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I love movies. I wind up with the TV on Turner Classic Movies just about every day. A good day is one like a few weeks ago where TCM had in order The Quiet Man, A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon A Time In The West, and Cool Hand Luke.
John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Henry Fonda (in his only role as pure evil bad guy), Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Strother Martin, George Kennedy.
There are many movies that I find myself able to watch over and over again. The above list is just a fraction of those movies, across all genres. Many of the movies I can watch over and over are classics. The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon. Casablanca of course. To Have and Have Not and Key Largo. Why yes, I am a bit of a Bogart fan, why do you ask?
When I start going through the list of movies I watch over and over, I am a bit surprised at how many John Wayne movies show up. In Harm’s Way and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are two of the favorites.
Over the next few weeks I will try to cover these films and others, trying to group them by genre as much as possible. Some of the films may wind up in more than one genre. Thinking Blazing Saddles for example. War movies, historical dramas, action adventures, comedies, westerns, mystery/detective, and dramas. I’m even going to write about the guilty pleasure movies, movies so bad they are good or campy or just plain fun with no artistic redemption to them at all. Hope folks will join me in the discussion. . . .
And because I can:
10 Comments
Can’t wait until you get to the “so bad they’re good” movies – my favorites. Have you seen the new True Grit? I haven’t but some of my children have and loved it. It’s getting raves.
I tend to not see very many movies in the theaters. When things get a bit too stupid for me, I like to talk to the screen and that’s a little too impolite.
If the True Grit remake is good, that puts it in rare company. Way too often the remakes don’t even reach the “it’s so bad it’s good” level
I’m a regular TCM watcher too. I love the series where they have someone from Hollywood introduce and discusss a favorite film.
That’s where I stole the use of The Essentials. I did a post on music a couple of weeks ago, will be doing a few on movies starting with this one then will do books. I figure most everyone has music, movies, and books they consider essential; I’m just offering up mine
I saw it, and I see a lot of movies (one of my shortcomings) I liked it and I thought it was very well done. A little more gritty than the original one and closer to real. Not for small children.
I’m also a big fan of Humphrey Bogart movies – don’t forget Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen and The Petrified Forest!
Speaking of great Bogart movies, don’t forget The Caine Mutiny.
I like TCM. Don’t like John Wayne, though. I always thought he was a mediocre actor at best(and his best, IMHO, was in “The Horse Soldiers” and “The Undefeated” before “True Grit”). Besides, I can never forget that he was a draft dodger during World War II, just like Ronald Reagan. Both used all of their connections to avoid actually having to face the prospect of actually laying their own precious asses on the line.
But never mind that. “Casablanca” is one of my very favorites. And if you like that one, may I suggest a more recent one, though still older than my kids, “The Wind and the Lion” with Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, and Brian Keith playing a damned-near perfect Teddy Roosevelt.
I haven’t been watching many movies lately, but my very favorites are from the past. Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, Scenes from a Marriage, The Seventh Seal, and Virgin Spring are, to me, musts for any true film watcher. I have to put his Autumn Sonata in there, but list it on its own because it brought together Ingrid Bergman (one of my all time favorites) and Liv Ullman, another favorite. John Casavetes is also important. He didn’t make many, but A Woman Under the Influence and Faces are two of his best. There are a few others, but it’s late and I have to go to bed.
Patience Grasshoppah. I did say that this was going to be a multi-post series and that the movies I was listing were only a small fraction of the movies I’m willing to re-watch.