Writing about my 50 Favorite Films has been the most fun I've had with the blog so far. I have loved watching each of them again and then settling in to some serious contemplation as I take various trips down Memory Lane. I have immensely enjoyed reading the comments some of you have taken the time to write, both pro and con, about my choices.
Here are links to all of my 50 Favorite Films should you want to check them out again or for the first time:
1. Brokeback Mountain
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. Out of Africa
4. The Sound of Music
5. Cabaret
6. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
7. The Boys in the Band
8. The Greatest Show on Earth
9. The Big Country
10. Walk on the Wild Side
11. The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
12. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
13. Titanic
14. A Home at the End of the World
15. To Catch a Thief
16. Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing
17. The Mudge Boy
18. South Pacific
19. L.A. Confidential
20. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
21. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
22. Ordinary People
23. Cross Creek
24. All About Eve
25. Giant
26. The Talented Mr. Ripley
27. Jaws
28. Wilde
29. Laura
30. Gone With the Wind
31. The Last of the Mohicans
32. Home Before Dark
33. Making Love
34. Jeremiah Johnson
35. Leave Her to Heaven
36. Sweet Dreams
37. Savage Grace
38. Breakfast at Tiffany's
39. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
40. East of Eden
41. Maurice
42. A Room With a View
43. The Big Chill
44. This Property Is Condemned
45. Old Yeller
46. A Summer Place
47. My Week With Marilyn
48. The Lion
49. Forbidden
50. Jubilee Trail
Favorites lists for any of us, of course, are arbitrary things. I recently read in The Hollywood Reporter of Tinseltown's own 100 favorites. Hollywood types were polled and THR combined all the answers and came up with the listing. Don't be fooled. This one, too, is as arbitrary as mine or yours or anyone else's.
I've said before that we have favorites for any number of reasons. I am especially drawn to childhood favorites, gay-themes, musicals, westerns, dramas, love stories, thrillers, animal stories, period pieces, most anything British or in Africa or taking place in the American south... and of course, film noir. Some actors will get me into that theater even if I am not so hot on seeing the film itself. Of course, this got even easier when I retired. I think I have also told you that making up the list wasn't nearly as hard as having to leave some films off it. I felt like Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. Oh I'm kidding... I'm kidding.
It's taken me two years to get through the entire 50. In the beginning I did two in a week sometimes and by the last 20 or so, I had slowed it down to one a month. I really didn't want this series to end, but now it has and it begs the question... what next?
It occurred to me that I could do postings on my second favorite 50 movies but it seemed so anti-climactic after already knowing the first 50. I considered I would just now and then discuss some films as I do the actors and directors I write about but that didn't seem quite right either. I think chatting about a bunch of films needs a theme of some sort... I mean, my 50 Favorite Films worked for me.
So what I have come up with is favorite films by decade. I'll discuss 20 or 25 films from the decades of the 1930s to the 1990s but not in order. Well, on second thought, maybe only 10 films from the 1930s. I'm going to start with the 1960s and complete all films from that decade before moving on to another decade. I also intend to report on personalities more associated with each of those decades as well. Nonetheless, I will still intersperse these postings with other things that strike my fancy... or yours.
We'll begin with Friday's posting which I am calling Film-making in the 1960s... a general overview of that decade.
Carlo, we'll get to your Aussie a week from today.
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