Movie Madness

My very good friend, Danielle, would call me cinematically challenged. She gasps at the lack of movies I have seen in my lifetime. Well, we weren’t really a see-movies type of family. So, I’ve had some catching up to do.

Every Tuesday night (when her husband has Boys’ Night…they watch “The Shield”) we get together for movie night. This quickly evolved into a “you get two movies, and I’ll get dinner” sort of thing. Every week we switch duties. The theme we pretty much have going is “the classics”: all the old, great movies that every one of our parents know and all the Academy Award winners. There are mini-themes in our watching. So far there has been Bogart, westerns, and war movies.

The most interesting part is watching these old movies in recent times. A few months ago we watched “From Here to Eternity”. My dad highly recommended it. My opinion? Eh…it was ok. It’s definitely interesting watching a movie that others rave about, 60 years later. Times change and what was new and exciting back then can be slow today. I mostly notice the pace of old movies. Nowadays, if you don’t have the audience hooked in the first five minutes, they will never pay attention. “From Here to Eternity” didn’t pick up until the last 15 minutes it seemed when everyone died…the slowest buildup ever! “North by Northwest” was also sort of the same. I have also learned that not all old war movies are serious and boring. “Stalag 17″ was very funny and tonight’s “The Dirty Dozen” was also pretty funny. (I especially liked how the people dove out of windows after they had been shot, looking like they were jumping into a matress pit!)

So that I learn to appreciate these old movies more, I’m doing a little bit of research on each movie on IMDB. I’d like to know who the director was and what key actors were involved. I’m creating my own little web of movie stars. There’s nothing like useless factoids to keep me interested. This will also serve a purpose, though…keeping people entertained with useless knowledge on long car trips!

Below is my list of movies that I have seen, so far. I’ll keep updating my list. If anyone has any interesting/favorite movies that you think I should see, leave me a comment!

• North by Northwest
• Stalag 17
• The Pajama Game
• Casablanca
• The Maltese Falcon
• Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
• The Dirty Dozen
• Dirty Harry
• From Here to Eternity
• The Graduate
• Gone with the Wind