{"id":4137,"date":"2006-01-04T08:51:14","date_gmt":"2006-01-04T13:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4137"},"modified":"2010-07-14T07:17:05","modified_gmt":"2010-07-14T11:17:05","slug":"explain-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4137","title":{"rendered":"Explain America Through Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please go to the comments section of this post <\/a>where Sal asks the question:<\/p>\n

You have to explain America to someone from not here, but you can only use ten movies to do it. Which ten do you choose?<\/p>\n

(Now, these do not have to be history movies, they can illustrate something unique about American values or character or \u0093the American experience\u0094.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How fun is that?? Go and see people’s choices – and go add your own.<\/p>\n

I’ll put mine here:<\/p>\n

1. Casablanca
\n2. Field of Dreams
\n3. Running on Empty
\n4. His Girl Friday
\n5. Citizen Kane
\n6. Bonnie and Clyde
\n7. Taxi Driver
\n8. It\u0092s a wonderful life
\n9. Woman of the year
\n10. Election<\/p>\n

But then I had to re-think it – and I have to say that I think Apollo 13 should be on my list – so sadly I have bumped off Running on Empty although I think that film illuminates an extremely important part of the American psyche. EXTREMELY. (Not to mention it being in my perpetual top 5 films of all time – along with Empire Strikes Back, Fearless, and Only Angels Have Wings. Other films come and go off my Favorite Films list – but those always stay at the tippity-top.)<\/p>\n

As you can see, I chose films that show the positive side (Field of Dreams) – and also the dark side (Taxi Driver). Because you cannot understand America without understanding both elements.<\/p>\n

Such a great question – and I LOVE people’s choices so far. So go add your choices to the list.<\/a><\/p>\n

I love that someone put Groundhog Day<\/i> on their list!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please go to the comments section of this post where Sal asks the question: You have to explain America to someone from not here, but you can only use ten movies to do it. Which ten do you choose? (Now, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20121,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137\/revisions\/20121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}