Time for another roll-up of classic movies (that sometimes stretches the concept of a “classic”). Read on… or keep scrolling, friends and neighbors.

A Day’s Pleasure – 1919 – A somewhat amusing Chaplin short, certainly not as good as some of his later efforts. Just some of his comic schtick centered around those new-fangled motorcars, a rocking ferry, and a “modern” cross-roads compete with traffic cop and unfortunate road tar. Some of the bits were funny, some just ran out the very short clock.

A Place in the Sun – 1951 – I wasn’t feeling this oddly cynical and dark romance/suspense/murder movie. I kind of both liked and grew bored with it. And then it has a weirdly redemptive final act where the main guy goes on trial… which is where most modern movies would have stopped. But this has a full trial that reflects and reinterprets all the events we’d already seen. That’s cool… and a little weird. I suspect I’d like this more on second viewing.

Oklahoma! – 1955 – Somehow I just never got around to this one. And it’s fine… and, as expected super square. But also super horny… I can’t imagine this wasn’t at least a little scandalous back in the 50s. Some good (but very square) songs and dances. It was mildly enjoyable.

The Seventh Seal – 1957 – Classic Bergman film about death, the plague, and general human misery during the Middle Ages. I was familiar with the iconography of the movie and its comedic reference in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey but had never sat down to watch the movie otherwise. Not a bad watch though its darkness and nihilism surely came across as deeper and darker back in the 1950s.

Brian’s Song – 1971 – Heard about this one all my life… movie that made it safe for men to cry. But I hadn’t seen it or, heck, even realized it was a made-for-tv movie and barely clocked in at much over an hour (got to save room for commercials!). I was kind of fascinated to see Billy Dee Williams and James Caan be THIS young. And, yes, the emotional wallow at the end was quite good and no-doubt pretty daring for early 70s tv.

Season of the Witch – 1973 – Early George Romero film, I was curious to see where he’d go without being bound to the genre he created. This is one 70s-ass 70s movie. Full of casual 70s occult mysticism, casual/shifting sexual mores, new feminism, old masculinity, and some seriously bad interior design. It’s the story of a dissatisfied middle aged woman who thinks witchcraft can cure her malaise. Things don’t go as planned… or maybe they go exactly as planned.

Young Frankenstein – 1974 – Somehow I’ve managed to never actually see Young Frankenstein despite seeing most other classic Mel Brooks films and my friend talking about it endlessly as a kid. Well, I can cross that off the list… but sadly I only tolerated most of this film. I was rather bored. Doesn’t mean some of the jokes didn’t work but a lot of it felt dated or done before. 

Suspiria – 1977 – This may be the first actual Dario Argento movie I’d seen (not counting his trully abysmal Dracula 3D from a few years ago). This is a classic horror film with at least one emblematic “kill” sequence that I’d heard about well before seeing it (the one with the stained glass skylight). It may not have aged well though… I found it a little sluggish in its pacing when not playing the shocking sequences of violence. It builds suspense in those scenes through some bizarre, discordant music and it largely works.

Cool Runnings – 1993 – I’d studiously avoided this flick all these years but finally decided to give it a shot when a podcast I listened to decided to review it. And it was free as part of the Disney+ subscription. Not sure why I avoided it… sounded like a one-joke movie (and it kind of us – Jamaican bobsledders! HAH!). And I really didn’t click with it… but, hey, the (somewhat cheesy) final redemption scene at the end worked (despite me).

Audition – 1999 – Not sure if this is a classic in the sense of most of the films (it’s from 1999) but I’d heard a lot about this one going in so it feels like a classic. What it is is a film about a lonely widower who makes a bad decision to find a new wife… and winds up paying a very gory price. It’s not the most extreme Japanese (or American) horror film I’ve ever seen, but something about how its scares operates really got under my skin. Not a recommendation for the squeamish.