@Sommerswerd: I've lost track of how many times Birdjaguar has violated the rules of this thread. It's 3 or 4 now, isn't it? When he gets to 5, I can make my own list about it.
I know you specified Americans for your lists and "I can't believe you/they haven't seen/heard this" but since American pop culture is so pervasive/invasive here in Canada, I'm going to answer some of these posts.
You've never heard
Men in Black? I find that hard to believe:
I mean to make that claim you would have to have also not seen the movie... which... OK, I guess, but... really? While I'm thinking about Will Smith... You've never heard
Gettin Jiggy Wit It or "
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air"... living in the US?
I've never seen the movie. I have probably heard some music from it at some point, but never knew what it was from, nor did I care other than to make it stop. Will Smith doesn't do a thing for me, whether musically or movie-wise.
...even if you grew up somwhere that played zero country music... you've still heard The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers... you still've heard Achy Breaky Heart... you still know Cotton Eye Joe... you still know The Dukes of Hazzard theme song.
My mother's favorite music genre was country, so I did hear some of this. My grandfather used to watch The Dukes of Hazzard. It just seemed like chaotic noise to me, though I'll admit to liking some country music. I like Marty Robbins, for example, and my grandmother really liked Johnny Cash.
The modern stuff, though, is just an assault on my ears.
...abstaining from attending pro-sporting events...
I'm trying to remember if I ever attended a pro-sports event. I guess rodeo counts, although I personally don't consider it a sport. It can be pretty brutal, and I don't enjoy it.
I've watched a lot of pro sports on TV, though - back when Gretzky played for the Oilers, my dad and I watched a lot of NHL hockey. I stopped when he was traded, though, since it would have meant cheering for an American team. Nowadays if anyone asks which team I support, I tell them the Calgary Flames. I don't really care anymore, but it's a safe answer (it's basically considered un-Canadian around here not to have an opinion about hockey).
Other pro sports... Figure skating is my favorite. Most of my favorite skaters who were winning Olympic and world championship medals in the '90s and early '00s are now skating professionally.
And the way things are now, you might as well call the Olympics at least semi-professional. Certainly some of the events use professionals rather than amateurs.
Aerosmith & Run DMC... No? Nothing?
I've seen a couple of Aerosmith videos. Our YTV and Space Channel would run music videos if they had a few minutes to fill here and there. So that's my only knowledge of Aerosmith, other than hearing some song or other elsewhere that I had no idea who sang it or what it was about.
DMC is a brand of embroidery floss.
It certainly appears to be their motivation for gloating about it though.
They weren't gloating. They were simply expressing an opinion. Add a
from me, as well. I'm not into that kind of "music."
Did anyone do top 5 sandwiches?
1. Grilled cheese
2. Salmon
3. Egg salad
4. Ham & cheese
5. BLT
Hip hop means nothing to me.
You never heard this Easter song when you were a kid?
"Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail
Hippity-hoppity, Easter's on its way..."
Somebody on one of my gaming forums introduced me to this:
What aspect of
demonstrates gloating? And gloating over exactly what?
It's "You don't like what I like, so you're gloating when you say you don't like it." It's something that has caused a
lot of hard feelings and ill-will elsewhere.
It's not gloating to say you don't like a particular genre. It's just an opinion like any other.
Rapper's Delight? Never heard of it. Rap was worse than disco to me.
My kids were born in 1983 and 1987. The 80s were full of Fraggle rock, Won't you be my neighbor, Raffi, Sharon Lois and Bram etc. In the 90s my son listened to metal. Mostly in his room with the door closed. Our daughter was into Shania Twain once she began to choose new music around age 10.
Do you like ABBA? I'm guessing not. I actually do like their music, and when my high school gym teacher decided we were going to learn "social dancing" with the boys' gym class, disco was one of the things we were taught.
Shania Twain...
Can't. Stand. Her. She was part of the Canada Day celebrations this year, talking to two young girls who want to be astronauts. This was the lead-in to the Prime Minister introducing Canada's newest astronauts. That was pretty interesting - but thank goodness she didn't sing.
Anyway, you didn't accept my clarification and insisted that I defend the "people all over the world are weird if they don't attend sporting events" position. I decline to do that as its not my position and I already explained that.
That's pretty much where we are.
As mentioned above, American pop culture is pervasive in North America and Europe. On a multicultural/multi-ethnic forum, you really can't expect to exclude the non-Americans from a discussion like this. It's not realistic that the rest of us wouldn't have opinions and want to express them.
Top 5 Denzel Washington Movies
You haven't mentioned the only movie I've ever seen him in (granted, I wouldn't expect it to turn up on anyone's top 5 list but my own, in a different category):
Much Ado About Nothing. As Shakespeare goes, he wasn't bad at it. Not as good as the classically trained actors in the movie, but not too bad.
Is this the same Carl Franklin who was in
Caribe and
The Fantastic Journey in the '70s?
Top 5 war movies:
1. Braveheart - hey no one said it had to be a modern war!
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. Blackhawk Down
4. We were soldiers
5. The Patriot - guess I'm a mel gibson sucker, but I like period pieces
Honorable mentions for thin red line and the water diviner though the latter is maybe not strictly a war movie. And if gladiator counts which I don't think it does it would be number 3 for me.
I've seen Braveheart. I don't watch a lot of war movies, but the ones that stick out in my mind are
Empire of the Sun and
The Great Escape.
I would not, under any circumstances, consider Gladiator to be a war movie. There wasn't much of it that was historically accurate, and the only good things I took away from it were the main title music and seeing Derek Jacobi in a minor role.
You want a good war movie?
Henry V. Yes, it's Shakespeare, but it's a damn good war movie (about the Battle of Agincourt). My grandmother liked it, and she didn't know anything about Shakespeare. She understood it well enough to know that it was about a king who went to war to regain territory that he considered to be rightfully his, and the good guys won. And a bonus for anyone who's into the Batman movies: Christian Bale is in it (when he was much younger, of course).
