Friday, January 2, 2009

Movies I watched in 2008

Last year was the first year I kept track of the movies I watched. I was astounded to tally it up and see that I’d watched 49 movies in 2008. But when I considered that we don’t watch TV and that Friday is pizza and movie night at our house, it didn’t seem so bad.

I like my movies clean so I put up with a lot more “fluff” in films than I do in books. Yet I like a good story on screen as well as on paper. I don’t enjoy most modern films and sat through some of these just to please my teenaged boys. Here are the films I watched (in order of their release date). I've italicized the ones that I would consider "worthwhile".

The Whole Town’s Talking – Jean Arthur (1935)
Young and Innocent – early Hitchcock (1937)
Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)
Rhythm on the River – Bing Crosby (1940)
My Favorite Wife – Grant/Dunn (1940)
Lucky Partners – Ginger Rogers (1940) – dumb
The Saint Takes Over – George Sanders (1940)
British Intelligence – WWII (1940) - pretty good for a "B" movie
Flying Blind – “Spies in the Skies” (1941)
Dangerous Blondes (1943) – detective story
The Falcon and the Co-eds (1943) – AWFUL
This Happy Breed - very British WII flick (1944)
I Know Where I’m Going – Wendy Hiller (1945)
The Clock – Romance with Judy Garland (1945) – no singing!
Road to Rio – Crosby/Hope (1947) – a family favorite
Romance on the High Seas – Doris Day (1948) – watched twice
In the Good Old Summertime – Judy Garland (1949)
Dream Wife – Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr (1953) – DUMB!
Teacher’s Pet – Doris Day/Clark Gable (1958)
Tunes of Glory – Alec Guinness (1960) – tense and disturbing
Charade – Grant/Hepburn (1963) – one of my favorites, probably too tense for younger kids
Dear Heart (1964) – This I watch yearly.
Best of Friends – Masterpiece Theatre (1982)
Moonlighting – Pilot movie (1985)
One Against the Wind – WWII (1991) – Hallmark Film (sadly, only available in VHS)
A Foreign Field – Alec Guinness (1993)
Mrs. Brown – Judi Dench (1997)
A Vow to Cherish - Billy Graham film (1999)
Road to Redemption (2001) – Most of my family walked out on this one.
Saints & Soldiers (2003) – a bit grueling, but a good story
Something the Lord Made (2004)
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)
Pride & Prejudice (2005) – watched twice
Bella (2006)
The Nativity Story (2006) – annual favorite
Lake House (2006) – watched twice
Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Martian Child (2007) - a very unusual story, well done
National Treasure 2 (2007)
Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (2007) – gruesome and pointless
Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Monk, Seasons 1-4 (We thought Season Four was the best. Less swearing, more poignancy.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Neat idea, listing movies. There are many here I've not heard of!

I love the Bourne movies. And I agree with you about 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' It felt like it would never end.

I've never heard of 'Charade,' but I love Grant and Hepburn together. I'll Netflix that one, if I can.

Carol in Oregon said...

I have come here more than once to look and look again. I think you may have been the one to tip me off to Mrs. Palfrey, which I really enjoyed.

I'm not the least familiar with Dear Heart, but I will check it out.