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Ozu films continue to amaze me with their quiet realism that melts into hypnotic escape. I can completely forget my life and be lost in the rhythms of his characters, and come through to the other side with a sort of calm resolve, a realization that life is simply what we make of it, day to day, hour by hour. While Late Spring remains my favorite for now, Early Summer is great in different ways, having a more lighthearted tone and a slightly expanded group of characters. I love the concept of Setsuko Hara playing the Noriko character in similar but different iterations, it's almost like Ozu wants to give her different chances at life, different situations and decisions to try on for size, which only makes me wonder about Hara's real life, the way she never married and lived in general seclusion after Ozu died, insisting that she only acted to help her family, but seemed to live dozens of lives so skillfully through her film characters. It's no wonder she continues to fascinate so many years later.

In Early Summer, Noriko has an enviable self-assurance. She lives a harmonious, if sometimes playfully at odds, existence in her full multi-generational household, with her parents, her physician older brother (a bit jarring to see Chishu Ryu in this role though still very patriarchal, after he previously played her father so convincingly despite only a 16 year age difference), and his wife and two sons. While this film feels a little overlong compared to Late Spring, it allows us adequate time to spend with its wider cast of Ozu regulars, learning about details like the other brother who never returned from war, and small plot diversions like the young boys running away from home. It's cute to see Noriko and her single friend gang up to tease their married friends, in general the adults have a lot of playful childish moments in this film. But when her family is inevitably ready to set her up with someone they deem suitable, Noriko maintains a ive agreeability before jumping on a different opportunity with unexpected resolve. It may seem impulsive, but it's clear that she trusts her gut and ultimately knows that the perfect path in life doesn't exist, and stands firm even as her family questions her. Noriko is a character whose circumstances may change, but she is always portrayed by Hara with a nuanced inner life belied by her generally blithe exterior.

One random note, the version TCM aired (criterion?) had subtitles that specify Noriko's having an album of Audrey Hepburn photos at one point. While I would easily compare Setsuko Hara as a Japanese Audrey Hepburn and therefore totally buy her being a fan, this film came out in 1951 and Audrey didn't have her breakthrough until Roman Holiday was released in 1953, so they clearly mean she had an album of Katharine Hepburn photos (audibly I think they just say Hepburn? no first name). Katharine Hepburn being a symbol of a strong, independent woman in many of her films and in life makes much more sense in context, especially as her boss jokingly questions her friend if Noriko isn't actually a lesbian. Not a huge error but really a lesson in how subtitle nuances and context can make a difference in interpretations.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Girls are like "I needed this" and it's just a long walk through the untouched English countryside, reading a good book, meeting up with your bestie at the ball, looking like Keira Knightley, and for a handsome, considerate rich man to propose to you in a field at dawn by declaring "you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love--I love--I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." after secretly arranging favors to your loved ones' benefits and pining for you for a year. Is that too much to ask?

This film felt like a miracle on the big screen. Like genuinely, how does a film that works this well in every aspect come together? It's the kind of daring success that maybe can only come from the likes of a first-time feature director like Joe Wright, with simultaneously nothing and everything at stake. An adaptation of an acclaimed novel from 1813 that feels fresh, the score, the scenery, the visual transitions and long takes and age of time, the cast, the characters so vibrant and alive. I still have yet to read more than a couple chapters of the book so I can't say how faithful it is, but I can't imagine a more captivating filmed adaptation ever being created. There is a balance to this one that contrasts the wit and comedy with beautiful bits of tension and drama, the old-fashioned dialogue somehow feels so naturalistic and not affected despite its contrivance compared to modern speech, and the romance is just utter glorious fantasy. Everybody in my theater was having a great time, chuckling along at the antics of Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins, etc., and I'm pretty sure we were all crying at the penultimate scene with Mr. Bennet and Lizzie. It feels silly to even say Donald Sutherland is so good in this because who in this cast isn't just perfect in their respective roles?

The costumes as well are just dreamy, not to get too in the weeds here but there is a certain earthy-ethereal anthropologie-type style from the 2000s that is so distinctive yet hard to describe, but is so nostalgic to my childhood (and current) taste. You can see it in things like Lizzie's brown floral embroidered shawl and the particular pastels and muted color pairings throughout. Again it might be my particular influences, but I just think this era adds the ideal flavor to these particular period costume stylings, because every period piece is inevitably a style mashup with the era in which it is made, whether consciously or not. Anyway, I watching this for the first time with some family in my grandparents' living room probably around 2007 and being so swept away, and all the years of rewatches since. It's almost so joyful that it can be melancholy crashing back down to reality after, but at the same time, it makes you want to believe in romance and romanticizing life.

A serviceable thriller that kind of requires a lot of suspension of disbelief as far as the stakes go - definitely doesn't seem possible for her husband to be as stuck as he is in the way that he is, but whatever. Barbara can't get enough leverage to free him before high tide on her own, so she ends up using a different sort of leverage: agreeing to go all the way with an escaped convict in order to get him to help her save her husband's life. Sometimes I question the sort of things that get categorized as noir, because this is mostly sunny family vacation-gone-south drama with a splash of darkness, but the darkness comes on hard and fast like the waves crashing into the beach, so I suppose it qualifies. Makes the most of a short runtime.

The best way I can maybe try to describe the tone of this film is like a multigenerational Italian-American Amélie if Amélie was devoutly catholic, but Amélie is one of my very favorite films and watching this film felt more like a mildly traumatizing experience than a positive one. There are some quite dark moments in here, but there’s an overarching lightness of touch that keeps the tragedies firmly rooted in a surreal, darkly comedic energy, hence the comparison. Despite the comedic tone, this did go a bit too far in its darker points for my taste, but sometimes it's odd what does and doesn't pique my sensitivity. I love Dogfight so much that I was hoping Nancy Savoca’s other films would be similarly impactful for me, but so far Dogfight seems to be the anomaly, as True Love and Household Saints share its charmingly unpolished irreverence but lack that ideal formula of heart and earnestness to offset it.

Tracey Ullman, Vincent D’Onofrio and Lili Taylor give good performances (however, I was surprised at how much of the film es before Lili Taylor even s the picture), and the subject matter sounded very appealing on paper, I just didn’t vibe with the often unsettling execution. Growing up in a very religious family, I was gifted books on the lives of the saints, but also many books of fairytales, and in my mind these things held equal weight. I took them both seriously, because it ultimately doesn't seem to matter whether a story is true or fable, it’s about the characters' heroic or moral journey at the core and whether you can identify with them or their struggle. I was hoping Household Saints would resonate like a modern fairytale of sorts, and it felt like it was going there for a time, but unfolded more like a realistic nightmare, leaving me with a pit in my stomach like when you wake up wondering what possessed your subconscious to conjure such random and disturbing scenarios (or at least that seems to happen to me whenever I fall asleep on the couch). My parents surprisingly seemed to like it more than I did, so at least it was a memorable movie choice to wind down on the evening of my birthday, if a conflicting one.

You don't sit around waiting for miracles, because then you come to expect some big announcement to let you know that a miracle's on its way. You miss the point. Life's miracles sneak up on you. They can come from nowhere, from the simplest things.

This is a suburban nightmare noir, where an ordinary guy decides seemingly out of the blue to act out his intrusive thoughts and commit an extraordinary crime. The redeeming factor is that it manages to come full circle in a satisfying way, but the tension gets pretty unbearable at points. Teresa Wright is her usual sensitive yet strong perfection, and Joseph Cotten is always great at these regular guy gone temporarily insane but you're still kind of rooting for him roles. While it's a good film, it's not the most fun watch, I think Eddie Muller summed it up well in his noir alley outro, lol:

"It’s bad enough that Jim Osborne decides to become a thief, but the worst part is that his scheme turns him into a jerk, one of those insufferably rude guys you wanna punch in the face for thinking they’re entitled to cut in line and inconvenience everybody."

Bumping up to 5 stars because I'm my mother's daughter, what can I say. The songs are classic. Tevye is an icon. His suddenly teleporting yards away from where he was to talk to God is peak comedy every time, the cinematography in this is simultaneously so early 1970s and so timelessly genius.

Such a weird but compelling film! A sunny, springtime cozy mystery. You could draw a direct line from Robert Montgomery's amiable sociopath Danny to Mark in Peeping Tom, or even to Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. Bob Montgomery is very good playing a bit against type here, it's easy to forget it's even him with the Irish accent, still charming but with shades of darkness, a bit off-kilter and too upbeat. Rosalind Russell is also great opposite him, sympathetic and demure, falling for his charms while seeing through his deception. Love the morbidity of the heavy, locked hatbox. Dame May Whitty and her cook and daffy young maid round out the cast of this comedic thriller that originated as a play, like a less chaotic Arsenic and Old Lace.

You need a cup of my java

I'm not convinced this has aged well, a lot of 1980s humor in particular feels in poor taste according to current sensibilities and this is a relic mostly redeemable for fans of classic noir. Being a noir devotee, I found it decently entertaining, some of the sexist humor can at least read as satire though it still leans a bit gross. The main appeal of the film is undoubtedly the seamless editing between old Hollywood clips and the new ones that make up the film. It's impressive that they were able to create a semi-cohesive narrative, especially without digital technology of the present to ease the process. Probably helped by its not being too far removed from the era it pays homage to, the film still has an authentic feel and Steve Martin does have an old timey detective quality that meshes well with the classic actors and actresses he plays off of, even being as hammy as he is. Rachel Ward is a fun femme fatale. I loved recognizing the various films featured, but it does feel like a second rate hodgepodge, little more than a feature-length Saturday Night Live bit.

"At least we got Terre Haute!"
"Damn...and they were just about to get a public library."

Just so fun to see three of my faves, Bogart, Joel McCrea, and Sylvia Sidney all together. Amazing NYC part-gentrified part-slum neighborhood set design on par with the likes of Rear Window's faux apartment block. The Dead End kids remind me of some of the groups of neighborhood kids that frequent the library I work at, endearing yet prone to manipulation, mischief and fighting because they're conditioned that way. Just have to hope they get enough good influences and second chances to grow out of it, but it's a tough world out there when you're not dealt a privileged hand.

Pretty formulaic William Powell/Frank McHugh as jovial partners-in-crime fare, except this one is not very funny or good, I've already forgotten most of what happens. I'm not much of a Bette Davis fan but even I feel she's underutilized here. The main fun of it is the Busby Berkeley bits and the outfits, of course, especially an inventive series of riffs on long-past fashion eras, with models behind layers of semi-transparent curtains painted with the historic inspiration that pull away to reveal the modernized gown.

Sort of finally watched this on accident because I was tired on a Saturday afternoon after a family event and it was on TCM, but I did miss the first like 40 mins. But it's so long I'm counting it anyway. This movie feels like Blake Edwards saw Sex and the Single Girl and was immediately like okay yes let's riff on that extended car chase sequence but add Jack Lemmon instead of mentioning him every five minutes, and let's take it up to cartoon levels of camp. (Blake Edwards and Richard Quine have almost interchangeable filmographies in my mind) And it's a little too much, frankly, but it's very fun. Natalie Wood is so hilarious, her style of comedy is like a precursor to Madeline Kahn which is interesting because they're only a few years apart in age but Kahn got her start much later. And Peter Falk and Jack Lemmon together are so diabolically silly, they're basically Waluigi and Wario or like that Sonic the Hedgehog villain Dr. Eggman between the giant mustache and crazy hydraulic car.

They’re not talking…don’t you what happened with the provolone??

I really would like to know the story of what happened with the provolone, but I digress. This is a somewhat endearing, somewhat annoying indie '80s New York Italian-American slice of life dramedy. What it has going for it is a unique point of view: what if we explore the lead up to a wedding between two people who have chemistry, who care about each other, but maybe aren't ready for marriage, not meant to last. And then it says idk, what if they figure it out? What if they make it work? And then it says nah f that, this guy isn't gonna change and this gal isn't gonna put up with his shit, nor should she. And then it's like damn...Anyway. Best wishes for the couple. And you can truly see it going either way, they can decide to stick it out and just end up one of those couples that's constantly annoyed with each other and yelling yet they do have an oddly genuine love, or they could be headed straight for a divorce. Ron Eldard has a too-pretty, punchable face like Alain Delon and Annabella Sciorra is great, but it's overall a pretty cynical movie in a way that I didn't quite enjoy.

Makes so much sense that this film is the bridge between Sabotage and the Lady Vanishes. Certainly a lesser Hitchcock, but personally I really found this one romantic, funny, and overall well done. Very similar to 39 Steps of course but Hitch also takes a similar mystery/romcom formula for The Lady Vanishes the next year and does it in a much more cohesive manner, perhaps thanks to the constraint of the more limited mostly-train set, but I was nearly just as invested in these characters and that's saying a lot because I adore Gilbert and Iris in TLV. Add clever Erica with her cute dog and rundown car and sweetly charming and witty Robert (or should I say Beachcroft Manningtree/Beachtree Manningcroft) to my fave movie couples list.

Nova Pilbeam, young and sweet, only seventeen. The adventure plays out like a fairytale/heroes journey of strange obstacles and side quests, which is often my favorite format of film when the characters are solid. It does have an egregiously extensive scene involving a jazz band in really ugly blackface, which is unfortunate, but it does sort of factor into the concealment of a person's identity so idk. Product of another time and all that. My only question is did the dog make it????

Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray are a wonderful matchup, they both have such an earthy quality and natural acting style that they're perfectly believable as a working-class couple just getting by. I dread when movies involve the death of a child, but the way they mull through their relationship struggles over the course of an after-hours couples therapy session with their divorce court judge is a compelling framing for the story, despite being an odd setup that would only happen in a movie. Overall, this feels like a uniquely realist film for Hollywood of the 50s, showing a more balanced and unglamorous side of marriage and domestic life, and what can transpire when two people get married when they barely know each other, or themselves, and have to figure things out along the way, which was much more common at that time.

Side note of some fun minor connections: my grandmother's name was Florence, she got married in 1951, and I have a ballet dancer print that was hers that looks the same as the one Judy's Florence has hanging on her living room wall.

I'm Nick...the chauffeur.

One of my new favorite lines in all of cinema. It's ridiculous how funny that moment is, the zoom in, Barbara's shocked gasp, like why is it so dramatic?? Clark Gable as Nick, the Chauffeur is a top tier movie villain that we really aren't talking about enough. With two of my fave gals, Stany and Joan Blondell as nurse buddies getting up to antics and investigating strange happenings and ethical dilemmas and making romantic criminal connections, this is really a classic of the pre-code era. For all the melodramatic jazz-age debaucherous romps thrown together in these early years of talkies that are often half-shimmer and half-slog, this movie is genuinely engaging in a way that doesn't feel cheap, and definitely dips quite dark at points.

Picasso said, "It takes a long time to become young." Jacques is a child who grew up without forgetting his childhood.

This documentary is such a love letter to Jacques Demy, cinema, and the joie de vivre. Agnes!!! What a sweet and talented pair they were. I imagine heaven is like a Jacques Demy film, his movies make me feel like life really is beautiful even with all the shit we have to deal with day to day. His films truly are what movie magic is all about. Comedy, drama, music, serendipity, absurdity, fate, grief, joy. Even his black and white films radiate a sense of vibrancy and color. The ending made me emotional.

When Demy died, I said, "Damn! Now I have to grow up!" But no, because with his films we reclaim our childhood.

Well, anchors aweigh and have a bon voyage.

This movie never gets old. I'm convinced it could outlive civilization as we know it and still be funny to tardigrades and space dust. Jack Lemmon is funny as a woman, a man, and everything in between, his humor and sexuality truly know no bounds.

*sadly shaking maracas* I'll never find a man who's as good to me.

Marilyn Monroe is practically a work of fiction, she's so miraculously poured into whatever slinky backless (/ half frontless) dress or pajama she wears.

Josephine, just imagine - me, Sugar Kowalczyk from Sandusky, Ohio, on a millionaire's yacht!

The plot is comedy perfection. The premise is surprisingly plausible, nothing like being witnesses to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and fearing for their lives to motivate two guys to go on the run from the mob in drag, you really can't fault that logic.

He couldn' make it, on 'a his bein rubbed out.

The fact that they get away with it as long as they do, looking the way that they do, and attract unwanted male attention on top of it is the peak of the comedy.

I'm not even pretty!

That this culminates in a series of events that seems practically impossible to tie up neatly, where many simpler movies have fumbled, but then sticks the landing in a matter of minutes with a handful of hilariously simple lines is the genius of it. Nobody's perfect...but Some Like It Hot is pretty close.

Quickly remedied my lacking Deanna Durbin film experience watching two in one night. I love the family at the center of this film - Deanna and her sisters have such an adorable and funny dynamic, Ann Gillis as the youngest sister is especially hilarious. Robert Benchley as the dad is his usual funny self with a surprisingly affecting talent for the more serious scenes as well, with a great relationship of mutual respect and humor with his daughters.

Franchot Tone is definitely a smug twerp in this, kind of an oddly wholesome player since he allows Deanna to seduce him without actually letting her get anywhere. His sister has the 1940s version of the Clueless closet though, damn, I'd want to play dress up in her fancy pajama jumpsuit too. And Robert Stack as Deanna's boy-next-door beau perpetually messing with his car rounds out the classic small-town cast, their relationship reminiscent of Buddy Rogers and Clara Bow in Wings (1927). They even retain both the US and UK endings so you can see Ms. Durbin sing alternating patriotic songs to close it out.

Don't worry Jenny it's platonic, he wants her for his father.

Had TCM on in the background while I was doing something else and this movie came on and ended up being so fun that it distracted me into watching it. My cousin's husband (hi Harry if you see this) found out from his aunt that they may be distantly related to Charles Laughton, so now referring to him as Uncle Chuck is a running joke. So anyway, good ol Uncle Chuck is great in this, he hilariously plays a man 20-30 years older on his deathbed with the help of some old age makeup, which adds a lot of humor watching him scurry around and dance with an unexpected spryness once he recovers.

Deanna Durbin, who I've only seen in one other film, is also delightful. Nowadays she seems to be a lesser known star of the classic Hollywood era, but it's not hard to believe she once had the world's largest fanclub in her heyday when you've seen her in action. Her natural spirited self-assuredness, comedic timing, and classic beauty, not to mention her singing talent, add up to a very charming package. She and Robert Cummings have a fun antagonistic chemistry, and she and Charles Laughton are a riot together, making a sweet and funny lightly screwball-ish comedy.

Cute movie, but definitely as cheesy as you would expect. I haven’t seen the more well-known 1994 remake, and didn’t realize it was a remake until I caught this on TCM. Cool that they used real Pirates players of the time and shot at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. My dad’s parents grew up in the Pittsburgh area and according to my dad, my grandmother worked concessions at Forbes Field one summer when she was a teen, which would have been right around the time this film was shot. I’m kind of obsessed with Janet Leigh’s haircut in this, it really suits her.

Very interesting that this was initially a radio play- you can really hear its audio-only origins in so much of the script, yet the film makes pointed use of its visuals, languidly panning around rooms, across furniture and out windows to offer unspoken details about scenes and characters while conversations continue in the background. It feels like an illustration of the way your mind might wander as you listened to the radio, piecing together images with unfocused gaze while washing dishes, immersed in the dialogue and story.

I do think Barbara is impressive here. The first time I watched it I was a bit frayed by her sustained dramatics, but she really sells her neurotic and increasingly stressed character with razor sharp chops. Babs playing a rich woman who marries a man of humble prospects with the intent to use her wealth and connections to make her husband great is practically its own subset of the Barbara Stanwyck cinematic universe. It’s a part she embodies well, game as she is for a subversive dynamic, with the husband usually feeling inadequate in his unearned place of power despite the unwavering of his wife, who of course has actually orchestrated the of his success.

The end feels like we’re plopped back in our kitchen listening to the radio play on the edge of our chair, our dishwashing long since abandoned as we’ve become wholly enraptured, leaving us abruptly with the titular line delivery that stings like a slap in the face, but like, a really campy, oddly satisfying slap in the face.

There’s something about the three main male love interests of this film being Christopher Guest, Eli Wallach, and Bob Balaban that just screams “directed by a woman” to me (complimentary). I can elaborate but I shouldn’t need to. I love Melanie Mayron, I was taken with her in Car Wash and I’m taken with her here in a very different way, she contains multitudes. I don’t have any particularly strong feelings toward this movie, but I liked it, it definitely captures a relatable season of life (wallowing in a milieu of stagnation and precariously evolving relationships while still trying to take small meaningful steps forward) in a gently frustrating way with an easy sense of masochistic humor.

That Ziegfeld guy sounds like a piece of work. William Powell's charm makes him amusing and tolerable, but I can't say he's likable. The opulence though! There are some truly jaw-dropping sets and costumes in this 3-hour Depression-era best picture winning barely-a-biopic, and allegedly about 50 pounds of silver sequins. Luise Rainer gives a somewhat affecting performance, and Myrna Loy is a small breath of fresh air two thirds of the way into the proceedings, although I think my favorite part was what I'll call the Borzoi Ballet in which Harriet Hoctor (in knee-high pointe shoe boots) and a host of other ballet dancers skillfully twirl and hop between and around 6 very well-trained dogs. Can't escape blackface in a film about the vaudeville era, and it's really too boring and too bloated to have any legs to stand on story-wise, but it was somewhat worth watching for the spectacle of it all, in that sense it is spectacular.

You start cryin' now over every little thing, you gonna be crying for the rest of your life.

Maya Cade, in a lovely intro/outro interview with Jacqueline Stewart on TCM for their Black Women Independents film programming this month, says Naked Acts director Bridgett M. Davis’s gift is translating grief into truth. And that's the buried lede of this film: yes it's about main character Cicely's distaste with her mother's acting legacy and her own reticence to ever take her clothes off for a role, but it's not really about said "naked acts" of the title: rather, it's about processing the trauma and grief and cultural baggage that Cicely is holding in her body, from her own experiences, and those of her mother and her grandmother and her ideas of what it means to be a woman and specifically a Black woman in society and in art and entertainment.

While the plot involves the making of many stereotypically exploitative films, from "Lydia Love" and her blaxploitation flicks of the '70s, to rehearsals for an indie film about an artist and his models, Naked Acts itself is a masterclass in how to include nudity in a sensitive and non-exploitative manner that only serves to juxtapose and illustrate the evolution of Cicely's history of body trauma and her grappling with transformation, attention, and becoming visible.

There's even some delicious subversion in the love scenes between Cicely (Jake-Ann Jones) and Joel (Ron Cephas Jones), as she initially insists on keeping her clothes on while he strips. Their relationship feels genuine, though despite their history and all that she shares with him, he still ultimately doesn't understand the extent of her reservations when it comes to her body. Even her female colleagues and friends don't fully understand, though they all try to help liberate her from her hang-ups, some more ill-intentioned than others. And despite being assured left and right that it shouldn't be a big deal, Cicely is adamant: why is her body owed to anyone but herself?

As far as the visuals of the film, it's a 90's indie landscape of artsy city textures, colors, and layers. Tasteful neon pops stand out against soft neutrals, the wardrobe is perfectly bohemian, and Jake-Ann Jones has so many fun wigs. I love that she was also the casting director under a pseudonym, because her fellow characters are perfectly suited to their roles. Some of the elements in isolation feel understandably amateur, but the overall substance comes together as a remarkable film for how obscure it remains, having under 900 views on Letterboxd as I write this review, though I realize it has only recently been restored and re-released through partnership with Maya Cade's blackfilmarchive.com. Highly recommend this as an essential piece of Black filmmaking that deserves to catch up with the likes of Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman. A story with plenty of humor and heart, packed with growth, renewal, and a gut punch of a scene near the end.

Despite my inevitable fondness for this film since these songs are all embedded in my psyche from childhood because of my mom constantly singing them from her childhood, I still can't bring myself to truly like My Fair Lady. It doesn't work as a romance (though my mom and her nostalgia would disagree), it's too overlong with too many very loosely related songs to actually feel like a musical you'd want to watch again and again, despite the songs being all very good, and the treatment of Eliza's character is just downright painful to watch at times. That being said, this viewing might be my most sympathetic yet, likely helped by the fact that my mom and I watched it in three parts (it really is overlong, and I apologize because this review is about to match).

For one thing, I paid a bit more attention to the decadent art direction this time around. My favorite details were the fact that every surface of Professor Higgins' home is absolutely covered in William Morris patterns, and the opening scene at the races where everyone is singing while frozen in tableaux of lavish black & white costuming. Mrs. Higgins' home is also delightful in powder blue and cool pastels. And when you're paying attention, much of the film does skewer Higgins and men in general, being so oblivious in his songs of self-praise that the irony in the lyrics is clear. In this sense, Rex Harrison is brilliant for the role, lending a perfectly pompous camp to an irredeemably insufferable character. However, he's still insufferable, even with lines so rude they're delightful, casually firing off inventive insults like "Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf!" or "Don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon."

Because of his obliviousness to how psychologically and emotionally abusive he is to her, maybe there is a certain romantic victory in Henry Higgins' painfully realized and eventually itted affection for Eliza, but the affection does not feel remotely romantic, only like a selfish codependency. While it may be true that Freddy has little to offer Eliza except iration, at least he seems to worship her, and it's sweet that she was amenable to the idea of working to him as her himbo husband, because a working-class life is all she knew. If Freddy's devotion was honest, at the least it would be a more modern sort of love than the fate of being little more than housekeeper to a man decades her senior. And of all the injustices being done to Audrey Hepburn in her nuanced embodiment of Eliza, the operatic dubbed voice takes me out of the character every time (no offense to Marni Nixon). Her own singing throughout would have been perfectly suited and I can't forgive them for it. Nonetheless, Without You is an excellent diss track for our despicable Professor H even as I Could Have Danced All Night is an all-time wistful romantic interlude, and my feelings toward this film remain similarly complicated.

A little sun on my hair and you had to water your neck.

Stany really is the kind of woman who makes whole civilizations topple. You can smell a Billy Wilder script a mile away with dialogue this loaded with gems. My parents and I couldn't peel our eyes away once we put this on, it's been a while and I forgot just how much of a ball Ball of Fire really is. Kind of crazy this and The Lady Eve came out the same year because they're both iconic roles for Barbara at the top of her game with a lot of similarities, but of course Preston Sturges has a bit more madcap, less sentimental style than Hawks, not that Hawks is overly sentimental, but I think he strikes a better balance of rough and tumble antics and romantic attitudes and giving each breathing room to hit right.

The old professors in this both add a lot of comedy and ground the film with an odd wholesomeness owing to the Snow White inspiration of it all. This is far from my fave Dana Andrews role but still he adds to a cast of fun familiar faces, and Joe Lilac is an all-timer of a character name in a film full of excellent character names. It is up there as a fave for Gary Cooper because I often have a hard time taking his personality seriously in other roles. And I'm a simple gal, I love some sparkly Edith Head outfits.

Watched on Thursday March 13, 2025.

Great gowns. beautiful gowns.

/end of review. Jk...this movie has some okay moments, but for all the political/social/relationship messages it tries to weave through the plot, it all just says a lot of nothing? Apparently it's a screen-sanitized adaptation of a somewhat controversial novel. Some of the satire hits, it's definitely watchable, Barbara is great as always, I don't think I like Van Heflin all that much, and ultimately their characters are not without chemistry but definitely a very confusing match who seem to get together and stay together for all the wrong reasons.

You had everything going for you...poverty, squalor! There was only one way for you to go: up.

Not quite as much fun as Pillow Talk, especially since the general plot formula is nearly identical and I think it was done better the first time, although Lover Come Back earns a few bonus points for the Canada interlude and resulting beards, plus the addition of Jack Kruschen. But then again, I'm learning it's impossible not to have fun with the quintessentially midcentury Doris Day-Rock Hudson-Tony Randall romcom formula, this time in an ad-agency setting that feels all the more perfect for satirizing the corporate and sex politics of the era in the post-Mad Men age. As usual Tony Randall delivers some of my favorite lines in this, and as usual, the plot is based on a mix-up that wouldn't last a minute if they had google/the internet. This one ends especially wildly.

On international women's day of course I had to watch a Barbara Stanwyck flick. Unfortunately, this one is rather boring besides her presence providing the needed freshness. The general old money/new money class dynamics feel like a dated relic, and I wasn't really captivated by all that drama, but I do think the ending perked the film up a bit. Also the term "horsey set" referring to people who have an interest in horses used in some descriptions of the film is just funny.

Don't you feel when spring comes that the world is yours just for the asking? That there's nothing that you couldn't be?

I love Ingrid and do generally like Leslie Howard as well but this movie was not much of a "love story." Their affair feels sort of empty and ionless even though it's meant to be born out of their mutual ion for music (it's a bit impossible to call any Ingrid Bergman role ionless, their chemistry just felt very shallow). His character seems to have a happy enough family life to the point that the affair feels rather unearned, a small blip of irresponsibility, excitement that just happens to present itself...but I suppose that ties back to the title theme: a simple intermezzo between more important pursuits in each of their lives. Also, I know I pay way too much attention to the bizarre doors in old Hollywood films, but I would be remiss not to mention that this one had some majorly distracting, extra-thick, fancy sculptural chocolate-bar-esque wooden doors. A lightly charming yet forgettable film, but at least it introduced an unforgettable actress to American screens.

This is a cute and funny little short film and I kind of love that this won an Oscar. My grandfather was stationed as an army doctor in the South Pacific (Papua New Guinea) around the time this short was filmed, and I have no idea if they filmed any of it on location but the scenery looks remarkably similar to my grandfather's photos from that time, even down to the wooden supply crate used as a desk.

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

This review may contain spoilers.

This movie is so infuriating, I've definitely seen it at least 3 or 4 times and I need to make a pact to never watch it again. Girlfriend has her standards on the floor. I don't care if he's Cary Grant, he's pathologically unemployable and a liar, calls you "monkeyface" exclusively, gambles away all his money, pawns your antique family heirlooms and you're just relieved he didn't murder his best friend. Leave him, the end.

I was visiting my cousin and her husband for the weekend and somehow this of all movies is what we chose to watch together, and somehow it was the perfect choice. We will now unfortunately be quoting Alec Baldwin's hilariously toxic and aggressive monologue till the end of time.

Fuck you, that's my name! You know why, mister? Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an $80,000 BMW. THAT'S my name!

But forreal, this workplace is hell lol. When he said "You don't like it, leave." I would have been out of there so fast, no regrets. Talking like scamming people into crummy real estate investments is God's work when it's just pathetic. The movie is well-acted with a stacked cast, and it's reference gold, but like wtf were we on in the 80s/90s that this was a smash hit? Insane amounts of profanity and verbal/psychological abuse in a professional setting, ~The Leads~, buckets of rain, the saddest little gray box of an office building ever put to film...it's definitely not a movie I would describe as fun or even interesting, because the whole plot is like a giant MacGuffin, but it is pretty entertaining in a -this is insanity- sort of way. Anyway, happy belated 100th bday to Jack Lemmon whom I adore even in his later years of sleazy old man roles. ALWAYS BE CLOSING.

Leslie Caron in her Madeline outfit, dizzying cinemascope panoramas, Louis Jourdan with the most Be Our Guest energy (disney definitely took heavy inspo for Beauty & the Beast), Maurice Chevalier with cattail-appliquéd-coattails. Tell me why I thought this was horrendously creepy the first time I watched it but this time thought it was a gentle delight?? I don't know, there's definitely some weird and problematic bits but overall this felt much more sweet and romantic this time around. I definitely only saw half of it in the past so maybe that colored my judgement, but Gigi really is a beautifully filmed, cute musical film if you don't get too fixated on Gigi being a "little girl," which she really isn't, or at least it helps to keep in mind that Leslie Caron is 27 here and Louis Jourdan is just 10 years older. Its one real sin is that we don't get any dance sequences, ballet or otherwise, for Leslie Caron to show off.

I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but I a woman's right to avenge the wrongful death of her true love, especially when that woman is Jeanne Moreau. A movie about men being dumb and Jeanne Moreau being so alluring that her victims walk right into her traps and practically murder themselves, so is she even really guilty?

To be a little more serious though, despite the fairly lighthearted handling of the murderous material, Jeanne's character's gradually revealed motivation/backstory is what gives this film enough weight to transcend from campy Hitchcockian homage to artful new wave exploration of misogyny and gray morality. (Although Truffaut, having just published extensive interviews with Hitch and borrowing his composer plus source material from Cornell Woolrich, is set up to be the most qualified to ever make such an homage.) The Bride Wore Black is simultaneously dark fun and so tragically romantic and sad that it might break your heart into pieces. Great for Valentine's season?

This film feels really unique amongst American pictures of its time at least, it almost has a neorealist or documentary vibe with the location shoots of postwar Berlin in all its bombed-out spareness. Marlene Dietrich, despite her glamour, seems to fit this amoral wasteland of underground nightclubs and going on with life amongst rubble and destruction. Jean Arthur, whom I normally love, simply doesn’t belong to this setting one bit, and though that is very intentional in the film, it ultimately feels like there’s two separate ideas here that never seem to mesh - a sort of half-hearted romantic comedy storyline floated overtop a more bitter satire of war and US government and muddled foreign affairs.

You can tell Billy Wilder loves Marlene, and she steals the film, absolutely mesmerizing whenever she’s onscreen. What a woman. I do feel bad for Jean, because s are that she felt neglected on set in comparison, but she plays a sort of role that worked 1000% better for me in The More the Merrier, and in this instance she does look a bit silly doing the sheltered, uptight bit opposite the worldly Marlene. Only Billy Wilder could make filibustering sexy, though, and Jean filibustering to avoid romantic advances was quite funny. Of course, gotta hate when you have to ask your lover “how much of a nazi were you anyways?” after you see a film reel of her canoodling with Hitler.

While there was a touchingly bitter beauty to chunks of the film, it didn’t quite succeed for me as a complete story the way so many of Wilder’s other films do. I must, however, commend a film of the 1940s having a genuine romance plot with two beautiful, independent women in their mid-40s and a younger man. Also, I bet Billy Wilder put some zingers in the German dialogue that us non-German speakers will just never get to appreciate.

Ruth Roman was allegedly not a fan of westerns (even though she kept getting cast in them)...me neither, girl. She spends a good chunk of the film unconscious, and even though she's on the run from her own prison sentence, charges left ambiguous, her character isn't given much agency or depth. But if I woke up from a comatose state to Dane Clark gently stroking my hair, I'd probably fall in love with him on the spot too. I'm pretty much only watching this for him, though I always like Ruth. No offense to his character but bro really ran away from a single year of prison, like at that point just do the time and move on with your life, it sounds simpler than all this. Anyway, some interesting performances here, it is in technicolor, but it's kind of a strange adaptation of Jack London's novel The Sea Wolf and ultimately feels disted and lackluster.

I’ll bring you back a handful of ocean spray...

There's really nothing like a pre-code melodramatic romance film. Ann Harding is a unique actress who can really sell a certain alluringly mature cynicism masking a romantic heart. I do find Robert Young charming so even though this has its flaws, it mostly worked for me. His rogue boyishness and her world-weariness made for an interesting opposites-attract dynamic. Plus her playing a renowned plastic surgeon was really unusual and interesting. Even though theirs is ultimately too mismatched a romance, Bobby setting up the train station attendants to hand him 6 bouquets spaced out to keep ing to Ann every 15 feet as her train pulled away had me melting, and it ultimately has a happy ending in its own way.

Love that this was made by my local PBS station. Lovely little short dance documentary in which Martha Graham narrates poetic wisdom and shows off her company dancers, a reasonably diverse group for 1957, and all very talented. The Martha Graham style is so beautifully controlled, I've taken a couple Graham style classes and there's so much core needed to do those Graham contractions. Felt very familiar as it's clear how much influence Graham's philosophy had on my own dance instructor, and thereby on me as well. I don't know who I'd be without dance, ballet, the discipline of it and the joy of it, and for now and hopefully for a long time I don't have to know, because it's still an essential part of my life.

The dancer is realistic. His craft teaches him to be. Either the foot is pointed or it is not. No amount of dreaming will point it for you. This requires discipline, not drill. Not something imposed without, but discipline imposed by you, yourself, upon yourself. Your goal is freedom. But freedom may only be achieved through discipline. In the studio, you learn to conform, to submit yourself to the demands of your craft - so that you may finally be free.

"KOMOREBI" is the Japanese word for the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, at that moment.

A beautiful film about the art of seeing. Really seeing. Seeing people, seeing places, seeing light and shadow and tiny seedlings and the way the sun filters through tree leaves or reflects on tall buildings. Hirayama is a man who has learned to cultivate the art of seeing in a world that has largely lost this skill. The fact that he so intentionally structures his days to allow for contemplative moments, to allow time to notice details, to select the right song to fit the moment and the mood of the day and to immerse oneself in a sensory experience, to read a age of a book before he goes to sleep and to dream about all these details he has observed over the course of a day, to fully absorb and digest and synthesize the mundane so that every day and every detail becomes important, magnified, this intentionality is a character element that reveals so much about an otherwise mysterious and quiet man.

I'm reading Days at the Morisaki Bookshop at the moment, and at one point it includes this quote from another book, Landscapes of the Heart by Motojirō Kajii:
“The act of seeing is no small thing. To see something is to be possessed by it. Sometimes it carries off a part of you, sometimes it’s your whole soul.”

Director Wim Wenders discusses the backstory he wrote for Hirayama in an interview included on the criterion special features, but even without knowing details, this character expertly portrayed by Koji Yakusho tells a deeply layered story. Yes, he is a man who seems to have achieved a level of zen and fulfillment that most of us can only dream of, but he is also human, is capable of having his carefully cultivated peace disturbed, but most of all, clearly has lived enough of another sort of life to have realized just how precious and valuable it is to be able to be intentional, slow, methodical, thorough, thoughtful, consistent. To live simply, to do only what is essential and not worry about anything else. To allow one's soul to be possessed by tiny moments of beauty in a fast-paced world.

To get a bit more personal, this film reminds me of the couple years of my life I spent working in and co-managing a local coffeeshop. The best advice I ever got, regarding how to be a good barista (and I think this can apply to most things), was to really approach every drink as a chance to make the best drink possible, to not let orders blur together and get apathetic or sloppy. I was especially interested in getting good at latte art, so I never wanted to waste the opportunity to practice, and I never wanted someone to come in for a pick-me-up during their day, whether it was going really well or really badly, and pay hard earned money for a drink that wasn't good. Don't get me wrong, I'm a person who values efficiency, so I was still going to give the speediest service I could, but I really put intention into every beverage I made, though maybe sometimes that quality suffered during busy days or hectic events. I worked many shifts alone that also included opening or closing (and yes, cleaning toilets) and in a way that time of my life felt like this movie. Putting just the right songs on my cafe playlist to zone in on while washing the dishes or dance to while sweeping the floor, having small meaningful encounters with strangers and regulars, taking a photo of the early morning sunlight filtering through the steam rising from a fresh espresso shot.

Working so many mostly solo shifts at the coffeeshop was hard, and now that I'm a public librarian and I'm often pulled in many different directions helping many different people with many little tasks, I really appreciate having coworkers always available for . However, there was a stillness in those cafe days that I sometimes miss, pockets of time when no one was around, and an ability to tune my brain into a sort of zen mode while doing strictly manual tasks. Doing a simple job well. Being an essential part of your community.

The pace of Hirayama's routine is inspiring. Not hectic, not overstuffed. It’s so easy to be overstuffed nowadays. It’s almost like I punish myself for not doing enough by always trying to do one more thing in a day...but in doing so, losing sight of the essentials in favor of the nonessentials. It’s a bit silly, but I got a roll of film developed recently and the pictures came out with such depth and thoughtfulness compared to digital that it almost made me want to give up taking thousands of photos on my phone and only carry an analog camera. Anyway, I think I loved the part where his niece came to visit the most. She may have been young, but she had the gift of seeing. She recognized that her uncle's priorities were in the right place, even if her own mother would disagree. There's hope for all of us in this loud, hectic, confusing, still beautiful world.

I love revisiting films, but I have to say it's always a bit of a bummer when a rewatch prompts me to bump my initial appraisal down a notch or two. This film is one where the shock factor of the initial viewing definitely works in its favor, and while it's still very well-constructed, when there's no doubt in your mind what's going to happen it just doesn't hit as hard. Sylvia Sidney owns this film though, she has such an earnest and heartbreaking way of conveying everything you need to know about what her character is thinking, just through her face and eyes. Her very British little brother and that tiny dog on the bus...Hitch, you monster. Still thoroughly enjoyed this, it just didn't quite need that extra half-star I'd awarded it the first time around.

Hold it…you’re liable to hit a taxpayer.

Dane Clark in glasses as a hot mortician?? I'm sold. This takes a wild turn at the end that I honestly wasn't expecting, but once I recovered from being like what the heck is happening, I was really into it. In general this has a very murky and unexpected mystery plot that keeps up the intrigue. The atmosphere is offbeat from the beginning, with some really striking musical scoring...a little overpowering and dissonant at points, kind of makes you feel like you’re going crazy, like two tracks playing at once slightly off. Could be TCM had a weird copy of it but in a way it made sense for the film, if a bit distracting. Could’ve done without the obviously not Chinese caricature Mr. Quong.

I was trying to place what felt familiar about Gordon MacRae, and realized he looks a little like Marcello Hernandez from SNL, they both seem to specialize in what I can only describe as an intensely deadpan facial expression. This also vaguely qualifies as a Christmas noir. Anyway, I was a little surprised to see this is so low rated because I had a ton of fun with it but I do tend to have odd taste sometimes, and Dane Clark having a significant role in this definitely bolstered my enjoyment.

This Dick Powell is much more palatable for me than musical Dick Powell, whom I find a little insufferable. He does a fine job as the wisecracking Philip Marlowe, though of course I prefer Bogie in The Big Sleep. Murder, My Sweet is a pretty solid noir with just about all of the genre's style hallmarks going for it, and some fun and unusual hallucination visuals, but something about it doesn’t fully connect and it’s already fading from my memory like the blackout smudging over Marlowe’s consciousness after he gets pistol-whipped in the face. I'm coveting that big puffy seashell couch, though.

Kind of tonally weird, but that's how I often find Fritz Lang pictures to be, even though I generally enjoy his work. Can't quite decide if it's a romantic melodrama or a lighthearted crime musical, or a message movie? Regardless, Sylvia Sidney easily wins me over in anything and she and George Raft have a wholesome friends to lovers relationship here that can't help but melt your heart. Love her landlady too, similar character to Mrs. Dreyfuss in The Apartment. Sylvia writing an impromptu expense report for the hit job to illustrate that crime doesn’t pay on a chalkboard in the middle of the toy department was pretty funny. Why does this have practically the same ending as Merrily We Go To Hell though?

The big shots aren’t little crooks like you. They’re politicians.

Okay but opening this movie with Robert Montgomery with messy hair and 5 o'clock shadow in a robe really clouded my judgement for his character the rest of the film, gave him some real hot points missing from his usual clean-shaven and slicked back look. I was like Carole honey...take him back. Lombard is always radiant. The outfits! Hitchcock knew what he was doing here with two beautiful people and some deft, cheeky skirting of production code morals.

Think I’ve been watching a few too many movies from the 30s/40s lately because every time a new actor entered I was like oh it’s this guy again. Lombard and Montgomery are very cute together, but I didn't love the messy triangle with the bland colleague, I get that the plot of the film is what it is but it was kind of a mean setup. A lil long and not very screwbally but definitely screwy. May not rank highly in my Hitchcock list but there was still enough fun, wit, silliness, and sweetness here to satisfy me. If there's one thing Hitch was gonna do, it's make a sexy movie with a slightly mean edge!

Very very silly, too long, but has its cute moments. Don Ameche, cute. Ros Russell, cute. Together, cute. The plot is confusingly sort of progressive and regressive at the same time. I almost didn't recognize Kay Francis without a middle part and a backless gown.

Okay, it was time I revisited this. Between how acclaimed this is and being a Billy Wilder fan, I was disappointed not to love this when I first watched it. I was dogsitting just before Christmas 2020 at the time, which may have affected my perception of the film, but really you'd think that would fit the atmosphere: confined to a temporary job in a stranger's home, beholden to the whims of a demanding yet delusional and seemingly harmless master and their devoted servant. Yet in my case, it was my nemesis Theo the yorkie and his nervous wire terrier brother, Ozzie rather than Norma Desmond and Max the butler.

I did appreciate it a bit more this time around. Not saying I think another actor would be better for this, but I think my complete lack of affection for William Holden is what ultimately hinders the impact of this film for me. I don't even really dislike him (okay maybe a little), I just don't care about him at all, in any role I've seen him play. The nuances of Gloria Swanson's performance came through better for me this time, and I really think she and Erich von Stroheim give excellent pathos to their parts (plus, Gloria gives a genuinely great Chaplin impression). The massive old 1920s mansion past its prime, the using of clips of the actual silent film Swanson and von Stroheim made together, the "Waxworks" (Buster <3) et al. just paint a brilliantly bleak and truthful, evocative atmosphere. It's a great concept and captures a real moment in time, giving a biting commentary on the ephemeral nature of Hollywood and fame/superficiality that seems ahead of its era and if anything rings more true now (although I think current culture appreciates old films and stars more than ever in some ways). However, similarly to the Maltese Falcon, this is a movie I find objectively good but it fails to make me feel any real emotion towards the proceedings.

It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker, friend only to the undertaker

• They Drive by Night
• Stranger on the Third Floor
• High Sierra
• Rage in Heaven
• The Maltese Falcon
• Suspicion
• Shadow of the Thin Man
• Crossroads
• The Glass Key
• Casablanca

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My personal ranking of the Hitchcock films I've seen. Frequently reevaluating.

1. Rear Window
2. Foreign Correspondent
3. Strangers on a Train
4. Vertigo
5. The Lady Vanishes
6. North by Northwest
7. Shadow of a Doubt
8. Psycho
9. Rebecca
10. Saboteur

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

ranked by how much the movie makes me want to marry him, tbh

1. The Apartment
2. The Notorious Landlady
3. It Should Happen to You
4. Good Neighbor Sam
5. Phffft
6. Three for the Show
7. Some Like It Hot
8. My Sister Eileen
9. Irma la Douce
10. Days of Wine and Roses

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

forget where I saw this first, but: a watchlist of movies from my birth year with quantity equal to my current age. La Haine is a tiny cheat but its US release was in 1996.
(8/29)

1. The Watermelon Woman
2. Bottle Rocket
3. Sabrina the Teenage Witch
4. Irma Vep
5. Haru
6. Big Night
7. That Thing You Do!
8. Naked Acts
9. A Summer's Tale
10. The Daytrippers

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Stany <3 loosely ranked by her performance moreso than overall film quality

1. The Lady Eve
2. Double Indemnity
3. Ball of Fire
4. Baby Face
5. Christmas in Connecticut
6. My Reputation
7. Gambling Lady
8. Cry Wolf
9. the Night
10. The Two Mrs. Carrolls

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My personal all-time favorites. Abandoned ranking because it seems silly and impossible to compare so many different films, and just sorted by my star rating high to low which keeps chronological release order per tier. My profile top 4 are pretty set in stone.

• Sherlock Jr.
• Battling Butler
• Foreign Correspondent
• Casablanca
• The More the Merrier
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• The Red Shoes
• The Third Man
• In a Lonely Place
• Rear Window

...plus 93 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My ultimate screen couple, some of my ultimate comfort watches, anything on this list is bound to soothe the soul. Ranked loosely.

1. The Thin Man
2. After the Thin Man
3. Double Wedding
4. Libeled Lady
5. Shadow of the Thin Man
6. Song of the Thin Man
7. Another Thin Man
8. Love Crazy
9. The Thin Man Goes Home
10. I Love You Again

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Le Notti Bianche
• Sidewalk Stories
• Lola
• Diabolique
• Drive My Car
• Eat Drink Man Woman
• The Fire Within
• Wings
• Pillow Talk
• Peeping Tom

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A personal reference point as someone who doesn't love overtly Christmassy movies. Some obviously holiday-centric, some with only partial or incidental holiday settings, organized on a spectrum from light and wholesome to cynical/sad, or feel-good to feel-bad (but good bad, not like, bad bad).

• White Christmas
• The Thin Man
• After the Thin Man
• Elf
• Desk Set
• Christmas in Connecticut
• Robin Robin
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
• The Year Without a Santa Claus

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I guess it's about time I do one of these lists for Bogie, though for some reason it feels more futile than others to rank his performances. He's a pretty prolific and consistent player.

1. High Sierra
2. Casablanca
3. In a Lonely Place
4. The Big Sleep
5. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
6. Sabrina
7. The Maltese Falcon
8. Dark age
9. The Petrified Forest
10. Dead Reckoning

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. In a Lonely Place
2. The Big Heat
3. Crossfire
4. Man on a Tightrope
5. It's a Wonderful Life
6. Blonde Fever
7. Song of the Thin Man
8. A Woman's Secret

if you, like me, enjoy a cozy, spooky film without all the gruesome gory bits...maybe some thrills and suspense with graphic details left mostly to the imagination, or just some fun vaguely morbid laughs, these movies are for you.

• The Leopard Man
• Cat People
• The Haunted House
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch
• I Married a Witch
• Bell, Book and Candle
• The Trouble with Harry
• Night of the Demon
• The Most Dangerous Game
• Beetlejuice

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Joel McCrea sounded like just another clean-cut boring actor until I saw him in one film and suddenly understood the hype. Hollywood exploited this man as a beautiful object from the beginning and film history is better for it. Here's my ranking of his filmography based on how much he is put in frivolous situations or minimal clothing to simply show off his goofy-cute appeal, whether that correlates with overall film quality or not is another story. I enjoy even subpar pre-codes but don't like westerns so it's debatable how far I'll go for this list.

1. Foreign Correspondent
2. The More the Merrier
3. Bed of Roses
4. The Most Dangerous Game
5. Sullivan's Travels
6. Gambling Lady
7. The Common Law
8. The Silver Horde
9. The Palm Beach Story
10. Rockabye

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Favorite movie I've seen from each year since 1996. Stole this list idea. Subject to changes because these are present top choices, not necessarily my favorite at the time since I obvs saw many of these years after their release, though there's definitely some overlap and could make an interesting secondary list (would involve a lot more pokemon movies).

Additional notes:
- Mulan narrowly won out over Lebowski because nostalgia and it's my favorite Disney movie, but that's just, like, my opinion, man.
- Largely going by US theatrical availability (e.g. for '02 and '22) because it's too painful to choose between Amelie and Spirited Away, but also it just makes sense for personal logistics if I did not have access to the film in its default Letterboxd release year

1. Haru
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Mulan
4. Fight Club
5. In the Mood for Love
6. Amélie
7. Spirited Away
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
10. Pride & Prejudice

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Charade
2. Singin' in the Rain
3. Funny Face
4. On the Town
5. Two for the Road
6. Indiscreet
7. Give a Girl a Break
8. Royal Wedding

My ranking of Buster Keaton's starring/directing filmography (silent-era, both shorts and features). Mostly based on personal enjoyment/memorable gags because they're all great. :) Adding more as I watch them, constantly shifting around as I rewatch them.

1. Sherlock Jr.
2. Battling Butler
3. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
4. The General
5. One Week
6. The Goat
7. The High Sign
8. The Navigator
9. The Haunted House
10. The Cameraman

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My personal ranking of some of the best animated films (some of the best films, period) of all time :)

1. Spirited Away
2. My Neighbor Totoro
3. Princess Mononoke
4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
5. The Wind Rises
6. Whisper of the Heart
7. The Boy and the Heron
8. Kiki's Delivery Service
9. Howl's Moving Castle
10. Only Yesterday

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

You're gonna suffer...but you're gonna be happy about it?

aka my favorite amorphous genre. not to over-explain but my parameters for this category seem to be: a happy medium of not too depressing, not too cheerful, not too stressful. just sort of softly melancholy but somewhat uplifting.

• Paper Moon
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• White Nights
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• Past Lives
• Stand by Me
• The Glass Slipper
• A Patch of Blue
• The Wind Rises
• A Little Romance

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I love Valentine's Day primarily for the pink-and-red/candy-colored vibes, and these are movies with either that sugary-sweet, light & lovey pastel energy, or pure rose-tinted pining. A few of these are romantic faves, a few I couldn't care less about the romance, but I prefer the holiday as a platonic-love celebration anyway (galentines, palentines, etc.)

• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• The Young Girls of Rochefort
• Charade
• Roman Holiday
• One Week
• Funny Face
• Indiscreet
• Emma.
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Pride & Prejudice

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My loose personal ranking of Sidney Poitier's starring filmography that I've seen. Perhaps the most charismatic actor of all time.

1. Edge of the City
2. Lilies of the Field
3. To Sir, with Love
4. In the Heat of the Night
5. Paris Blues
6. A Patch of Blue
7. Uptown Saturday Night
8. The Defiant Ones
9. Blackboard Jungle
10. A Warm December

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

you know the drill. fave first-time watches of the year, verrry roughly/impulsively ranked.

1. Elevator to the Gallows
2. The Wind Rises
3. Cléo from 5 to 7
4. Donkey Skin
5. Foreign Correspondent
6. Haru
7. Past Lives
8. The Boy and the Heron
9. The Lady Eve
10. All Quiet on the Western Front

...plus 62 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It's one thing to pick a top ten from a decade where you've seen maybe 30-70 films. Narrowing down from 170+ films was not as hard as I thought with the help of nostalgia, but not easy.

1. Spirited Away
2. Amélie
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4. The Bourne Identity
5. Pride & Prejudice
6. In the Mood for Love
7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
8. The Devil Wears Prada
9. Freaky Friday
10. Napoleon Dynamite

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were the main fixtures of my 2010s cinema experience lol

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2. The Wind Rises
3. La La Land
4. Knives Out
5. Moonrise Kingdom
6. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
7. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
8. Crazy, Stupid, Love.
9. Boyhood
10. Drive

it's a war between nostalgia and more recently discovered faves for this decade. at this point actual ranking is futile

1. Haru
2. Princess Mononoke
3. The Big Lebowski
4. Clueless
5. Dogfight
6. Mulan
7. Bottle Rocket
8. Whisper of the Heart
9. The Secret of Roan Inish
10. Empire Records

Rob Reiner rules

1. Stand by Me
2. My Neighbor Totoro
3. Au Revoir les Enfants
4. Do the Right Thing
5. A Room with a View
6. This Is Spinal Tap
7. When Harry Met Sally...
8. The Princess Bride
9. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
10. White Nights

The seventies carried a certain cynicism that doesn't always resonate with me, and remain underrepresented in my film-watching habits.

1. Donkey Skin
2. Fiddler on the Roof
3. The Ascent
4. Paper Moon
5. Uptown Saturday Night
6. One Hundred Days After Childhood
7. Cooley High
8. Day for Night
9. A Little Romance
10. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

This was a tough one. The sixties will always have a special place in my heart.

1. The Apartment
2. Wait Until Dark
3. Cléo from 5 to 7
4. Charade
5. How to Steal a Million
6. The Graduate
7. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
8. Le Samouraï
9. The Trial
10. West Side Story

The fifties were the golden age of Hitchcock, and musicals, and the advent of Audrey Hepburn. How can one choose just a few?

1. Rear Window
2. White Christmas
3. Elevator to the Gallows
4. In a Lonely Place
5. Strangers on a Train
6. Some Like It Hot
7. Singin' in the Rain
8. Edge of the City
9. Funny Face
10. An American in Paris

Getting harder and harder to narrow down this decade, one of my top favorite eras of film. These are just the handful that feel most precious to me.

1. The Best Years of Our Lives
2. The Third Man
3. Casablanca
4. Foreign Correspondent
5. The More the Merrier
6. The Red Shoes
7. The Big Sleep
8. Double Indemnity
9. Gaslight
10. Shadow of a Doubt

The thirties brought us The Thin Man, and what more could we ask for.

1. The Thin Man
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Gold Diggers of 1933
4. It Happened One Night
5. All Quiet on the Western Front
6. Sabotage
7. The Roaring Twenties
8. My Man Godfrey
9. After the Thin Man
10. Trouble in Paradise

Keaton is king, of course

1. Sherlock Jr.
2. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
3. The General
4. Safety Last!
5. Metropolis
6. Battling Butler
7. The Circus
8. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
9. The Navigator
10. Man with a Movie Camera

have a soft spot for the guy since he made an impression in my earliest days of TCM/classic movie exploration, with the sweetly obscure Embraceable You inspiring me a decade ago to start keeping a regular log of the movies I watch.

1. Moonrise
2. Deep Valley
3. Embraceable You
4. Whiplash
5. The Glass Key
6. Highly Dangerous

1. The Apartment
2. Some Like It Hot
3. Sabrina
4. Double Indemnity
5. Love in the Afternoon
6. Irma la Douce
7. Sunset Boulevard
8. The Front Page
9. Avanti!
10. The Fortune Cookie

Loosely ranked from light/fun/silly to beautiful but heartbreaking (really only the last 2-4 are even that sad at all) :)

1. The Young Girls of Rochefort
2. Charade

   Watch on Youtube

3. The Thin Man
4. What a Way to Go!

   Watch on Youtube

5. Stardust
6. Whisper of the Heart
7. Glass Onion
8. Bottle Rocket
9. The Red Balloon
10. The Lady Vanishes

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

just a few coffee-slinging, film-loving pals with good taste plotting some movie nights

1. Days of Being Wild

   Ethan's "essential"

2. Fallen Angels

   Ethan's "essential"

3. Chungking Express

   Ethan's "essential"

4. In the Mood for Love

   Ethan & Chloe's "essential"

5. Night Is Short, Walk On Girl

   Ethan's "essential"

6. Drive My Car

   Ethan's "essential"

7. mid90s

   Ethan's "essential"

8. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

   Ethan & Chloe's "essential"

9. Maggie

   Ethan's "essential"

10. BlacKkKlansman

    Cameron & Ethan's "essential"

...plus 59 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My favorites of the movies I watched for the first time in 2022, loosely ranked. This is an interesting yearly list to compile because I update it throughout the year and inevitably rankings shift with every addition as certain films fade in memory and others seem to grow on me. So trust me when I say these rankings, at least in the middle section, are ~loose~ and by "favorites" I mean basically just any movie I mostly enjoyed.

1. The More the Merrier
2. Casablanca
3. The French Dispatch
4. In the Mood for Love
5. Sabrina
6. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
7. Late Autumn
8. BlacKkKlansman
9. What a Way to Go!
10. Gold Diggers of 1933

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm an enneagram 9w1, aries (virgo rising), hufflepuff, INFP in a very sufficient or insufficient nutshell, depending on how much you know or care about any of those systems of personal understanding. These films or characters in them make parts of me feel seen (see notes).

Unsurprisingly, all of these movies are among my top favorites. This is not definitive, if you think a character corresponds to a different personality type, that's absolutely fine (and yes that's my conflict-avoidant/peacemaker personality talking). :)

• Amélie

  ok but Amélie as a character is 1000% a 9/hufflepuff/infp and that is undisputable. Finding this movie as a teenager quite honestly was a life-changing experience for me in feeling like someone out there understood and valued me and my perspective when my self-esteem was at its lowest.

• The Red Balloon

  I don't have much to say on this besides that the whole little short film feels like the 9 ethos...perhaps its director, Albert Lamorisse, was a 9. It's one of those simple and sweet things that felt kinda like it was made for me.

• The Apartment

  Bud Baxter seems to be a quintessential 9, and I adore him and sympathize with him greatly in how he can’t say no in effort of keeping the peace with his colleagues, loses sight of any ambitions of his own in service of pretending empty promotions and climbing the corporate ladder is actually what he wants, sacrificing too much for comparatively little gains while others pretend he’s getting his fair share as they walk all over him. Phew. This got a little too personal.

   “Some people take, some people get took. And they know they’re gettin’ took and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

• The Best Years of Our Lives

  Teresa Wright's character, Peggy, seems like a 9 to me. She just reminds me a lot of myself and my own relationship with my parents especially.

• Merrily We Go to Hell

  Joan in the film is such a 9. She loves her husband Jerry, has deep empathy for his struggles and wants him to be better, but goes along with what will make him happy to avoid conflict and at the expense of her own health and happiness.

• Dogfight

  I feel like Rose is a great example of a 9, likely with an 8 wing. She is a peacemaker at heart, believing in love and the power of art and music, and opposed to war and violence. She is shy and hesitant to take up space, but gains confidence when encouraged by Eddie. She has a bit of a repressed temper that can be triggered in moments of indignation, but mostly is empathetic and kind.

• The Last Black Man in San Francisco

  I won’t make any solid claims on the characters in this film, but there’s a certain 9ness to the main character Jimmie and his pursuit of maintaining responsibility for and reclaiming his childhood/grandfather’s house, the way that he seeks the comfort of and molds his identity to the one familiar home he’s ever known.

• Pride & Prejudice

  Jane Bennet is such a 9w1. She is good-natured, easygoing, and often puts her own desires aside for the benefit of others, though she does eventually find someone who appreciates her despite her shyness and tendency to hide her emotions. She also seems like an INFP.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

  I have always felt a kinship with Frodo Baggins, and I think he is pretty widely regarded to be a meek and peaceful type 9. He does not really want to be the ringbearer, but he knows it is his burden and he would rather bear it than have anyone he cares about be harmed by it in his stead. He also sometimes struggles to accept help, but ultimately greatly appreciates it as he realizes he cannot do it alone.

• City of God

  This film can be brutal at times, but through it all I believe our narrator Rocket has that conflict-avoidant, mediator/peacemaker 9 personality. He ultimately wants to escape the constant strife of his hometown in search of peace and something more but he maintains an empathetic connection to those he grew up with.

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My loose personal ranking of Audrey Hepburn's starring filmography. She's one of my first and all-time favorite actresses.

1. Sabrina
2. Wait Until Dark
3. Charade
4. How to Steal a Million
5. Funny Face
6. Roman Holiday
7. Breakfast at Tiffany's
8. Two for the Road
9. Love in the Afternoon
10. The Nun's Story

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A chronological list of some of my favorite short films, all of these can be searched up on youtube. This is kind of a mixed bag, from super old silents and Keaton comedies to modern international social commentaries, but at less than 30 minutes each, some even less than 10 minutes, they're worth watching.

• A Trip to the Moon
• Legend of a Ghost
• Frankenstein
• Falling Leaves
• Gertie the Dinosaur
• The Cook
• The Scarecrow
• Neighbors
• The Haunted House
• The High Sign

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My top favorites of the movies I watched for the first time in 2021, very loosely ranked. (WHO changed the bottle rocket poster, I just wanna talk)

1. Bottle Rocket
2. The Ascent
3. Crossfire
4. Late Spring
5. Edge of the City
6. The Notorious Landlady
7. The Young Girls of Rochefort
8. West Side Story
9. Something Different
10. Out of the Past

...plus 39 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I've always gravitated to the underdogs, and I sometimes find myself impressed by a film and then surprised that it's not more popular or highly rated.

Go into any of these with no expectations and I think you'll enjoy them, there's a little bit of everything here (indie, foreign, noir, thriller, pre-code, sociopolitical, history, documentary, musical, romance, comedy, coming-of-age, folklore) covering every decade from 1920s to 2010s, except the 2000s. All movies on this list have under 4k views on Letterboxd (most under 2k), ordered from least to most views.

• Embraceable You
• The Beast Must Die
• A Warm December
• The Doorway to Hell
• Double Harness
• The Glass Slipper
• One Hundred Days After Childhood
• Give a Girl a Break
• The Notorious Landlady
• John and Mary

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My top 50 favorites of the movies I watched for the first time in 2020, loosely ranked.

1. The Apartment
2. My Neighbor Totoro
3. The Best Years of Our Lives
4. The Third Man
5. Some Like It Hot
6. The Red Balloon
7. Steamboat Bill, Jr.
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
9. Au Revoir les Enfants
10. Singin' in the Rain

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

can a list be any more specific than this? I tried. Also: both of these rank in Letterboxd's Top 250 Narrative Feature Films but I ran out of characters for the title

• Citizen Kane
• The Third Man