms and Conditions, we strictly enforce the Zero-Spam regulation. As the reply sent to you previously on July 04, we will not be able to refund the remainder paid hosting service. We have already offerred you the exception to re-activate your account without the Spam Re-activation fee of US$25.00.

Regards,

Annie
Doteasy Customer Service
“Join the hosting revolution!”

So now I’m lucky they didn’t charge me an extra $25 on top of everything else for their own screw-up? I hate these people more and more. Grr.

I’ll update again if anything further comes of this.

Posted by David at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (59)
Filed under: Business | Long | Technology