MOVIE OF THE HOUR

Some may ask, "What is the 'movie of the hour?' " and unless you know me or have had me as a teacher you may not know. The movie of the hour was an offshoot of 'the big five'. What is 'the big five'? Engineers are mostly geeks, this is no surprise. Because of their limited experience in the real world, they cannot generate humor from their own experiences. They must reference movies to generate humor. 'The big five' are the five movies that are most quoted by engineers when they are trying to be funny. I feel anyone working in the engineering field must see these five movies so they can understand the people they are working with. 'The big five' are (in order from least quoted to most quoted):


The Rocky Horror Picture Show	Deliverance	Young Frankenstein	Blazing Saddles	Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The movie of the hour was an offshoot of the big five. At one time or another, everyone has gone to the video store to get "The Movie" (whatever the big movie is at the time) and find it is checked out. You have friends coming over, pizza has been ordered, and you are stuck! You turn and see a waste land of 59 cent "general release titles" and your heart drops. Getting a video from this graveyard of forgotten magnetic tape can be an embarrassment, an annoyance, and a waste of 59 cents!

However, I (a movie junkie) can give you a list of titles that are really good so that you do not step on the landmine of really bad movies. How does this list get the name the movie of the hour? Well, I told my students that I could give them a movie title at the top of each hour during lecture and lab (totaling 5 movies per week for 16 weeks totaling 80 movies) and the students could even pick the movie category (humor, drama, animation, etc.) I, in turn, could give a title of a move in that category that was just too cool! There are just a few rules that I follow when giving out a movie title, they are:

' The Brooks Rule ' No Mel Brooks movies allowed. This is because most Brooks movies are pretty good and there are so many of them. Tossing out a Brooks movie is kind of cheating! There is only one exception to the 'Brooks rule', that is the movie "The Producers". This is an exception because most people do not know that it is a Brooks movie, coupled with the fact that Zero Mostel is Brilliant in this movie.
' The * rule ' An * next to a title is a movie that you will either LOVE or HATE depending on your taste. If you do not LOVE the movie with the * next to it, you are wrong. All the movies on this list are excellent if you don't like the movie, your taste is at fault!
' The 25% rule ' The 25% rule is a rule used in class. When 25% of the students have seen a given movie, a new movie must be given. Because this is a web list, I have no way to determine if a visitor to this page has seen a movie or not. The replacement for the 25% rule is: no blockbusters that everyone has obviously seen.

The only drawback to the movie of the hour is... I forget which movies I already gave out. So I just decided to compile a list. The general categories are as follows:

A - Animation (could be humor, violent, Japanimation, or whatever)
M - Musical
C - Comedy
H - Horror, Violent, and/or Bloody
D - Drama, Suspense, and/or Mystery
S - Sci-fi (could be humor, violent, or whatever)

So, here is Dan's --- Movie of the hour list.

C - The producers	A - Wizards	A - Vampire Hunter D
M - Tommy	M - * Koyaanisqatsi	M - * Powaqqatsi
C - Mystery Men	M - The Wall	A - Fire and Ice
S - Logan's Run	H - Rollerball (1971)	D - The Red Violin
M - The Muppet Movie	C - Muppet Treasure Island	C - Zero Effect
D - The Big Chill	D - Hillary and Jackie (1999)	M - Hair
A - The Iron Giant	M - * Godspell	C - Harold and Maude
S - Tank	S - The Sting	D - Citizen Kane
C - Time Bandits	C - Princess Bride	D - Easy Rider
S - Brazil	S - A Clockwork Orange	D - Blue Velvet
C - The Jerk	D - Spartacus	C - Willy Wonka (1971)
S - Unbreakable	C - Murder, By Death	C - Silver Streak
C - Popeye	C - Toys	D - The Caveman's Valentine
A - Chicken Run	C - UHF	C - The God's Must Be Crazy
C - Johnny Dangerously	C - Sleeper	C - Americathon
S - Westworld	C - Alice's Restaurant	C - The Longest Yard (1974)
D - Stalag 13	D - A Great Wall	C - Young Sherlock Holmes
D - Escape from Alcatraz	C - Jabberwocky	S - The Boys From Brazil
S - 1984	C - The Spirit of '76	C - The Pope Must Die t
A - Yellow Submarine	M - HELP!	C - *Holy Man
C - Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein

UPDATE: Please note, this list was compiled in 1998. I have had to come back from time to time and add the year the movie was released next to the title. I have had to do this because of the number of remakes that have come out coupled with the fact that the remakes sucked really, REALLY bad! I am surprised I have not seen the “Beastie Boys” remake “Yellow Submarine” with Tim Burton animating the “Blue Meanies”. Unfortunatly, it seems like Hollywood is reading my list and remaking the movies on it one by one. In short - if you see a movie that was remade, I mean the original!