My Favorite Movies

Almost my most favorite. Cher is luminous. Olympia Dukakis is sublime. I quote this movie more than any.

The movie lags in a couple spots. And, cutting the songs they did from the theatrical release was correct for the flow of the film. The staging and the adding of musicians with each song is genius!

A film about understanding where you come from with the atomic bombing of Japan as the genesis. Quietly emotional. Richard Gere is incidental, though his appearance did cause controversy.

A movie that presaged many great hollywood careers. One of the most clever movies ever written. Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn are revelations.

15 years later and is Mars a stand in for Kalifornia? A canny film shot in Mexico, a place where many films in the 90's were made. Definitely a critic on the mindlessness of 90's excess and carelessness.

This movie dropped out of sight immediately after it was released. The inner reality of this movie is fully realized. Not perfect, but a must see.

It seems that this movie has been seemingly forgotten these days. But, the performances by the whole cast are hilarious and spot on, especially Beatrice Lillie and Carol Channing. I think it's legacy suffers from being on the cusp of 70's gritty realism.

A simple story, but well executed nonetheless. Unfortunately, the best career performances of many of the principles.

A movie I watched over and over. The kind of movie where you know the star will end up going on to better things, like winning an oscar. And, all the costars are perfectly cast.

A happy movie with energy that works and you don't care why initially. The message that your actions speak louder than words is a little simplistic but done to good effect.

By the end of the film you are not quite sure what is what which seems typical of screwball comedies. However, the chemistry of the actors and the effervescence of the script send this film into the ethereal realm of filmic legend.

I think that like Robert Altman, Woody Allen's films never come off perfectly, but somehow capture an timelessness of human behavior. He takes risk, or used to, or maybe still does. Props to him and this all star cast.

One of the most beautiful films made that not even Tom Cruise can wreck it. Once again the story is incidental.

A touching and vulnerable film that I choose to believe is Ms. Hepburn's best because her acting strengths and limits are in wonderful tension, her character is the most fully real and in the foreground.

A beautifully realized movie that seems to float on superficial stereotype and rely on the Stürm und Drang of a historical backdrop. Almost a shaggy dog costume drama. Nevertheless, this film is soft and loving, never cloying, at it's heart.

My second most quoted film. A post modern fairy tale that is too clever by half, but never mean. Perhaps this is closer to the original measure of Märchen as detailed by the Grimms. Adult and understandably cautionary.