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December 29 movie: Seven Samurai. I've been watching the Samurai 7 anime series (excellent by the way), but I'm between discs right now, so I watched the original Kurosawa movie on which the anime is based. It's still an amazing movie, so good I almost don't know what to say about it. It's about so many things: first and most obviously, it's the basis for countless war movies. Basically any movie about assembling a team owes a debt to Seven Samurai. But beyond that, it's about individualism, class conflict, changing social structures and outdated moral codes, male friendship, ... what am I missing. A lot, I'm sure.

What I owe to Seven Samurai is that it's the first movie to make me appreciate and really enjoy battle scenes. Before this movie I had trouble following battle sequences, and didn't much like war movies because of it. Seven Samurai showed me how much I was missing. For that I thank it.

December 29 movie: Sabrina. This movie has some flaws, notably the complete lack of chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, but I still love it. It helps to think of Bogart and Hepburn falling in love with freedom -- for her adulthood, for him escape from his corporate life -- rather than with each other. Plus it's great to see William Holden kick back and have fun. Come to think of it, the remake isn't a great movie either but I love it too.

December 30 movie: Shadow of the Thin Man. I think this is the last Thin Man movie. They definitely get weaker as the series goes on. I think it's the son. He's old enough to talk in this movie, and man is he annoying. Plus it creeps me out when Nick calls Nora "Mommy." There is one totally amazing thing at the end: Nora saves the day by flinging herself at a gunman who's threatening Nick, essentially shielding him with her body. Go Nora! The whole movie was worth it for that.

December 30 movie: The Time Machine. I thought I had written this up before but I can't find it. Anyway, I love this movie. It's an adventure story with a scientist hero (Rod Taylor) who hits just the right note of wonder, excitement, and loss as he leaves his whole world behind to explore the future. I understand that it diverges somewhat from the original novel (to my embarrassment, I admit that it's been decades since I read it and I don't remember it that well) but I think it's true to Wells' spirit. Especially the final line: "which three books would you take?"

There's a very nice scene where Taylor is wandering around trying to find someone in an apparently abandoned future world. He starts running, the music swells, and it really is quite tense. Even the flowers and fruit on the trees somehow look menacing. Taylor stops, gasping for breath, apparently giving up. Only then does he hear the Eloi laughing as they frolic in the river. I was thinking that if that scene were done in a movie today, he wouldn't have stopped. He would have kept running and burst in on the Eloi with a crescendo of music. The scene would definitely have had more punch, but I like it this way. It suits the thoughtful pace of the movie.

(In the paragraph above I was going to say, "if this movie were made again today..." but then I remembered that this movie had been made again, a couple of years ago, and it was terrible.)

A day late, and in no particular order, here's a short (an probably incomplete) list of my favorite Christmas movies:

• Holiday Inn. Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby fight over two women whose names I don't remember, and sing and dance their way through Irving Berlin songs for every major holiday, plus a few minor ones. This is deservedly at the top of most holiday movie lists.The origin of the song "White Christmas."

• White Christmas. Sort of a follow-up to Holiday Inn, with Bing Crosby again, Danny Kaye instead of Fred Astaire, and Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen instead of the two women whose names I don't remember. If they could have gotten Fred Astaire this would be the greatest holiday movie ever made.

• The Man Who Came to Dinner. Monty Wooley is a famous "man of letters" and extreme prima donna who falls on the ice and is forced to spend Christmas in the home of an upper-middle class Midwestern family. Also stars Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Jimmy Durante, Billie Burke, Mary Wickes, and some English guy who should have been Noel Coward but wasn't. Very mean-spirited and very, very funny. A bit stagey, but I love the movie so much that I forgive it.

• Christmas in Connecticut. TCM gave this two and a half stars. Are they on crack? When I'm watching this movie, I always think it's my very favorite holiday movie. (But then I think the same thing about every movie listed above.) Barbara Stanwyck stars as the "domestic goddess" author of a famous magazine column about the perfect home life on her farm in Connecticut. Except she's a fraud who isn't married, doesn't like kids, can't cook, and lives in a walk-up apartment in Manhattan. The movie follows her attempts to fool her publisher, Sydney Greenstreet. Also stars S.Z. Sakall, Una O'Connor and Dennis Morgan.

• Since You Went Away. This is an epic war-wife melodrama, not a Christmas movie. But the grand finale happens at Christmas so I guess it counts. I've written about it bunches of times so I'll just say it's perfect if you're feeling sappy around the holidays. Get out the hankie and indulge yourself.

• The Shop Around the Corner. Like Since You Went Away, this isn't a Christmas movie per se. But Slate.com did an article on why it's a better Christmas movie than It's a Wonderful Life and they're right. Slate mentioned the Nora Ephron remake You've Got Mail but forgot the earlier remake, In The Good Old Summertime with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.