Recently Watched Films

Third time seeing this one. It was my first Bogart movie and endures as one of my favourites even have three watches. It's a classic in every sense of the word. And some random trivia you may not know: the Maltese Falcon statue used in the film is today owned by Leonardo DiCaprio, who apparently paid over $300000 for it. It makes an appearance in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, courtesy of DiCaprio. 

I've just upgraded the movie to blu-ray along with some other favourites (cannot get The Big Sleep for love nor money though), which mostly means Bogart movies and a few others of the era. Including this next one which despite being one of the four paired with Lauren Bacall, I don't believe is so well known:

This is one of the few movies of the era to hold a 15 rating in the UK in modern times (almost all movies are either U or PG, with a few 12's), others being Fritz Lang's The Big Heat and the original 1930s version of Scarface. Seems tame by modern standards to me, but it is perhaps a little more daring for the time. This one isn't as classic as some Bogart movies and if playing the ranking game it's probably the least essential of the Bogart/Bacall films, but I think it's pretty good and does some unusual stuff for the time, pointing first person POV for the lead for the first part of the movie. It seems unusual for a Hollywood picture to hide it's lead actor's face for so long (it has plot reasons for doing so, I'm just surprised they went for it).

Pretty good. For me much more period drama than horror though. Set and filmed on location in my neck of the woods as well. There aren't many movies around where I can see a place and say 'I've been there'.

Expected to like this one a lot more. Instead it fell completely flat and bored me to tears. 

The Cathedral song inspired me to check this out, but it's quite different to what I thought. Love Vincent Price in what ever he starred in.

Watchable and that's about it. More of a family drama than a western as it is billed, which isn't a problem in and of itself, but it also feels like several important things are missing from the movie. The plot basically rests on the fact the family's ranch is threatened by a big cat and them having different ideas about what to do about it. 

Main problem: You never see the panther, even once. Only hear a few sound effects. 

Stunning shot film noir. Often held up as one the best, but for some reason this movie was completely blank in my mind even though this was my second watch and barely anything about it rung a bell all the way through. Watching it I'd call it a great film, but lets see if it manages to stick with me this time. 

A bit slow paced but solid neo-noir. 

One of my all time favourites. Third time I've watched it, but first on blu-ray. 

Finally saw it.

Still don't know what the fuck I watched though. 

RYM Satire time. Haven't done one of these for a while.

To Have and Have Not: World War II, Fort-de-France, French colony of Martinique, controlled by Vichy France, an ally of Nazi Germany. A fishing captain is approached to aide the French Resistance. 

RYM Genre Police: This is not a war film. It's a romantic drama. 

In actuality terming To Have and Have Not as a romantic drama, like Casablanca before it (the two films makes a fine unofficial pairing both in theme and male lead), does it a disservice. Even more so than with Casablanca, any romantic plot plays second fiddle to the actual plot outlined above, in the way many stories that don't belong to the romance genre have love interests. I wonder if the fact that Bogart and Bacall actually became involved and got married after meeting on the set of this film has altered perception of what it actually is. Not quite as classic as Casablanca, but very worthy follow-up viewing. 

Neither is my favourite Kubrick movie, that's probably The Shining even though I originally didn't like it for book reasons. Still have a few of his to see including Barry Lyndon which I have ready to go. 

A kung-fu movie for when you don't really want to watch a kung-fu  movie. Big dumb fun.

Semi-silent slapstick comedy about two hapless builders buying a plank. Simple as that.

One of the few old classic movies I have actually seen before, but I'd glad to see it again.