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Because Nobody Asked For It: The Panda's Top 250 Movies of All Time - COMPLETE

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7 hours ago, Beauty and The Panda said:

Number 24

Gravity (2013)

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"You've got to learn to let go."

 

Most Valuable Player: Alfonso Cuaron's Direction

Box Office: 274.1m (284.9m Adjusted)

Tomatometer: 96%

Notable Awards: Won 7 Oscars, nominated for Best Picture

Synopsis: Two astronauts work together to survive after an accident which leaves them alone in space.

Critic Opinion: "Believe the hype: “Gravity” is as jaw-droppingly spectacular as you’ve heard — magnificent from a technical perspective but also a marvel of controlled acting and precise tone. This is not hyperbole: This is the best film I’ve seen so far this year.  I seriously have no idea how Alfonso Cuaron made this movie. I mean, I have some idea, and it involves many, many talented people in front of many, many computers. But the fact that we genuinely feel like we’re watching George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in space — floating, tumbling, hurtling, clinging to each other for life — is just a mind-bogglingly impressive thing. We forget that these are A-list stars and become totally immersed in their characters’ struggle to survive." - Christy Lemire

User Opinion: "It's easily the movie experience of the year. Absolutely insane; you will be gripping the seat of your IMAX chair for 90 minutes." - Telemachos

Reasoning: I'm ranking Gravity as the best film of the decade, and it's because of the sheer experience you get from watching this movie, no matter what screen it's on.  Sure, it's always a downgrade to watch this movie on a home screen instead of an IMAX screen, but the power in the film is never lost.  The shots are absolutely breathtaking, it's one of the few times in my life where special and effects and excellent cinematography floored me to this kind of degree.  While the story may be simple, it's an engaging one, and it leaves you gasping for air in how suspense this disaster sci-fi movie is.  Gravity remains grounded, and it never feels like its too ambitious for its own good.  It's a moving experience that really demonstrates how powerful pure visual filmmaking can be.  There's plenty of thematic depth you can take out of the imagery, and it's a true cinematic experience.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 14, 1950s: 18, 1960s: 23, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 28, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 2, 1950s: 8, 1960s: 11, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 7, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 1, 1950s: 4, 1960s: 2, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 2, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 2010s: 2

 

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I remember remarking to myself after seeing Gravity, that this is what it must have been like seeing SW for the first time in theaters.....the visuals just blew me away.  Gravity just blew me away.

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Number 18

El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) (2006)

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"But captain, to obey - just like that - for obedience's sake... without questioning... That's something only people like you do."

 

Most Valuable Player: Guillermo Del Toro for Directing and the Screenplay

Box Office: 37.6m (47.3m Adjusted)

Tomatometer: 95%

Notable Awards: Won 3 Oscars

Synopsis: In the falangist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world.

Critic Opinion: "In "Pan's Labyrinth" writer-director Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years. The story centers on a bookish girl (Ivana Baquero) existing among the mythic monsters in her fertile fantasies and the more petrifying ones in her real life in 1944 fascist Spain. Living with her ailing mother (Ariadna Gil), evil stepfather (Sergei Lopez) and his compassionate housekeeper (Maribel Verdu), the girl steps into a netherland where the ancient satyr Pan (Doug Jones) gives her three tasks to complete so she can return to her true life as princess of the underworld. The images are visceral, surreal, bewildering, unnerving. The drama is passionate, profound, tragic, startling. It's a film of horrors and marvels, the tone ranging from savage atrocity to divine benevolence, the movie bursting with provocative ambiguity that provides the stuff of endless debate over the story's meaning and even its outcome." - David Germain, Associated Press

User Opinion: "One of my favorite films ever. It is one of the most human films I've seen." - Noctis

Reasoning: An absolutely mesmerizing movie, and the second greatest fantasy film of all time.  Javier Navarrete's score is absolutely spellbinding and glues you into the film.  The way it blends the atrocious acts of an officer from the Spanish Civil War, and the fantasy Labyrinth that parallels everything going on is near perfect.  While I like most of Del Toro's films, and really like Devil's Backbone (it barely missed the list as well), this is a film that he truly found his stride on and created something special.  The imagery is haunting, and it sticks with you.  The movie is horrific, yet it also manages to come across as magical, in a sense.  This is a movie that knows how to play a variety of tones and images and make everything mesh together in one perfect, human, fantasy film.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 14, 1950s: 19, 1960s: 24, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 32, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 2, 1950s: 9, 1960s: 12, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 11, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 1, 1950s: 5, 1960s: 3, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 6, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1950s: 1, 1960s: 1, 2000s: 4, 2010s: 2

 

pan-s-labyrinth-pans-labyrinth-4028731-9

 

 


 

 

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17 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

I remember remarking to myself after seeing Gravity, that this is what it must have been like seeing SW for the first time in theaters.....the visuals just blew me away.  Gravity just blew me away.

 

Besides TFA, it's the movie I've seen the most in theaters.

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On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 8:55 PM, Beauty and The Panda said:

Number 29

Harvey (1950)

 

One of my favorite movies of all time. It's great.

 

I always got the sense that Elwood had some sort of mental disorder, that always appealed to me.

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Number 17

12 Angry Men (1957)

twelve_angry_men.jpg

 

"I think a testimony that can put a boy in the electric chair should be that accurate."

 

Most Valuable Player: Reginald Rose for the Story and Screenplay

Box Office: N/A

Tomatometer: 100%

Notable Awards: Nominated for 3 Oscars, including Best Picture

Synopsis: A jury holdout attempts to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence.

Critic Opinion: "Justly, 12 Angry Men is celebrated for its uniformly terrific cast, chiefly Henry Fonda’s soft-spoken advocate and Lee J. Cobb’s resistant blowhard, racked with daddy issues and not about to let an ungrateful teen go free. A closer look at the performances reveals a minimum of Method fussiness, the grace notes of Jack Warden’s jokey baseball fan and Robert Webber’s Mad Men–esque smoothy landing in quiet harmony. Meanwhile, too few films take on the art of arguing as a subject; we could certainly use more of them, but until then, Lumet’s window into strained civic duty will continue to serve mightily." - Rothkopf, Time Out

User Opinion: "I loved this film, hearing that this film consists of 12 people talking to each other in the same room for its entirety might sound boring, but I was not bored for a second." - Tower

Reasoning: A movie that is practically about arguing with others, why wouldn't I love it?  In all seriousness, 12 Angry Men is a mightily impressive movie with a terrific cast and screenplay to bolster it up.  The movie locks you in a room with 12 men, and doesn't let you out until a resolution from the jury has finally been reached, and it couldn't be better.  This is a movie that should work well as a stage play but transition poorly to screen, except it's a movie that never ceases to be cinematic, despite the constrained setting.  The film is a gripping and politically motivated one about justice, the death penalty, racism and standing up for what is right.  12 Angry Men is one of the great films of history.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 14, 1950s: 20, 1960s: 24, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 32, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 2, 1950s: 10, 1960s: 12, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 11, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 1, 1950s: 6, 1960s: 3, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 6, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1950s: 2, 1960s: 1, 2000s: 4, 2010s: 2

 

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Number 16

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

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"A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody."

 

Most Valuable Player: John Ford's Direction and John Steinbeck's Novel

Box Office: N/A

Tomatometer: 100%

Notable Awards: Won 2 Oscars, nominated for Best Picture

Synopsis: A poor Midwest family is forced off their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

Critic Opinion: "It took courage, a pile of money and John Ford to film the story of the dust bowl and the tribulations of its unhappy survivors, who sought refuge in inhospitable California. Picture is “The Grapes of Wrath,” adapted by Nunnally Johnson from John Steinbeck’s best-seller. It is an absorbing, tense melodrama, starkly realistic, and loaded with social and political fireworks. It is off to a smash boxoffice career, hot on the heels of “Gone With the Wind,” which precedes it by a few weeks into the first runs.  Here is an outstanding entertainment, projected against a heartrending sector of the American scene. Through newreels and rotogravure, the public is familiar with the ravages of drought over a wide agricultural area in Oklahoma, Colorado, the Texas panhandle and western Kansas. The film interprets the consequences of national disaster in terms of a family group–the Joads–who left their quarter-section to the wind and dust and started ‘cross country in an over-laden jallopy to the land of plenty." - Variety Staff, 1940

User Opinion: "it's quite fantastic. great atmosphere and photography." - lisa

Reasoning: When you hear critics talking about the best movie of all-time, you hear a lot of Citizen Kane and Casablanca, but you may have also heard a lot about this movie.  While, John Ford may be most popular for his Westerns, this was his absolute masterpiece.  Many critics, at the time of The Grapes of Wrath's release, found it to be one of the most best and mature films ever released, because it truly was at the time.  The film's power doesn't erode with its age, and Steinbeck's words are just as resonant as ever.  Henry Fonda delivers the greatest performance of his career, and John Ford crafts a film that manages to top every other film that he had made.  The Grapes of Wrath is the definitive story about the Great Depression, and it's just as resonant today as it was 77 years ago when this film was released.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 15, 1950s: 20, 1960s: 24, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 32, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 3, 1950s: 10, 1960s: 12, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 11, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 2, 1950s: 6, 1960s: 3, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 6, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1940s: 1, 1950s: 2, 1960s: 1, 2000s: 4, 2010s: 2

 

the-grapes-of-wrath1.jpg

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Beauty and The Panda said:

Number 16

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

 

 

Another great Henry Fonda movie.

 

I remember trying to read this book for fun (lol, those days are past me) when I was like....11? I just saw it on our bookshelf when we moved to a new house, and I knew how "important" the book was. So I tried reading it, but it just bored the hell out of me. I made it like 60 pages in before I gave up lol

 

Watched the movie years later, and so many feels.

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Number 15

Children of Men (2006)

Children-of-Men_poster_goldposter_com_15

 

"As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices."

 

Most Valuable Player: Emmanuel Lubezki's Cinematography and Alfonso Cuaron's Direction

Box Office: 35.6m (44.7m Adjusted)

Tomatometer: 92%

Notable Awards: Nominated for 3 Oscars

Synopsis: In 2027, in a chaotic world in which women have become somehow infertile, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

Critic Opinion: "Cuaron fulfills the promise of futuristic fiction; characters do not wear strange costumes or visit the moon, and the cities are not plastic hallucinations, but look just like today, except tired and shabby. Here is certainly a world ending not with a bang but a whimper, and the film serves as a cautionary warning. The only thing we will have to fear in the future, we learn, is the past itself. Our past. Ourselves." - Roger Ebert

User Opinion: "Id blow Alfonso Cuaron and im straight, he is so good. 
 
The PD and cinematography in this movie is to die for." - Jay Hollywood

Reasoning: An atmospheric piece of science fiction that manages to fully transport you into a world that is on the brink of death, only with a possible glimmer of hope to redeem it.  Children of Men doesn't have an overt message of the human condition, but a subtle, powerful warning on how humanity can slip out of its good graces.  That good fortune isn't a guarantee, and should be something to be cherished.  It removes the children, leaving a world without a new generation, without innocence, one that you visually see falling to shambles.  Everything from the production design, to the score, to the brilliant cinematography, to Cuaron's direction all suck you into this sci-fi film, making it the most immersive piece of science fiction created.  It's the most fully realized science fiction world I have ever seen in a stand alone sci-fi movie, it's a rare occasion where the dystopian vision of Earth feels like an actuality and it's also a beautiful movie.  Cuaron proves himself to be a modern master of the cinematic craft, even if he seldom lets out a film.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 15, 1950s: 20, 1960s: 24, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 33, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 3, 1950s: 10, 1960s: 12, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 12, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 2, 1950s: 6, 1960s: 3, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 7, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1940s: 1, 1950s: 2, 1960s: 1, 2000s: 5, 2010s: 2

 

children-of-men-playground.jpg

 

 


 

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Number 14

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

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"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

 

Most Valuable Player: Frank Capra's Direction

Box Office: N/A

Tomatometer: 94%

Notable Awards: Nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture

Synopsis: An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.

Critic Opinion: "The most well-loved of all Christmas movies. One dark Christmas Eve, a good man, building and loan manager George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), is brought to despair by fate and the machinations of evil rival banker Old Man Potter (Lionel Barrymore), then saved by divine comedy -- shown by a wingless angel (Henry Travers) what life would have been like had he never been born." - Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

User Opinion: "It's a Wonderful Life is incredible. Frank Capra's never been better, and the brilliance of the first two-thirds of the movie just setting up the character of George Bailey is unfathomable. Jimmy Stewart is absolutely incredible in it, playing the everyman we all love while breaking down believably. Donna Reed is subtly great in it too, and the editing is ahead of its time. Maybe next Christmas, I'll go more into depth on why this film is spectacular, but for now, I'll just say It's a Wonderful Life surpassed my high expectations for it, and is an absolute masterpiece, being by far the best Christmas film I have ever seen. Wow." - Blankments

Reasoning: It's a Wonderful Life is hands down the greatest Christmas movie ever made.  It's one of the few movies I'll watch annually, simply because it's hard to imagine a Christmas season without this movie being apart of it in some form or another.  The movie is perfect in just about every way, and the sentimental schmaltz of it all just really glistens it all up to make it quite a moving affair.  It's an inspirational movie that gives you a sense of hope and happiness when it all ends, no matter what mood you were in before.  I mean honestly, everything about this movie is iconic, and you know it's special when its a movie from the 1940s that nearly everyone you know has watched at some point in their life.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 16, 1950s: 20, 1960s: 24, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 33, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 4, 1950s: 10, 1960s: 12, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 12, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 3, 1950s: 6, 1960s: 3, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 7, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1940s: 2, 1950s: 2, 1960s: 1, 2000s: 5, 2010s: 2

 

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Number 13

Before Sunset (2004)

before_sunset.jpg

 

"Baby, you are gonna miss that plane."

 

Most Valuable Player: Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's Chemistry, as well as Linklater's Direction

Box Office: 5.8m (8.1m Adjusted)

Tomatometer: 95%

Notable Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar

Synopsis: Nine years after Jesse and Celine first met, they encounter each other again on the French leg of Jesse's book tour.

Critic Opinion: "The best sequels aren't encores so much as continuations, extending and deepening a story—or, better still, evoking memories of the original in a meaningful way. Even so, the idea of a follow-up to Richard Linklater's bracingly romantic 1995 all-nighter Before Sunrise seems like a terrible miscalculation: Why spoil the bittersweet ambiguity of what happens after the two lovers part ways at a Vienna train station, hastily promising to meet again six months later? And yet nine years later, as the opening shots linger in anticipation of their Paris reunion in Before Sunset, it's hard to keep from welling up. The sensation is like skipping from the first act in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, where lovers also part at a station, to the final scene, when they've long since moved on with their lives but experience that fresh rush of emotion all over again. Little beyond a few pleasantries are exchanged between them, but the audience can safely guess that if they said what they were thinking, they'd both confess that neither has felt love as strongly since." - Tobias, AV Club

User Opinion: "At this point I'd name it as one of my ten favorite films of all time. Much as I love the other parts of the trilogy, this is the only one where I think every single conversation scene is as strong. and endlessly rewatchable, as any other (on the other hand, I become much less attentive when they meet the fortune teller and the street poet in Sunrise, or when Hawke starts talking about his premises for novels in Midnight). The theme of dealing with passed time hits me the most here, and consequently the resolution, where they finally - after almost a decade! - regain control over their lives and relationship to the sounds of "Just In Time" is one of the most triumphant and deliriously happy, yet not a tiny bit fake or forced, endings I've ever seen." - Jake Gittes

Reasoning: A natural and subtly bold continuation of Before Sunrise by Linklater, and this short, 80 minute film is absolutely brilliant.  Every conversation in the movie resonates, offering intelligent contemplation of life experiences, the culture surrounding the two characters, relationships, re-connection, and how the future doesn't always play out how we envision it to be, reality sets in.  Before Sunset shows off Linklater's talents in being able to show natural relationships between real characters, and keeping the audience engaged in the most simple of plot developments.  The movie boasts one of my favorite endings in a movie ever, it never fails to move me, and I still remember melting a little bit in satisfaction seeing it play out for the first time.  Linklater creates a natural and beautiful progression of Before Sunrise, and creates a small and wonderful masterpiece while doing so.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 16, 1950s: 20, 1960s: 24, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 34, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 4, 1950s: 10, 1960s: 12, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 13, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 3, 1950s: 6, 1960s: 3, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 8, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1940s: 2, 1950s: 2, 1960s: 1, 2000s: 6, 2010s: 2

 

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Last one for tonight.  Here's another one of my favorite things!

 

Number 12

The Sound of Music (1965)

The-Sound-of-Music-movie-poster1.jpg

 

"When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window."

 

Most Valuable Player: Julie Andrews' Lead Performance

Box Office: 158.7m (1.23b Adjusted)

Tomatometer: 86%

Notable Awards: Won 5 Oscars, including Best Picture

Synopsis: A woman leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to the children of a Naval officer widower.

Critic Opinion: "Rodgers has written two new songs for the picture and they add a fresh note to the film’s action. Three of the original numbers were dropped. The new songs are: “I Have Confidence In Me” and “Something Good.” The outstanding musical numbers of the original score are “Do Re Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” “Climb Every Mountain,” “I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and the title song.  Wise’s direction is excellent, as he keeps his cast on the move throughout the slightly less than three-hour performance." - Kate Cameron, New York Daily News (1965)

User Opinion: None, because Goffe is the only review and I disagree with his opinion on it :)

Reasoning: This is a movie that has skyrocketed up my favorites list over the last few years.  I always loved the movie, but I've had a newfound appreciation of the movie as one of the truly greatest movies ever made.  The new musical numbers, as well as Julie Andrews' legendary performance, added to the movie all elevate the movie to far exceed the stage version this musical is based on.  The musical is completely majestic in its nature, all of the songs stick into your brain in the best of ways, and I have no flaws or problems with the movie.  It's gorgeous to watch, the story is moving, and the entire film is a pure joy.  Robert Wise keeps the film lively throughout its lengthy time-frame, making the full three hours move through as a breeze, while knowing just when to crank up the emotions and thematic power within the final act.  It's a true classic and it's the second greatest musical ever made.

Decade Count: 1930s: 12, 1940s: 16, 1950s: 20, 1960s: 25, 1970s: 27, 1980s: 36, 1990s: 34, 2000s: 34, 2010s: 31
Top 100 Decade Count: 1930s: 4, 1940s: 4, 1950s: 10, 1960s: 13, 1970s: 13, 1980s: 5, 1990s: 14, 2000s: 13, 2010s: 14
Top 50 Decade Count: 1930s: 3, 1940s: 3, 1950s: 6, 1960s: 4, 1970s: 8 1980s: 1, 1990s: 3, 2000s: 8, 2010s: 4
Top 25 Decade Count: 1940s: 2, 1950s: 2, 1960s: 2, 2000s: 6, 2010s: 2

 

soundof-igotothehills.png?__SQUARESPACE_

 

 

 

 

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