Apollo 13
The Princess Diaries (yay for Julie Andrews & Anne Hathaway)!
Many (other) Disney movies besides the ones I've already mentioned - The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, Pinnochio, Bambi, Dumbo, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Mulan, The Lion King, Mary Poppins
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shrek movies
The Wizard of Oz
Gone with the Wind
Singin' in the Rain
The Taming of the Shrew - (Liz Taylor & Richard Burton)
Exodus
Back to the Future #1 & #3
Senna
Apollo 13
Thirteen Days
The Dish (GREATEST AUSTRALIAN MOVIE OF ALL TIME)
Disney classics - Mulan, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Aladdin (alas, The Little Mermaid is missing from our collection!)
And I have all of Mark Webber's race wins on DVD...I like watching those a lot.
All good choices, Iluvtodd. I do love Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly. You remind me that his Doc Hollywood is a delightful "vacation" when one is under stress or feeling blue.
I also forgot to list the hysterical Soapdish, a splendid send-up of soaps with a dream cast, including Sally Field, Kevin Kline (an unsung treasure of American film), Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Downey, Jr., Cathy Moriarty, Teri Hatcher, Elizabeth Shue, Carrie Fisher, Kathy Najimy, even Gary Marshall.
And how could I have forgotten the classic of classics, Casablanca?
While we're on Ingrid Bergman, perhaps my favorite film of hers is Anastasia. The moment when I realized that Yul Brynner really was a heartthrob.
And the Hepburn/Tracy movie that is my go-to film above all the others they did: Desk Set.
Oh, I was unclear, I fear... 2012 was Dickens' bicentennial - I wouldn't have known it either, had it not been for book blogs! and he's my favourite author.Originally Posted by Olympia
Last year I rewatched Pickwick, Oliver Twist and unchronologically snuck in Our Mutual Friend
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144727/
which I just love and adore, and I don't need much of an excuse to rewatch it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077055/
though I'm now rewatching it with my mother, and really enjoying it. I often end up rewatching stuff that way - I first watch something with my husband, and then - the good stuff - I rewatch wth my mother. Recently I rewatched the Hailee Steinfelt True Grit that way, and it was great! (I'm really curious about her Romeo and Juliet now... )
I feel as if on the first watch there is the delight of discovery - even if the plot is known to you, the specific scenes &c are not - but on rewatches, you can really settle in and just enjoy and savour it.
Oh, by the way, for any P & P and/or Jane Austen fans out there, the blog Austenprose will be celebrating the bicentennial through the year - that's where I found out about it too - even though it's one of my favourite books, and I've read it 4-5 times, but I'm such a scatterbrain and numbers just don't seem to stick in (what I am pleased to call) my brain!
Oh, Olympia, I hope you don't mind that I've "cheated" and mentioned some series, rather than strictly movies? Some movies I tend to rewatch though, LOTR, Pirates, like many others, I have my favourite Disney animations, and while I'm not really a musical fan, I adore Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (I'm more of an old Indian movies fan, when it comes to that sort of thing), The Princess Bride of course, the orginal Star Wars and... well, there are a lot. And I'd no doubt be rewatching more, except there's so much new (to me, that is) stuff to watch and discover...
Nothing counts as cheating on this thread! If you enjoy a series or a TV movie, it belongs here just as much as any self-contained theatrical film. The goal is sharing yummy things to watch so the rest of us can find out about them. Go for it!
Like you, I shared a lot of my favorite movie-watching with my mom. There are still movies that I think of as "hers" when I see them. She used to take me to theaters when they ran revivals of films she'd grown up with, so that now every time I see Garbo's Anna Karenina, Grand Hotel, or Ninotchka, for example, I think of her. She gave me Leslie Howard, Ronald Colman, Garbo of course, and I gave her Chariots of Fire.
Oh, that's right. Chariots of Fire goes on my list. There are parts of it I could watch again and again. And I agree with you about the original Star Wars. Oh, and Star Trek IV, my favorite film in that series. "No, I'm from Iowa. I just work in outer space."
My favourite sf is definitely Babylon 5 here's a fan-made tribute video that might give some idea of why:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-LbdDYVHXM
although it doesn't give all aspects of the show, of course.
(I just discovered that my favourite Jane Eyre video has been blocked in my country - drat it! My favourite Jane Eyre is of course the Timothy Dalton one; I tend to value fidelity to the book in my book adaptations. I wanted to share that too, but now I'm a bit... miffed, and am watching various B5 videos instead to soothe my feelings... )
E.g. these movies I have watched multiple times:
Vertigo
Rear Window
To Catch a Thief
Gone with the wind
Third Man
Waterloo Bridge
West Side Story
Dances with wolves
Phantom of the Opera
Casablanca
A Few Good Men
Desirée
Gilda
Some like it hot
Cat On a Hot Tin Roof
Rio Grande
An Affair to Remember
Roman Holiday
Anatomy of a Murder
Man who shot Liberty Valance
A Place in the Sun
Splendor in the Grass
Last edited by Jaana; 01-15-2013 at 01:19 PM.
Schindler's List is another I could watch over & over.
It's a brilliant film, but I can't imagine watching it over and over!
So true/ The Reader is great movie but heartrending.
Some more:
Disney's Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 1, 2, 3
West Side Story
Schindler's List
Life is Beautiful
Gigi
Brigadoon
Hairspray (the recent movie version of it)
Oliver
Fiddler on the Roof
The Producers (especially the original), loved the Broadway musical
1776
Fly Away Home
The King's Speech
Amadeus
Shakespeare in Love
Ben Hur
The 10 Commandments
Topsy Turvy
The Pirates of Penzance
Seabiscuit
Rainman
An American in Paris
Driving Miss Daisy
Blades of Glory
Rise
The Jazz Singer (with Neil Diamond) - The critics really skewered this one, but I loved it (along with a bunch of other friends), and the soundtrack is great! I still tear up during the "reconciliation" scene.
Last edited by iluvtodd; 01-18-2013 at 10:16 AM.
Some old movie favourites:
The Shop Around the Corner
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033045/
Harvey
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/
The Strawberry Blonde
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034236/
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050169/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
The Thin Man movies:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025878/
Although this is a case where I actually like the sequels more than the original movie.
All very rewatchable movies, I feel.
The remake of The Shop Around the Corner is also lots of fun. It's In the Good Old Summertime, and it stars Van Johnson and Judy Garland instead of Jimmy Stewart and I think Margaret Sullavan. While no one can top Jimmy Stewart, Judy Garland is a delight in every musical she was ever in. She is one of the best comediennes ever (no one gets offended better than she does), and of course she has one of the century's great voices. The supporting cast is also wonderful, the usual stable of MGM stalwarts, including S.Z. Sakall (also in Casablanca) taking over the Frank Morgan role of the shop owner.
I've never seen The Strawberry Blonde. It looks like heaps of fun. I've seen all of the other ones you mentioned, LRK, though I would disagree with you about liking the Thin Man sequels better than the first film, solely because the early thirties elegance of Myrna Loy and the debonair William Powell can never be second on any list to me. For one thing, the hairstyles are far superior (well, to me at least). Loy is one of my favorite actresses ever. Trivia point: The young girl in the first Thin Man movie was Maureen O'Sullivan, who was an MGM stalwart and generally played younger sisters. As proof of this, she was also Elizabeth Barrett's younger sister in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, another wonderful film on your list. (Wasn't Charles Laughton terrifying as the father?) Interspersed with those and other films, O'Sullivan also portrayed the best Jane ever, in the best-known Tarzan movies (the ones with Johnny Weissmuller).
Golly, I love old movies.
Let's add three more ensemble comedies to this great vintage list. Two of them both feature Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow as the female stars: Libeled Lady and Wife vs. Secretary. In the former, the male stars were William Powell and Spencer Tracy. In the latter, the male roles were played by Clark Gable and James Stewart. Complete delight for any vintage film buff.
The third vintage group star turn is a lesser-known Cary Grant movie, The Talk of the Town. In it, he and Ronald Colman (try choosing between those two heartthrobs) vie for the attention of Jean Arthur. Better than chocolate!
I've seen In the Good Old Summertime, but I've only seen it once - so far!
I think you'd enjoy The Strawberry Blonde - it's lots of fun! James Cagney keeps declaring that "I'll take nothing from nobody!", gets into fights, and constantly beaten - and you actually believe it! Now, that's acting.
The Barretts on my list is the somewhat "newer" one - from the 50s; I haven't watched the '30s one. But in "my" version the father is played by John Gielgud, and he is truly.... creepy. (Hasty clarification: in this movie, I mean!)
I'd love to watch The Talk of the Town - I don't doubt it's great! And apropos Cary Grant, how could I forget Arsenic and Old Lace - black humour at its best!
And your mention of Ronald Colman reminds me of this excellent adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027075/
"It's a far, far better thing... " Grab your hankie! I actually intend to have this be the version I watch for my Dickens rewatch - I generallly don't go for movies, as they just aren't satisfactory - not long enough; but this is an exception. (ETA I loved this being quoted at the end of TDKR, especially as Gordon pauses, so that I can fill in before he does so: "than I have ever known." It's just... great.)
Whiich reminded me of another great book adaptation - The Scarlet Pimpernel:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025748/
How could I have forgotten?! Leslie Howard - enough said!
Last edited by LRK; 01-16-2013 at 02:05 PM.
Ooh, yes, Leslie Howard as the Pimpernel was splendid. It's one of my favorite movies as well. An immortal if ever there was one. The remake (a very nice TV production with Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and a young Ian McKellen as Chauvelin) was of very high quality, but Leslie Howard could not be equaled. Although I'd say that Seymour in the later version is more appealing than Merle Oberon was in the 1930s one, and of course McKellen is splendid--more emotionally intense than the wonderful Raymond Massey was scripted to be in the 1930s version.
Tale of Two Cities with Colman, Edna May Oliver as the perfect Miss Pross, and all the rest was heartwrenching. Apparently Colman declined to portray both Sidney Carton and Charles Darnay because he had just played a dual role in The Prisoner of Zenda (another one for the swoon list--the best adaptation of that book ever), so they got someone who looked sort of like him as Darnay. Colman was beyond spectacular. Yes, the ending of that film destroys me every time. But then, if I get out the book and turn to the last page and start reading there, I start crying. Just from that page alone. There aren't many better exemplars of "But be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
For Dickens viewing this year, the Colman Tale is a splendid choice. The Hollywood David Copperfield is also good. I think Freddie Bartholomew is one of the the best child actors ever. Again we have the benefit of the outstanding Edna May Oliver, here as Betsey Trotwood. Basil Rathbone (>shudder<) can't be bettered as Mr. Murdstone. I'd hide under the bed to get away from him. And the choice of W.C. Fields to play the extravagant Wilkins Micawber is genius.
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