Spellbound

This Oscar-nominated entry documents the intense experience of the National Spelling Bee as seen through the eyes of eight young spellers, with viewers glimpsing the kids' private lives as they train for and compete in the ultimate cerebral showdown. While they try to keep their eyes on the $10,000 prize, their personal stories illuminate their quirks, their obsessive study habits and their alternately heartbreaking and inspiring family dynamics.

Cats of Rome

Narrated by Keith Burberry, this heartrending documentary chronicles the story of Rome, Italy's enormous population of stray cats -- which number more than 200,000 -- and their endless struggle to survive. Filmmaker Michael W. Hunt spent six months at an Italian cat sanctuary where workers toil tirelessly to care for the city's homeless felines, whose Egyptian ancestors were brought to Italy thousands of years ago.

Born into Brothels

Born into Brothels is an inspiring look at the transformative journey of a group of extraordinary children in Calcutta’s red light district. Voted Best Documentary by the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Born into Brothels, which was produced and directed by New York based filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, also garnered over 20 major film festival awards including the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the Seattle International Film Festival.

A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York based photographer, gives each of these youngsters a camera and teaches them how to take pictures, simultaneously causing them to look at their world with new eyes. Together with Ross Kauffman, Briski captures the magical way in which beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places and how a bright and promising future becomes a possibility for children who previously had no future at all.

Touching and heartfelt, yet devoid of sentimentality, Born into Brothels defies the tear-stained tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Briski spent years with these children and became a part of their lives. Their photographs are prisms into their souls, rather than anthropological curiosities, and a true testimony to the power of the indelible creative spirit.

Deep Sea: Imax

Narrated by Academy Award nominees Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and produced by the makers of the IMAX movie Into the Deep, this stunning film is an exploration of the world beneath the sea and its bizarre and exotic inhabitants. From translucent jellyfish to giant octopuses to scorpion fish, viewers will be introduced to a host of unique creatures, all completely dependent on one another for their survival.

"Deep Sea" starts off strongly with a mysterious shot of ethereal jellyfish swimming in darkness. Then the next shot is of a huge grouper floating almost motionlessly, and Depp brightly tells us that "he's always hungry!" The film continues in that vein, with endless shots that were obviously staged for 3-D but appear oddly static and contrived on a television screen. And the narration, while performed by the two outstanding actors Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, is completely one dimensional. The narration is limited in effect if not outright silly in places, and seems to be aimed at small children.

Final verdict: Very beautifully done, but not enough in-depth information for my tastes. Also, I'm sure it would have been much more stunning on the big screen in 3D instead of on my crappy 15 year old TV.

Quest for Knowledge: An Explanation

49. Thoroughly research something I know nothing about.
I've been out of school for a while, so I thought it would be fun to teach myself about something that I'm interested in learning about. I haven't decided what it will be yet, but I am looking forward to this item.

50. Learn to identify 10 constellations.
Astronomy has always interested me, and I can pick out a few constellations already (the Big Dipper and Orion) but I would love to be able to identify more. I have already found a book I want to check out that will be a big help.

51. Relearn German.
I was pretty much fluent in German in high school. Herr Kauls was really tough; he would make us do conjugation drills and memorize & perform long dialogues and create 10 minute videos about whatever we were learning at the time. But his methods (of madness) worked because, 10 years later, I can still remember random phrases and words. I regret quitting when I did (if he hadn't retired I probably wouldn't have) and I would love to relearn enough German to be able to hold a basic conversation.

52. Learn basic French.
France and the French language has always been an interest of mine. Ideally I would like to learn some basic words and phrases by the time we go to Paris this fall, but now that it is spring I'd rather be outside than studying French. We'll have to see if I can buckle down between now and then, but I'm not holding my breath.

53. Read the newspaper every weekend.
We get the paper delivered every weekend, and I always used to only read the comics, look at the ads, and do the puzzles. But I decided that was not the point of paying for the newspaper, so I have been trying to make an effort to actually read the news articles. (Side note: we stopped getting the paper delivered for a couple months this winter, so I will end up coming short of this goal at the end of the 1001 days. But I've decided that doesn't really matter because I've read the paper every weekend that we actually had it.)

54. Take a photography course.
I'm very interested in photography but haven't really learned how to use my camera or taken any classes (except for the one I took in high school, but the focus was mainly on learning to develop film). I would love to take a class and not only learn how to use the various setting on my camera, but maybe learn some neat picture-taking techniques.

55. Watch 10 documentaries.
Whether it be about nature or history or something else entirely, I like watching documentaries. I find them both educational and fascinating.