My Favorite Movies

does she love him, or that other guy...was she for real back then in paris, did she really love him or...or...just who the fuck is victor lazlo anyway? she lets him know, but he is all too human and insists on hearing the stupid words as well...and it's not until he lies to himself that he "gets it", when he says, "it doesn't take much to see that..." when in fact it's taken him, well, since paris to see. we never really KNOW if anyone ever loves us...we have to trust, and this is maybe the only hollywood movie that leaves us with that...making it perfect.

the greatest musical ever made, uh, science fiction, uh, fantasy, uh, romance, uh, oh...nevermind, this one's essential americiana for the baby boomer set and it's resonance resonates far more than my poor command of the language can give justice to. let's just enjoy!

bill holden is the new blood of hollywood forced to condescend to entertain one of old hollywood's legends, and lawdy, lawdy, lawdy, how does one tolerate the egotistical ol' shrew? it's the point of view bill wilder only seems to endorse...


wilder's ultimate consideration for killing the younger generation still makes points...hot lead in yer back, punk!


and, but of course, gloria swanson's movie.

maybe better than the first one, eh?

the greatest musical ever made!...and i mean it this time...well, it'll do until one better comes along! unlike the musicals of old in this one nobody looks as if they're trying to get you to like them too hard, and there's the biggest selling point. of course i could mention a cast to die for, music to live for and a car chase so outrageous (in a musical? a car chase? say it ain't so!) you will wear out the rewind button on yer own memory. nobody in this film ever topped this film...EVEN the talented MR. SPIELBERG

untouchable...maybe the best sex scene ever filmed when the big guy "fingers" ol' happy-as-she-could-be fay wray

ZOWIE and how! an investigation of a youthful coming of age southern-style, with a twist of racial zenophobia thrown in...it's a big scary world out there, if we let it be...

excellent acting thruout rounds out this absolute must-see!

the film that made guitar music cool to the public at large ("...aren't all musicians really just nerds...") and the english, too ("...aren't all of those limeys just fag fucks?..."), if that were possible. the whole world grew it's hair long and men heard a sound few have ever heard live: a woman screaming like she meant it...a dream come true. the gifts of this film are many and varied, but individual as fingerprints to all who see it. untouchable.

the side of the duke nobody wants to see, the side that's mad at you! lil marion morrison drops the nice guy next door bit and shows us the duke all the pantywaist liberals really knew was there all along...and the big guy refuses to back down (doh! so what else is new?!), even when it burns him up, too...ouch. the closest the duke comes to method actin' in my book, and brother, is it ever goin' to be a bumpy ride! the duke's ugliest is simply his best.

a classic. period. john ford opens wide the doors for irish tourism with this sentimental visit to a place that never was. maybe the duke's best (oh, waitaminnut, i forgot..."the searchers")...but this one will make you smile. maureen o'hara really just about steals the movie (...from the duke?!? yep.) lovin' the malarkey she's slingin around...you'll want to beat her w/a stick, too. "the priorities must be observed at all times..."

the movie that modern actors stand on...in this corner: brando puts his foot dead into "established acting traditions'" arse and wiggles his toes. and in the opposing corner, "established acting traditions'" lone hero, a very frightened vivien leigh, who puts up a very good fight but futile...futile (and the fight only might've cost her her sanity, no less!). brando is vesuvius in this, and practically every actor since looks as if they are only copying this ugly mug, who made ugly beautiful. w/o this performance, there is no pacino, no deniro, no walken, or half a hundred or so actors, or even the latest contender christian bale (omigod! isn't he english?!? yep, and a shakespearian-trained creation, go figure, but everybody recognises plutonium once they see it)

r u kiddin me? untouchable. curtis in that scene w/marilyn as the hottest-woman-in-the-galaxy-in-this-millenia claiming in his best cary grant that "i don't feel anything" after one of her kisses in one of the sexiest scenes ever filmed...i squirm just to remember it...! jack lemmon, too, and why not? just a great film

hey!!! the greatest musical ever made!!! okay, okay, maybe not, but it's got everything you'd want in a movie, even "big-head" special effects (top-o-th'-line for the time)! one of the greatest musicals ever made, so there, and tryin' to be just that

excellent writing, unconventional directing, shifting points of perspective towards a hallucinatory feel, herky jerky camera work and a first rate cast combine for an honest depiction of both the fragility of our tenderest heart connections and the brutal savagery of our emotionally charged breakups. carrey, for once, is either directorially restrained or shows self-restraint to deliver the jimmy stewart in this that he always wanted to be...and, he's right, he's really brilliant at it. and kate winslet amply proves that helena bonham carter's not the only one who knows her way around emotionally damaged types. but all of these words are simply a flimsily constructed intellectual mask hiding my absolute love for this work, an intricate anti-valentine valentine for lovers. 5 stars.

one of a kind, genre producing, life affirming, low on calories, and good for your liver, what more could you ask for?

there's nothing to say that hasn't been said: simply a great, great blending of science fiction and film noir

michael curtiz slices to the heart of every adventure lover everywhere with a film with more derring-do than has been done at anytime (until danny kaye's "court jester"). errol flynn and olivia de havilland are little remembered anymore but you can see their definitive DNA in any of george lucas' first 3 outings of the star wars franchise. you think derring-do is easy? nobody's done it better (harrison ford comes close, but that's all) for SEVENTY YEARS, pilgrim, and that blah, blah, blah of the carribean is only a pale, pale imitation. watch the preview clip and feel chills run up yer lousy stupid jello of a backbone! HERE'S FOR REVENGE!!!

are you kiddin' me? i'd watch this w/o popcorn...w/o the wife...it's that good

"i caughn't give you anything but looove, baby!" long before i knew anything about androgeny (and i still don't know anything about it), these folks were stretching the boundaries of thought as to just who is it we really are before, and after, somebody else tells us who we really are, and doing it with rapier sharp wit. man, how i wish these filmic creations were real and closefriends of mine!

"...repeat after me: gort klattu barada nikto...try it again..." you already know the words? this film is why.

goldmine...and nobody knew it, until it was too late!

archie leach goes to doubletake heaven (eh? i didn't know there was one of those...there IS one of those!?!) as the nephew of two "pixelated" aunties with a peculiar solution to societal ills in their basement...it's madness, madness, madness and teddy roosevelt (of THE roosevelts, don't you know) to the rescue while lil ray massey and pete lorre drop by later on to even up ol' adolescent wrongs and do particularly sleazy enough to make robert blake blush.

"i like to watch."

i saw this when it first came out, after standing in the rain for about an hour in line on a very cold day i finally got in to see the only film i've ever seen in my life that had people leaving the theater on a cold rainy day, had them sick in the aisles, had them screaming in terror, had me in fear for my very life ("could i even make it out of the theater? what was this on the screen? what was it doing to these people? what was it doing to all of us???)...and for the first time i glimpsed the power of film to tap into the dreamtime...the realtime...and i was small before it...
and the movie was good, too

"jimmy, jimmy, just do whatcha did th'last movie, only turn it up a notch, willya..."
and so he did.
ten notches.

moody, atmospheric, altman draws one of the best western communities ever seen on film, the good, the bad, and the ugly, w/o the over-the-top music score to drown out the bare nakedness of existence. one of his best in my book simply because nobody seems to try to put in an oscar worthy performance...a film much like the the old and beat up doll a child might carry around too, too long...

only onscreen for a few moments, and one of the most evil perps in film history steps up to eat scenery with the best of them...i'm sold

what if you knew it was insane to visit your own past but went anyway...? bruce willis' best movie, brad pitt's best movie, maddy stowe's only movie, the lists of terry gilliam's achievements here go on and on...it's his best movie, as well

what if no one on the planet ever really connected to anyone else, but only pretended to in order to get what they wanted? it's a question to think about, but i'm not doing that cause i'm busy or something.

watch alan arkin beg for mercy, for humanity, from everyone he meets, to no avail...

a commentary on modern times...? naaaah, that'd be too easy...

a misunderstood youth tries to verbalize his inability to verbalize in a society gone deaf w/not listening...

once there was an old story of a guy who loved his friends and loved 'em a lot, and when they were in trouble he decides to help 'em out some, only they are scared. they would rather be miserable and suffer they choose it unbelievably, rather than to help him help them...and so they leave him alone. they leave him...

does he forget about it? does he leave 'em to suffer...or is he true to them? is he true to himself? what does he do?

the jesus story goes west, packs a six gun and waits out alone on main street, alone to face the worst, face the future, whatever it brings...

all i know is that after this people wouldn't even get into a bathtub...go from there, kiddo

what's a little chicanery 'tween friends? makes life more interestin', it does, doesn't it? it could be hypothesized that the movie is REALLY about the competition between the two dominant schools of world acting traditions, british and american...a bit of friendly ear-pulling, you dirty rotten scoundrel!

peter lorre's debut to the world audience also stereotyped his career ever after as the-creep-next-door, but on the other hand it supplied him w/a lifelong income...see why in this film

nicely done...i did believe a man could fly as the ads claimed...better than the morbid curio it's become indeed

zowie!
classic. that means it's all good, everything, everybody, even the friggen location.
even the alien.
and i saw it right here on flixster!

my only excuse for having missed on this classic for sooo very many years is that i thought it only a "chick flick". whatta maroon, shame on me. with great writing, direction, and acting par excellence (olivier is to die for - and kathy does, merle oberon's death scene is stroke for stroke gloria swanson's last scene in "sunset boulevard", and flora robson finally gets some r-e-s-p-e-c-t in a movie!) by the entire cast, this old story hinged upon class warfare ("we're better than you!" "no you're not!" yah-hoo! ah luv it!) is as fresh as the day they thunk it.

a story about some little people on a little planet (not far from wherever you are now), and how they learned how to love one another by banding together and killing whomever was dumb enough to stand in their way...sound familiar?...no, it's not your grade school homeroom, it's some brit kids on a island! chilling in the implications that we possibly aren't nice people.