by Conway

The Essential Movie List

In my previous post, I explained the goals and methodology of this list. As a reminder, here’s the cinematic food pyramid guide:

  • Carbs = dramas or ‘airplane movies’
  • Proteins = action/adventure
  • Vegetables = highbrow movies
  • Fruits = scifi/horror/fantasy
  • Sweets = romance/comedy
  • Fats = lowbrow movies
  • Mac and Cheese = children’s movies

Without further ado, here’s my list of movies that are culturally-essential for the 21st-century American citizen, beginning in 1980:

1980:

  1. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (protein)
  2. Airplane! (sweets)
  3. Caddyshack (sweets)
  4. The Shining (fruit)
  5. Raging Bull (vegetables)

Honorable Mention: The Gods Must Be Crazy (sweets)

This list begins in 1980 because Hollywood wasn’t really Hollywood (in the modern, special-effects, big-budget, superstar sense) until the 1980s. When I have time, I’ll back-compile a list of pre-1980 films, but there aren’t many that still have an enduring cultural impact.

Actually, it may have been a mistake to start at 1980, because 1979 was also a phenomenal year for film: Apocalypse Now, Alien, and Mad Max. No matter, because 1980 was also seriously phenomenal. Airplane! and Caddyshack are easily two of the top ten comedies ever, and both are full of memorable quotes. The Shining is Jack Nicholson’s signature role, and you can’t ever discount the Lucas/Skywalker machine.

1981:

  1. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (protein)
  2. Chariots of Fire (vegetables)
  3. Mad Max 2 (protein)
  4. For Your Eyes Only (protein)

The weakest year on record. So bad I can’t even award a fifth movie. Except for the blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark (one of my favorite movies ever), let’s forget this year ever happened…

1982:

  1. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (fruit)
  2. Rambo: First Blood (protein)
  3. Tootsie (sweets)
  4. Conan the Barbarian (protein)
  5. Blade Runner (fruit)

Honorable Mention: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (carbs)

That’s more like it! Rambo and Conan both launched their starring actors into another dimension. Never watched Tootsie, but I know it’s popularly referenced (or at least among older folks). Blade Runner made history for its neo-noir, steampunk aesthetic, and has one of the most famous monologues in scifi history.

1983:

  1. A Christmas Story (sweets)
  2. Scarface (carbs)
  3. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (protein)
  4. Risky Business (carbs)
  5. National Lampoon’s Vacation (fats)

Honorable Mention: The Right Stuff (vegetables)

Star Wars drops a little because no one really remembers the sixth one, whereas everyone remembers the Leg Lamp and “Say hello to my little friend!”

1984:

  1. Ghostbusters (sweets)
  2. The Karate Kid (carbs)
  3. The Terminator (protein)
  4. Red Dawn (protein)
  5. This Is Spinal Tap (sweets)

Honorable Mention: Sixteen Candles (carbs)

A decent year. Additional shout-outs to A Nightmare on Elm Street (fruit) and Beverly Hills Cop (protein). Red Dawn may be a little high, but when placed in context (in the middle of the Reagan-era Cold War), it makes sense.

1985:

  1. Back to the Future (fruit)
  2. The Breakfast Club (carbs)
  3. The Goonies (protein)
  4. Rambo: First Blood Part II (protein)
  5. Out of Africa (vegetables)

Honorable Mention: Commando (protein)

Commando is one of the most ludicrous Schwarzenegger movies ever (and thus one of my favorites). I had to give it at least an honorable mention. And to be fair, it was well-reviewed and ended the year as one of the highest-grossing films.

1986:

  1. Top Gun (carbs)
  2. Aliens (fruit)
  3. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (fats)
  4. Platoon (vegetables)
  5. Pretty in Pink (sweets)

Honorable Mention: Crocodile Dundee (sweets)

TOM CRUISE WEEK OVER AT GRANTLAND. I voted for Naval Aviator Tom Cruise, who plays beach volleyball shirtless but in jeans.

1987:

  1. Dirty Dancing (sweets)
  2. Wall Street (carbs)
  3. The Princess Bride (sweets)
  4. Full Metal Jacket (vegetables)
  5. Spaceballs (sweets)

Honorable Mention: Lethal Weapon (protein)

I have to restrain my impulse to rank Dirty Dancing lower and remember that it still manages a hefty cultural load (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner!”). I still prefer R. Lee Ermey’s insults or Danny Glover’s “I’m too old for this shit!”

1988:

  1. Die Hard (protein)
  2. Rain Man (carbs)
  3. Big (fruit)
  4. Hairspray (sweets)
  5. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (fruit)

A pretty weak year, except for The Greatest Motherf*cking Action Movie Ever Made. Hans Gruber! DURO DE MATAR!

1989:

  1. When Harry Met Sally… (sweets)
  2. Do the Right Thing (vegetables)
  3. Dead Poets Society (carbs)
  4. Driving Miss Daisy (carbs)
  5. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (vegetables)

Honorable Mention: The Little Mermaid (mac and cheese)

A very strong year, at least cinematically. Driving Miss Daisy could be vegetables, too. The craziest thing about Do the Right Thing is how prescient it is for the race issues of today; either nothing’s changed or Spike Lee’s a genius who captured the long-simmering tensions perfectly (probably both). The Little Mermaid isn’t that significant itself, but it kicked off and catalyzed the Disney Renaissance that followed over the next ten years. And since none of the food groups adequately describe children’s movies, I decided to make an extra (mac and cheese) to categorize them.

1990:

  1. Home Alone (mac and cheese)
  2. Pretty Woman (sweets)
  3. Kindergarten Cop (sweets)
  4. Dances with Wolves (vegetables)
  5. Goodfellas (vegetables)

Honorable Mention: Edward Scissorhands (fruit)

1991:

  1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (fruit)
  2. The Silence of the Lambs (vegetables)
  3. Beauty and the Beast (sweets)
  4. JFK (carbs)
  5. Cape Fear (fruit)

Another weak year, but another truly monumental action movie. Since it was the sci-fi special-effects that really blew our minds, T2 gets labeled a fruit instead of a steak. Oh well. Same with Silence of the Lambs, which could easily be either a carb or a fruit since it’s a drama-horror-thriller.

1992:

  1. A Few Good Men (carbs)
  2. Reservoir Dogs (vegetables)
  3. Wayne’s World (fats)
  4. Glengarry Glen Ross (carbs)
  5. Malcolm X (carbs)

Honorable Mention: Unforgiven (carbs)

I wish more people had seen Unforgiven, and less people had seen Wayne’s World. Random trivia: the closest movie release to my birthdate was Live Wire whose “plot revolves around a rash of seemingly inexplicable, explosive spontaneous human combustions and Danny O’Neill (Pierce Brosnan), a bomb disposal expert that gets involved and will eventually have to solve the case.” Enthralling.

1993:

  1. Jurassic Park (fruit)
  2. The Sandlot (mac and cheese)
  3. Groundhog Day (sweets)
  4. Rudy (carbs)
  5. Schindler’s List (vegetables)

Honorable Mention: Mrs. Doubtfire (sweets)

Honorable Mention #2: Cool Runnings (carbs)

Honorable Mention #3: Sleepless in Seattle (sweets)

Jurassic Park remains one of the greatest cinematic experiences of all time. I can only imagine what it must have been like to watch it in theaters (like my dad did), even without IMAX. That moment in which Dr. Grant first sees the brontosauri and the John Williams theme music starts rolling will always be my favorite Hollywood scene ever.

1994:

  1. Pulp Fiction (vegetables)
  2. The Lion King (carbs)
  3. Forrest Gump (carbs)
  4. The Shawshank Redemption (carbs)
  5. Four Weddings and a Funeral (sweets)

Honorable Mention #1: Speed (protein)

Honorable Mention #2: Leon: The Professional (vegetables)

Honorable Mention #3: Dumb and Dumber (fats)

Without a doubt The Greatest Year for Movies of All Time. So much so that Grantland ran a series of features titled “The Movies of 1994”. It’s impossible to rank the first four movies; I wouldn’t be able to argue for any ordering of them, as long as they were the first four. Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds are definitely my two most rewatchable movies of all time, probably because of the delicious splicing of scenes and the tension that never dies even after the fifth viewing (nervous tension and visual awe are the two most important criteria for movies in general, for me).

Speed has always been one of my favorite action movies, if only because it is one of the only action movies my family owned on VHS (along with Goldeneye), and this review by Alex Pappademas is excellent and is one of my favorite Grantland pieces.

1995:

  1. Toy Story (mac and cheese)
  2. Braveheart (carbs)
  3. Apollo 13 (carbs)
  4. Se7en (vegetables)
  5. Bad Boys (protein)

Honorable Mention: Jumanji (fruit)

After the brilliance of 1994, Hollywood has clearly regressed to the mean. Starting in the mid-1990s, with the Disney Renaissance in full swing, this list of culturally-relevant films starts to get muscled around by children’s movies. This is due in part to the absorption of Disney through unopposed cultural osmosis—parents accompanying their kids to the theaters, even if they’re not particularly interested in watching these movies themselves. It’s also because children’s movies are the only genre that everyone watches at one point in life, because we were all children once (some still are).

But the primary reason for the emerging dominance of children/YA movies from 1995 onwards is that these movies became the cultural foundations for the Millennial generation, who currently drive the overwhelming bulk of sociocultural dialogue online and in real-life right now. Our tastes quickly overtook, then dominated, the aesthetic decisions that then propagate outwards and transmit cultural memes to the rest of American culture. We’re still the incumbents today, controlling the ‘commanding heights’ online through memes, GIFs, BuzzFeed, and Tumblr. In a few years, we’ll start to be replaced by the new tastemakers of Generation Z.

1996:

  1. Independence Day (fruit)
  2. Fargo (vegetables)
  3. Jerry Maguire (carbs)
  4. James and the Giant Peach (fruit)
  5. Happy Gilmore (fats)

Honorable Mention: The Rock (protein)

Independence Day, like Commando, is another film that is ludicrously entertaining yet fundamentally silly. Also, a shout-out to Space Jam (mac and cheese), both for completing the ultimate marketing deification of Michael Jordan (after Nike/Air Jordan, “Be Like Mike”, the McDonald’s ads, Mars Blackmon, coming out of retirement, and the 1992 Olympics), and for the greatest box-score ever compiled.

1997:

  1. Titanic (sweets)
  2. Good Will Hunting (carbs)
  3. Men in Black (sweets)
  4. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (fats)
  5. Starship Troopers (fruit)

There’s a lot of ambiguous food group crossovers in this bunch. Titanic is a romance-drama, MIB is a comedy-action-sci-fi, Austin Powers is a lowbrow comedy, and Starship Troopers is either a terrible action-sci-fi movie, or a brilliantly self-aware comedy.

1998:

  1. The Big Lebowski (fats)
  2. Saving Private Ryan (vegetables)
  3. Mulan (mac and cheese)
  4. Rush Hour (protein)
  5. Armageddon (fruit)

I wasn’t sure how to categorize The Big Lebowski until I read the first sentence on its Wikipedia page, which elegantly described it as a “stoner crime comedy film”.

1999:

  1. Fight Club (vegetables)
  2. The Matrix (fruit)
  3. American Beauty (carbs)
  4. The Sixth Sense (fruit)
  5. American Pie (fats)

Honorable Mention: The Blair Witch Project (fruit)

2000:

  1. Gladiator (carbs)
  2. American Psycho (vegetables)
  3. Cast Away (carbs)
  4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (mac and cheese)
  5. Meet the Parents (sweets)

Honorable Mention: Scary Movie (fats)

Over Christmas 2014, I made a separate list of the best Christmas movies ever (Die Hard is #1, obviously). Once I have time, I will repost it to this blog and link it.

2001:

  1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (fruit)
  2. Shrek (mac and cheese)
  3. Zoolander (fats)
  4. Ocean’s Eleven (carbs)
  5. Legally Blonde (sweets)

Honorable Mention: Monsters, Inc. (mac and cheese)

Starting in 2001, two things occur.

First, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to predict the stand-out movies that will retain their cultural relevance in twenty years, mainly because not enough time has passed for me to adequately assess their legacies.

Second, the rankings increasingly reflect Millennial preferences. By now, Millennials have pretty much taken over, and so from here on out, the highest-grossing films and the critically-reviewed films (the ones with the hefty Oscar hauls) are quickly diverging to the point where nearly all of the top-grossing films are Young Adult movies, and all of the Oscar movies are the exact opposite.

Standing out from this backdrop (although not standing out enough to make the top six) are two more adult movies, so shout-outs to A Beautiful Mind (carbs) and Black Hawk Down (protein).

2002:

  1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (fruit)
  2. The Ring (fruit)
  3. The Bourne Identity (protein)
  4. Spider-Man (mac and cheese)
  5. Minority Report (fruit)

Honorable Mention: Barbershop (sweets)

See what I mean? It’s starting to get depressing. I didn’t even include Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (fruit), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (fruit), Ice Age (mac and cheese), or Men in Black II (sweets), which all romped through the box office but are mediocre, infantilizing, or downright terrible movies individually.

2003:

  1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (fruit)
  2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (vegetables)
  3. Finding Nemo (mac and cheese)
  4. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (protein)
  5. Lost in Translation (carbs)

Honorable Mention: 28 Days Later (fruit)

Hollywood, if you’re going to make movies for children, at least make them complex enough to appeal to adults, too. Pirates and Return of the King both did, so at least that’s an improvement from 2002.

2004:

  1. Mean Girls (sweets)
  2. Anchorman: The Legend of Run Burgundy (sweets)
  3. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (sweets)
  4. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (fats)
  5. The Passion of the Christ (carbs)
  6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (vegetables)
  7. Eurotrip (fats)
  8. The Notebook (sweets)
  9. Shaun of the Dead (fruit)
  10. Napoleon Dynamite (sweets)

Honorable Mention #1: Saw (fruit)

Honorable Mention #2: Kung Fu Hustle (protein)

Holy crap! Now THIS is a treasure trove of ready-made, meme-friendly, culturally-durable, historically-reflective movies! In terms of these rankings, this is perhaps the richest year in history. Cinematically, 1994 kicks 2004’s ass, but in terms of continuing cultural relevance, 2004 takes the cake.

My conscience required that I double the allotted limit for movies, but I think you’ll agree I made the right decision. Mean Girls and Anchorman are two of the most prolific meme-generators ever and both will have a long-lasting cultural impact. Those two are followed closely by Dodgeball, Harold & Kumar, and Eurotrip.

For its canonization as this generation’s go-to rom-com, The Notebook gets #8. For becoming a real-world cultural/religious phenomenon and sparking controversy, protests, and counter-protests around the world, The Passion of the Christ gets #5.

2005:

  1. Wedding Crashers (sweets)
  2. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (sweets)
  3. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (fruit)
  4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (fruit)
  5. Brokeback Mountain (vegetables)

I’m surprised the first two didn’t come out in 2004 because they follow the same (successful) mold. Spiritually, they belong in 2004, but I guess the producers in Hollywood decided they couldn’t drop all of their decade-defining comedy/romance/drama movies in the same calendar year. Brokeback Mountain gets it for symbolizing the rapidly-shifting social mores towards LGBT rights. Also, shout-outs to Batman Begins (protein) and Hitch (sweets).

2006:

  1. The Departed (carbs)
  2. Borat (fats)
  3. V for Vendetta (vegetables)
  4. Pan’s Labyrinth (fruit)
  5. Casino Royale (protein)

Dishonorable Mention: Snakes on a Plane (fats)

Borat left a mile-long shitstain of a mark on American culture, but there’s no doubt it sparked a national conversation. It will be remembered as a suitably depressing signpost of my generation. Casino Royale revamped Bond right in time for the newer, grittier age of action movies, and right at the peak of the poker craze.

2007:

  1. Superbad (fats)
  2. Transformers (protein)
  3. 300 (protein)
  4. There Will Be Blood (vegetables)
  5. No Country for Old Men (carbs)

Honorable Mention: Paranormal Activity (fruit)

Superbad, 300, and There Will Be Blood became mini-meme machines, and Transformers officially launched the “Pander to the Chinese Market Era” in big Hollywood filmmaking, of which I pray we will soon leave behind.

2008:

  1. The Dark Knight (protein)
  2. Tropic Thunder (sweets)
  3. WALL-E (mac and cheese)
  4. Iron Man (protein)
  5. Pineapple Express (fats)

Honorable Mention: Slumdog Millionaire (carbs)

The one-two punch of The Dark Knight and Iron Man, both good films, basically signaled to Hollywood, GIVE US ALL YOUR SUPERHERO MOVIES. It’s too bad this genre peaked in 2008.

2009:

  1. Inglourious Basterds (carbs)
  2. Avatar (fruit)
  3. The Hangover (fats)
  4. Taken (protein)
  5. Up (mac and cheese)

Honorable Mention #1: 500 Days of Summer (sweets)

Honorable Mention #2: Star Trek (fruit)

Honorable Mention #3: The Hurt Locker (vegetables)

In retrospect, it amazes me that Avatar became that world-beating juggernaut. If I had to guess at the reason for its success, I would pin it on a perfect combination of marketing savvy, shrewd business tactics, and technological progress.

You can trace the development of special effects through the breakthrough films that symbolized that era’s technology, each separated by about five years. Ghostbusters and Star Wars represented the terminus for analog effects. Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park in the early 1990s convinced us that digital effects could match or better analog’s authenticity. The Matrix and Lord of the Rings proved that Hollywood could use digital effects to take us places we’ve never been before. And then Transformers and Avatar laid the groundwork for the current business model: loud explosions, high-saturation colors, simple plots, shallow characters, mediocre acting, intensive merchandising, ubiquitous sponsor product placements, and billion-or-bust overseas-focused marketing strategies.

In the weeks leading up to the U.S. opening, Avatar became the first modern hype machine. With a winter opening date, it didn’t have to compete against the summer blockbusters, so it basically had a two-month audience monopoly. The news media fell over itself reporting on the newfangled computer rendering, James Cameron’s blockbusting notoriety, the film’s fifteen-year production history, the cringeworthy environmental and social themes, the film’s score and music, “The Science of Avatar”, and its huge production and marketing budget. Once the film released, the news media pushed daily reports on how fast it was breaking box-office records and rocketing towards the fabled $1 billion mark. It was a beautiful cycle of reinforcing hype, and a marketer’s wet dream.

Avatar perfectly leveraged both 3D and IMAX, which were both old technologies which had gone through revolutionary redevelopment. New technologies like RealD and Dolby 3D transformed 3D from the kitschy red-and-green glasses into something approaching a normal viewing experience. And IMAX had just started to expand beyond science museums and planetariums into the neighborhood movie theater. Just six years ago, both 3D and IMAX were rare and novel enough even in densely-populated central New Jersey that my friends and I drove 45 minutes to see Avatar at the AMC Hamilton 24 near Trenton. I don’t think we went anytime near opening night, yet it is still the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at a movie theater.

Six years later, you probably don’t have to go out of your way to see a movie in IMAX or 3D, and neither do you have a clue as to why some movies are in IMAX and others aren’t. There is something obviously ironic and punny about watching Ant-Man, Pixels, or Minions on a ginormous screen. You can thank Avatar for validating this 3D1, IMAX, go-big-or-go-home 2, “It’s more than a movie. It’s a multisensory CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE WORTH EVERY DOLLAR IN YOUR WALLET” model that the Hollywood execs, theatre managers, and moviegoing public have swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

By the way, remember when Hollywood execs thought Sam Worthington would become the next A-lister? HAHAHAHAH. Now it’s Jai Courtney. Yeah, I don’t think so.

2010:

  1. Inception (protein)
  2. The Social Network (carbs)
  3. Toy Story 3 (mac and cheese)
  4. The Town (carbs)
  5. Machete (fats)

Honorable Mention: True Grit (carbs)

I have a feeling Machete will become a cult hit in about ten years. I may be biased towards True Grit and The Town since I like both of them a lot. They’re extremely rewatchable.

2011:

  1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (fruit)
  2. Bridesmaids (sweets)
  3. Jiro Dreams of Sushi (vegetables)
  4. The Raid: Redemption (protein)
  5. Friends with Benefits (sweets)

Honorable Mention: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (protein)

2012:

  1. The Avengers (protein)
  2. The Dark Knight Rises (protein)
  3. Les Miserables (carbs)
  4. Django Unchained (carbs)
  5. 21 Jump Street (sweets)
  6. Pitch Perfect (sweets)
  7. Skyfall (protein)
  8. Zero Dark Thirty (carbs)
  9. The Hunger Games (mac and cheese)
  10. The Cabin in the Woods (fruit)
  11. Argo (carbs)

With movies this recent, I give up on trying to narrow this list down to five or six. The first six sparked a lot of memes and buzz, but even movies like Skyfall, Argo, and Zero Dark Thirty had big cultural impacts that year.

2013:

  1. The Wolf of Wall Street (carbs)
  2. Frozen (mac and cheese)
  3. This Is the End (fats)
  4. Gravity (fruit)
  5. 12 Years a Slave (vegetables)

Honorable Mention: The Great Gatsby (carbs)

The Great Gatsby gets that nod for its soundtrack.

2014:

  1. The Interview (fats)
  2. Selma (vegetables)
  3. Boyhood (vegetables)
  4. American Sniper (carbs)
  5. Interstellar (fruit)
  6. The Lego Movie (mac and cheese)
  7. Guardians of the Galaxy (protein)
  8. 22 Jump Street (sweets)

2014 was wild. Selma, Boyhood, and American Sniper fueled and mirrored the national debates about art, race, and politics. The Lego Movie turned heads for NOT being nominated. But The Interview takes the cake for its sordid mark in American and world history in one of the most bizarre turn of events in recent history. Remember that time we almost got into a war with North Korea over a James Franco/Seth Rogen stoner movie? #NotTheOnion

2015:

  1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (fruit)
  2. Jurassic World (fruit)
  3. Spectre (protein)
  4. The Hateful Eight (carbs)
  5. Furious 7 (protein)
  6. The Martian (carbs)
  7. Mad Max: Fury Road (vegetables)
  8. Minions (mac and cheese)
  9. Ant-Man (carbs)
  10. Fifty Shades of Grey (sweets)

These are my predictions for 2015. I’d bet money that Spectre will join Jurassic World, Furious 7, and Star Wars: the Force Awakens in the Billion Dollar Club. We all know that Furious 7 only made that list because of Paul Walker’s death. The truth can hurt…

Since we’re currently in a superhero lull while we unexcitedly await Marvel’s Phase III, I am more interested in how 2015’s ‘prestige’ films will fare. I didn’t include The Revenant, which appears to be a movie whose sole purpose is winning Leo DiCaprio an Oscar. Quentin Tarantino’s probably the reigning “Best Director Alive” (Christopher Nolan is second), a belt he inherited from Steven Spielberg  circa 2008. If Tarantino’s making a Western with Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, and Channing Tatum, I’m there (The Hateful Eight).

The film I’m most excited for is Ridley Scott’s The Martian, based on the 2011 scifi novel by Andy Weir. The cast is absolutely loaded: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, SEAN BEAN!!!, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Kate Mara. Now taking bets on how Sean Bean dies. Also curious as to how Everest will turn out. It could be terrific, or it could be hokey and awful.

How will we remember Mad Max: Fury Road, Minions, Ant-Man, and Fifty Shades? There’s a lot of contemporary buzz, but will this translate into enduring fame?

I hope you enjoyed the list. These opinions are just the ones that float through my head, so give me your feedback if I made a particularly egregious omission. Now get watching!

 

  1. Actually, in China, they have 6-D movies now. When my dad asked the vendor what the sixth sense was, the lady replied, “Your chi flow.”↩

  2. Or, at least, go Chinese or go home↩