Longest Hours of my Life

Number 37 on the AFI list is The Best Years of Our Lives. It tells the story of three men returning from war wondering what life will be like for them now. It reminds me of a number of books I've read lately, but I digress.

The cinematography in this movie was very good. In the opening scenes, there were quite a lot of camera shots from the point of view of the guys. This lets you see their hometown from their point of view, which reveals quite a bit about the characters themselves.

The central theme of this movie seems to be that you can't go home again because something always changes once you leave. Home is never the place you left. For once we have a movie that doesn't romanticize war. Though I'm not a big war movie fan, so maybe there are others out there. Please comment and let me know.

Myrna Loy is one of my favorite actresses, so she made the movie enjoyable. We watched this movie back in August and her performance is the only one I still remember. I know AFI really liked this movie, but we found it long and drawn out. It didn't hold my attention and I found it very hard not to multitask during this movie. Thus, I'm giving this one a thumbs down.

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A Dandy of a Movie

I'm referring, of course, to that wonderful movie Yankee Doodle Dandy directed by Michael Curtiz and starring James Cagney. The AFI placed it at number 100 on their list. In case you're not familiar with the plot, it's the life story of actor/producer/playwright George M. Cohan. The film pioneered the flashback method of telling a story and begins with Cohan's childhood stage acting. It tells the story of he and his family as they performed plays and shows across the country as "The Four Cohans. Like all entertainers, they have their ups and downs. At one point George's arrogance causes his family to be looked down on as performers. In a somewhat sneaky move, however, Cohan gets funding from a producer and makes his stage come-back. Finally the family is once again reunited as a family act. There is much more to the film, but I'll stop here because I don't want to spoil it for you. The message about family loyalty is something you don't see much in...

I Wish you a Merry Christmas

So, are you on the lookout for a good holiday movie? Well, me too. I ended up working an extra Saturday this month, which really cut into my movie watching time. I had all these plans to see the following movies: Polar Express National Treasure Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera I'm sure there were others I wanted to see, but I don't remember what those are now. Out of all the above movies Brian and I have seen National Treasure . I have to say, despite some doubts I had at the beginning it turned out to be a pretty good movie. If you are in to U.S, History, you'd probably find this a good movie. I mentioned some doubts I had at the beginning of the movie. For example, In one of the opening scenes of the movie a grandfather is explaining the history of the Masons organization to his grandson and, having just researched the masons for a library customer, I'm not sure the grandfather's ex...

Lots to blog about

I see it's been since mid-November since I updated this blog and even longer for some of my others. That's what happens when you have family birthdays, Christmas, and move across county to a new apartment all within the space of two months. Things are finally settling down now and I can finally blog about all those movies I've seen lately. Now if I could just remember what all of them are. Hmmm...well, let's just jump right in, shall we? Topping the list is Rent , which I saw with a couple of friends from work. Now, this was two months ago that I saw it, so some of the details have gone fuzzy, but I did think it was really good. For some reason I had it in my mind that everyone dies in the end rather than just one person, so it didn't end like I thought it would. Ah well, as I said, fuzzy details. This one I'm looking forward to coming out on DVD and hope it has good special features. The next one I saw was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire . My husband and I ...

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