249. The scene where HAL dies

Poor HAL. He sounds so human except for the lack of his emotion in his voice throughout the ordeal. Programmers of our future robot overlords, remember that: Emotional voices will buy you human sympathy.

Also, did you know that the choice of the song Daisy Bell was because that was the first song to be performed by a computerized voice?

248. The Birth of Venus

247. The Bull and the Condor

The bull represents the Spanish and the condor goring it represents the native Andean peoples. Take that, oppressors!

246. The Boy Scout Memorial

A lesser-known monument in DC. It always looks creepily earnest to me, but "creepily earnest" perfectly captures the spirit of scouting in America.

245. Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid

Bad taste in wigs, good taste in music.

244. Good Bye, Lenin!

243. Chichen Itza

242. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

One of Miyazaki's less well known creations. Like most of his work, the lesson is that you shouldn't mess with nature. If you do, you'll most likely end up fighting that giant caterpillar beast on the poster.

241. The Choreography from Thriller

Those shambling zombies sure can dance.

240. Girl from the North Country

It's a Bob Dylan song, but here it is performed by Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell.

239. The Shower Scene from Psycho

***Spoiler alert***
The girl's going to get stabbed. But the movie's fifty years old and you already knew that. The part with the screeching violins is the most famous bit, but the two minutes after that is really the good stuff.

238. Moby-Dick

Okay, fine, so I've only ever read the chapter on the cassock, but it was very artfully done. Give it a read and see if you can figure out what it's about.

237. Teardrop

You'll know it as the theme song from House, but there's more to it than just the thirty seconds they sampled.

236. Dogma

And while we're on the topic of golden calves, let's not forget the comedy that brought us Mooby the Golden Calf and "Buddy Jesus".

235. The Sin of the Golden Calf

The Bible story, not this lovely picture illustrating it.

234. Sweet Home Alabama

The song, not the movie.

233. The Flatiron Building

232. The Fox and the Grapes

Aesop's fable about cognitive dissonance.

231. Fahrenheit 451

A distopian vision of a future in which people walk around with "seashell radios" in their ears and watch several hours of television a day! What will save us from this horrible future?! (If you haven't read the book, don't get the wrong impression. It's excellent. It just overstates the dangers of entertainment.)

230. Moon and Half Dome

229. The Left Hand of Darkness

The NPR list of listeners' picks for the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy novels just came out. It seems a pretty good list overall. There are lots of good things on there, but here's a nice artistic one coming in at #45. The Left Hand of Darkness is an anthropological science fiction novel about how society would be different without fixed gender roles.

228. Hansel and Gretel

Did you know: In the Brothers Grimm version, the children's evil stepmother coincidentally dies when they kill the witch, suggesting that she was the witch all along. That does help explain both the parents' motivation and the witch's.

227. The Fremont Troll

226. Seven Swans (the Sufjan Stevens song)

And Sufjan makes his third appearance on the list, with this song from his oddly Christian-themed album.

225. Water Lilies

Here's some of that "water lily nonsense" I mentioned in my last Monet post.

224. The Most Dangerous Game

Read it here.

And on a related note...

223. Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

222. Sarajevo Roses

Sarajevo was the site of quite a bit of mortar fire during the Bosnian War. After the war, city officials had to decide what to do with the scarred asphalt. Rather than replacing it, the mortar blast sites were filled in with pink resin to create these flower-like patterns.

221. Don Quixote (The Picasso Sketch)

Here's one for the trivia buffs. You may have already known that Oscar Wilde's full name is Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. But did you know about Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso?

220. Back to the Future

219. The Look of Love