Whenever I see "best movies of the year" articles, I think about writing my own. The problem is that I watch so many movies, by the end of the year I could never remember enough of what I've seen to put together a "best of."
So I'm going to try keeping a list of all the movies I've seen this year. It probably would be better to keep it someplace private, so I'm not revealing to the entire world (okay, the tiny tiny segment of the world that reads this thing) just how many bad movies I'll sit through. But I know myself well enough to know that if I keep the list anywhere else, I'll stop keeping it in a week or two. Which might happen anyway, but I've got a better shot at sticking with it if it's here.
Now's the perfect time to start, because I was too busy on the 1st to watch any movies (I think), didn't see any while I was in Staten Island, and have been clearing out the shows on the DVR since we got back. So I think the list will be fairly complete even though I didn't start until today. For now I'm only going to write down movies if I saw the entire film (or close to it).
Jan 7: Monsters Inc. : not a big fan of Billy Crystal or John Goodman, but this was very cute and sweet. Maybe not being able to see the actors helped.
Jan 8: Castle in the Sky : Fantastic. I think now we've seen almost all Miyazaki's films. This seemed like more of a boys' story, unlike say, Kiki's Delivery Service which was all about friendships and had almost no external conflict. This one was a ripping yarn with pirates, chase scenes, airship battles and a lot more death than any of his other films I've seen. Still, the violence is at a distance so it seems less violent than the extremely graphic Princess Mononoke. I think girls would enjoy it just as much as boys, and small children might not even realize that people died in the big battle.
Jan 9: The Great Lie : 1941 melodrama with Bette Davis and George Brent raising Brent's child with Mary Astor. The plot was probably racy at the time, but they soften the whole "unwed mother" thing by having Brent and Astor get married, spend one night together and then find out it wasn't legal. I'll watch just about anything with Bette Davis in it (as Georg will attest) but the highlight of this movie is definitely Mary Astor as a self-centered, bratty concert pianist. I've seen this before, which I guess means I'm going to be writing down movies that I've seen before.
1 Comments
we've seen all of the Miyazaki films released on DVD in the US except "Castle of Cagliostro" which is definitely in the ripping-yarn category. i've read that Disney will be coming out with DVDs of Totoro and Nausicaa this year. other than Nausicaa, the Miyazaki i'm most wanting to see is "Kurenai no buta" (aka Porco Rosso, or Crimson Pig) which seems to be about pigs as WWI-style flying aces. i'm not expecting the Disney version of that anytime soon. of course, all are available on DVD from Japan, but then you have to buy a region-free player...