FAVORITE MOVIES

My most favorite movie is Casablanca in B/W. It not only has a principled theme, but As Time Goes By is one of my favorite tunes, but the entire music for the sound track is good. I watch it at least once a year.

There is a second place tie between The Third Man (B/W) and Key Largo (B/W). I watch both of these at least once a year. Third Man also has that beautiful zither music that enchants me. When I was twice in Budapest, I went to the Hundred Year Restaurant because it has zither music. And when we were in Vienna with two of the grandsons, we rode the giant ferris wheel. I like Key Largo because of the moral where Humphrey Bogart say to Edward G. Robinson something like "I know what you want." and Robinson replies, "Whaaat?" Then Bogart says something like, "You want more, that's what you want." And Robinson says something like, "Ya, I want more. At least I always have." Always wanting more is what advertising in America is all about. The moral is that always wanting more is dangerous.

There is also a tie for third place between The Treasure of Sierra Madre (B/W) and In The Line Of Fire (Color). I find it interesting and surprising that 4 of my 5 favorite movies are in B/W, but Orson Wells has said that all the great movies are in B/W. Treasure again is a moralistic movie about greed and the dangers thereof. Fire is the movie that Clint Eastwood should have received an Oscar for best actor. He plays a character haunted by what he should have done in the Kennedy assassination. Neither of these movies has any fine music . Fire is in color and is my top ranked movie in color.

In fourth place, another tie, I guess I would put The Bucket List (Color) and The Departed (Color). Finally a couple of recent movies. The Bucket List so impressed us that we finally took a tour of Greece and Turkey, something we had talked about for at least a decade but never done. The movie persuaded us to do it even though the tour we took was very expensive. We also bought the DVD. I'm not sure why I like Departed so much, but I thought the acting was superb. It is the only movie that won a Best Picture award that I saw before it got the win. I've seen it several times.

There is also a tie for fifth place between Tea House Of The August Moon (Color) and Separate Tables (B/W). I am intrigued by movies where I wouldn't know the principal actor was who it was. For example, I wouldn't have guessed that Marlon Brando was the Japanese servant or that Deborah Kerr was the mousy daughter. Kerr deserved an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role. She was nominated for Best Actress six times and never won, probably the best actress never to win that award. Brando also deserved an Oscar for Best Actor, in my opinion. I have seen neither of these movies in decades, I must admit.

Beyond this there is a jumble . There is A Bad Day At Black Rock, King Solomon's Mines, Caesar And Cleopatra, Picnic (also great music), The Seven Samurai, To Kill A Mockingbird, Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo, Saving Private Ryan, etc. I like Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman movies, in general.

For the views of a number of others about best picture see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_best