A bunch more classics I’ve seen recently… that is, films prior to 2000… so forgive the inclusion of a late 90s film, will ya!

1923 – Safety Last – A rather amusing silent Harold Lloyd comedy that’s really just a build-up to a famous climbing/clock scene. I only knew the most famous image from it so I got away enjoying the whole movie, not waiting for that sequence.

1924 – The Hands of Orlac – a silent horror from the same guy who made The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It’s pretty good… especially with the right accompanying music. Amusingly familiar plot about a transplanted body parts… they were doing that old trope 100 years ago. Who knew?

1944 – Laura – a perfectly ok film noire. I suppose.

1946 – Beauty and the Beast – a classic French version of the story you already know. Some very good black and white surreal sequences.

1952 – Ikiru – a depressing little film about a Japanese office drone who finds out he’s gonna die soon… so he sets his mind to making a park for the locals. Pretty good, pretty serious-minded stuff from Akira Kurosawa.

1959 – Darby O’Gill and the Little People – an Irish fantasy story from Disney’s day-glow live action phase. It’s not bad for what it is… a film full of Irish stereotypes and pretty effective special effects.

1959 – Rio Bravo – very surprised I liked this old fashioned western so much… it’s usually not my genre but I guess that Howard Hawks fella knew what he’s doing. Not to mention John Wayne in full John Wayne mode… and Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson fulfilling the singin’ cowboys portion of the movie.

1963 – Charade – a very jazzy little spy thriller/romance/comedy somehow starring Carry Grant and Audrey Hepburn but NOT directed by Hitchcock? That doesn’t sound right. But the film is fun and Hepburn is lovely and that’s enough for me.

1965 – The Knack… And How to Get It – a relic of the swingin ’60s… it has aged weirdly. I’m sure it has something to say about repression and sexual freedom but I’m not sure what (other than freaking out the squares way back in the day). It might be best left in the 60s.

1968 – The Lion in Winter – a pretty good, very play-like film about succession in the British monarchy. Very good performances and one-one-one arguments between Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn.

1971 – A Bay of Blood – a rather gory but ultimately confusing and dull Italian gialo (or gialo-adjacent) film. People seem to love it… but I was bored.

1971 – Lady Frankenstein – a pretty good – with a surprising amount of blood ‘n boobs – garishly colorful Frankenstein movie. It knows its target audience and its script feels like it was written for characters who’d already seen a bunch of Frankenstein movies before.

1975 – Picnic at Hanging Rock – a surprisingly surreal suspense/mystery/thriller set in Australia involving missing girls. Surprisingly interesting, if gauzy and odd, watch.

1980 – Cruising – a decent but underwhelming William Friedkin crime thriller. Most notable for its early depiction of gay sub-cultures for a main-stream director. Was a little underwhelmed by the actual crime story though.

1982 – Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid – it took me a few to realize what this silly Steve Martin comedy was doing. Cobbling together a film noire that let them intersplice scenes from 40’s/50s noire into their story. It’s kind of a gas once I got the joke.

1982 – The King of Comedy – catching up on the few Scorsese movies I haven’t seen. And a surprising performance from De Niro. Its “influence” on The Joker film was quite evident. I liked it until its final act… which got kind of boring to me. Which seems surprising even to me.

1983 – BMX Bandits – Came for the young Nicole Kidman… and that’s all I got out of it. It should have been a fun kids adventure 80s flick but either I aged too much or it’s really just poorly made.

1984 – Blood Suckers from Outer Space – a dopey horror comedy made for ten cents, starring two bit actors. It’s kind of fun. Never heard of it before but there it is on Amazon Prime streaming. Huh.

1984 – She – a gonzo bananas satire (?) on all those Conan and Mad Max ripoffs from the early 80s? This movie is weird and kind of hilarious. Maybe not to everyone’s taste though.

1985 – Come and See – Wow… I hadn’t heard of this very impressive WW2 film until very recently. Seems like I should have heard about it in the 80s but it wasn’t an American film so I guess that explains it <rolls eyes>.

1994 – Chungking Express – a couple of odd and oddly related short films about love… not really all that interesting in its first half but the second half is better. Not sure the hype though.

1998 – Patch Adams – Ugh… interminably schlocky, pandering, overly-sentimental pap that I avoided all these years because it was exactly that. But a lot of people loved it back in the day. Robin Williams was trying too hard after making much better films like Good Morning Vietnam and Good Will Hunting.