I bet you watch that movie every year...

This year, I'm doing something I've never done before. I'm keeping track of every movie I watch.

I've always saved my ticket stubs when I've gone to the theater, but I've never actually written down every movie I've seen in a year. But at the end of 2008 when everyone was blogging about what movies they had seen over the course of the year, I found myself trying to remember, and guessing, and wondering about my movie log. This year, I'll know for sure.

And as I've been keeping track, I've confirmed what I thought last year anyway: while I like to watch new and new-to-me movies, most of my film time is spent revisiting my favorites. Yep. I'm a Rewatcher.

I've started wondering if others fit this pattern as well. Do you find yourself returning to familiar favorites often? Introducing them to friends, or thinking of some quote and then feeling compelled to watch the whole thing? Does some event or circumstance go along with a certain movie for you?

For me, some favorites that get a lot of play include the movie from which I've taken (and modified) my post title. In You've Got Mail, which I tend to watch when autumn comes around (Don't you love New York in the fall?) or anytime it's replayed on TV, Tom Hanks says "I bet you read that book every year" about Pride and Prejudice. (The BBC film version of which I happen to turn to whenever I am really sick, along with Laura.) I also seem to go on a Civil War kick maybe once a year, which leads to reviewing the whole Ken Burns' documentary, often followed by Gone With the Wind, which occasionally leads to the excellent The Making of a Legend. Add to all that the frequent plays of other favorites. And somehow I'm never bored with them.

I know there must be people out there like me, but I'm sure there are other movie watching types as well. Here's a few profiles I've sketched out:

The Rewatcher:
This type is content to watch the same movies over and over again. If the film was great the first time, why wouldn't it be great to watch again? Perhaps this person is comforted by the familiar, viewing favorite movies as old friends. Maybe he or she is delighted to discover new insights or nuances in the films that got worn out in the VCR. (And yes, this person still has a VCR. And doesn't want to re-buy everything on Blu-ray.) Maybe in an unsure world, the Rewatcher is pleased to know that some things always remain the same. This doesn't mean you will never get a Rewatcher to sit through a previously unseen film, but you'll probably have the most success if the new movie features actors he or she already loves. And if the Rewatcher likes the movie, it will quickly be added to the replay queue.

The Explorer:
Polar opposite of the Rewatcher, this type thrives on always finding something new to watch. They have no trouble at all picking up a random rental, borrowing from friends, or trusting that anything on TCM is worth adding to the DVR. This type is found waiting in line on opening night, wanting to be the first to see and review anything new. While this doesn't mean that the Explorer has no standards, he or she is probably pretty open-minded, finding something to like in almost any film. This type has a never-ending, out of control Netflix queue, and would usually prefer seeing something fresh, or something not watched in a while, instead of viewing the same favorites month after month.

The Picky Viewer:
Here's someone who doesn't mind waiting to see what the consensus is about a film before watching it. This person doesn't want to waste time on junk. He or she may take a chance on the recommendations of friends, if they haven't been burned by being disappointed in their taste before. Perhaps they rely on Netflix Movies You'll <3, or a critic they tend to agree with, or perhaps they only rely on their own judgment, being able to tell from the previews if a movie is worth their time. And if they don't like a movie? Look out. This type is critical. But that just may be the only pleasure the Picky Viewer can derive from watching a sub-standard film.

The Movie Date:
This is the most passive of movie watchers, content to go along with more opinionated friends and family when choosing movies. This doesn't mean that Movie Dates always like everything, or that they don't have their favorites, but in general they are the quiet ones more easily entertained, happy watching whatever as long as everyone else is happy.

What do you think, do you fit into one of these categories? Or are you a hybrid of the above, or perhaps in a category I didn't come up with yet?

The Women -- Movie Chain Review #1

Chain chain chain... chain of reviews...

I've had this idea in my head to start a Chain O' Movie Reviews. What does that mean, you ask? Well. Often for home film festivals I'll create my own movie marathon by chaining together films with a common link. It's kinda like TCM does with a day or month dedicated to one star, but instead of sticking to just one actor I'll chain together film after film with different links in between. Say I start with The Philadelphia Story, then I might move on to Notorious (Cary Grant is the Link) and then I might move on to Casablanca (Ingrid Bergman as the Link). It doesn't just have to be actors as links, either; you can chain directors or even themes back to back (ex: movies with a lot of rain, or perhaps a movie and then the remake). Anyway, I thought it would be fun to carry this habit of linking movies to the blog world. How will it work?

I'll kick things off here with a movie review, the first link in the chain. If you want to join in, after that you'll have to:

1. Call dibs on doing the next review in the comments. First one to speak up gets it, others will have to wait to join up to the next link in the chain! (Chains usually only link one at a time, after all. It's not a movie review tree.)

2. Write your own review of another movie (it should be one not yet used in the chain) and post it on your blog. Make sure the link to the previous review is made clear and that you link back to the original post where the chain began (so we can keep track of how the chain grows). The link can be an actor or actress, director, or something more creative (like a theme).

3. Include the rules of how to continue the chain, and let someone else continue it!

Simple enough, right? Let's get it started!

Movie Chain Review #1: The Women (1939)

Link: First link in the chain, not connected to any reviews (yet).

Review: I found the opening credits of this movie so helpful. As the actresses are introduced, each is paired with an animal that represents her character. So right away you know who's the deer, who's the fox, and who's the old cow. I think more movies should do this.

The word at the beauty parlor, where "Jungle Red" nail polish is all the rage, is that Mary Haines (Norma Shearer) has a husband who's stepping out on her. When Mary's friend (I use the term loosely here) Sylvia (Rosalind Russell) hears about this, she relishes the gossip and eventually sets things up so Mary will hear the rumor.


Mary has been blissfully happy in her marriage to Stephen and as mother to Little Mary (Virginia Weidler). Can she just pretend that nothing is going on and continue her life? Not once she has met the other woman, Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford). The two have a showdown and Mary, choosing pride over love, ends up on a train to Reno. Mary's sweet friend Peggy (Joan Fontaine) is surprisingly also along for the ride, as well as two other women getting divorces: Miriam (Paulette Goddard) and the often-married but still-romantic Countess Flora. The women bide their time at a dude ranch (!) while waiting for their divorces to become final. (Is it wrong to say I was a little happy when Sylvia showed up there as well?) Who will reconcile, who will move on, who will fall in love again? I'll leave the final twists for you to discover.


The joy of the movie for me was not so much in the plot as in the performances. Director George Cukor is completely in his element here with a dialogue-heavy, all female (even the dogs and horses?!?) production. (Interestingly, Cukor was only available for this movie because he was replaced as director of Gone With the Wind. Paulette Goddard too would have only been available here since the one-time frontrunner for the role of Scarlett O'Hara lost out to Vivien Leigh.)

While the actresses are all great in their roles, I was particularly taken with Norma Shearer. How could anyone leave her for Joan Crawford? Impossible.


One thing I didn't really like about the movie was the idea of giving up your pride for love. Maybe occasionally one has to choose, but then, that wouldn't be the case if people just behaved better. Which brings me to what I really didn't like about the movie: the way it portrays female relationships. Maybe it's true that women can be a bit catty, even toward their friends. This movie certainly highlighted that! We've got "friends" gossiping about each other, men-stealing, gold-digging, and dubious advice getting passed along (even from mother to daughter). While all of this does make for an interesting story, I found myself wishing more positive aspects of female friendships could have been included as well. Maybe the estrogen overload just started getting to me after a while. I missed the men.

Final analysis: see it for the great actresses/performances, but don't model your life/love/friendships after it.

Rating: (Although I'm kinda wishing I had made half wing ratings, because this feels more like 3.5 to me.)


Now, what movie will be the next review in the chain? There's plenty of links here to pick from!

Leading Couples

Tomorrow night kicks off TCM's Leading Couples Film Festival -- two Tuesday nights of movies featuring some of Hollywood's most famous couples. This is timed to go along with the release of TCM's book, Leading Couples, which I first heard about through Raquelle's review of it on her blog, Out of the Past.

The book has many of the classic movie couples you'd expect (like Bogart/Bacall and Tracy/Hepburn) as well as some more obscure pairings and one really bizarre one. (Fay Wray and King King? Really?) Two types of couples are featured: those that made several films together and those that made a big impression together just one time on film. While I understand that they were trying to make things fair and not feature one person too many times, the rules of the book do mean that some great pairings (like Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn) are missing.

It's a great book for flipping through and reading a little at a time. I've enjoyed learning some useless but fun trivia, like how during filming on Gone With the Wind, Clark Gable taught Vivian Leigh to play backgammon and she in turn introduced him to battleship. I'm also getting some ideas for more movies to add to my watch list. One thing that does make me a little sad about the book: in the facts about each person, spouses are listed, and so many of these stars had several (often brief) marriages. I just think it's a shame that the people who made up some of the most romantic pairs on screen often had troubles in their personal romantic lives. Although I guess their movie love stories didn't always end happily, either.

Anyway, it's a good book for a classic movie fan. For a limited time, you can enter to win your own copy here.

What's your favorite film couple, classic or otherwise?

Book vs. Movie: Is the book always better?

This cool Threadless t-shirt (Movies: Ruining the Book since 1920) displays a definite point of view on the issue. But can it really be said that the book is always better than the movie adaptation?

In trying to understand why people generally seem to prefer the book to the movie version of a story, I came up with this theory: Perhaps we just like best what we knew first. Which, in most cases, is the book. Here's how it goes: you read a book, love it, find out it's been made into a movie, see the movie, and end up disappointed. Of course in reading the book first, you couldn't help but form ideas about how the characters looked. You loved all the little details that didn't make it into the limited time of the movie. And so you come out of the theater or close the dvd box feeling strongly that the book was so much better than the movie.

The problem with my theory is that it should work in reverse; if you saw the movie first, you should prefer it over the book. But this just doesn't happen nearly so often. Sure, seeing the movie first leaves a lasting impression of how the characters look. But it's usually fine to imagine them that way when you go ahead and read the book. Also, the details in the book usually end up enriching the story you already know, so you can still come away saying that the book is better than the movie.

Can the movie ever be better than the book? One thing against this is that books that are popular get made into movies, which creates high expectations. (Let's face it, if the book is terrible to start with, it probably won't get made into a movie.)

But in some cases, I actually do like the movie better than the book. One examples of this for me is Gone With the Wind. The book and movie are both long, but I am much more likely to re-watch the movie than to re-read the book. Some of the things that got left out from the book (like things involving the KKK and Scarlet's additional children) are not really missed in the movie. The costumes and sets actually enhance the story to me, showing the grandeur of the old South and the devastation caused by the war.

Another example of a movie that I would pick over the book is The Hunt for Red October. I could watch that movie endlessly and probably recite most of the dialogue off the top of my head if you asked me to. I have tried to read the book several times and have just never gotten through it. The extra detail in the book feels tedious as opposed to interesting. Plus, reading the book doesn't give me the pleasure of seeing Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery.

Another case in which I always seem to prefer the movie is when the story is based on actual events. Almost every time I see a movie about someone's life or some spectacular event and it moves me to read more about it, I wind up disappointed. The events, people, drama, excitement, etc. have all been changed for the big screen. Let's face it, life isn't like the movies. Things are left unresolved, things happen that don't make sense in some grander scheme or plot. Real life is better to live; enhanced life is better in the movies.

But I'd like to present a middle ground. Sure, the book is often better than the movie in certain ways. But movies are unique, and can do things that books can never do, which can make them better. Why can't books and movies be friends? Instead of always having to pick a side, let's make it ok to like both the book AND the movie.

On the same subject of books and movies, I found this cool Lit Flicks Challenge from The Bluestocking Society. The idea is simple: read 5 books that have been made into movies and watch at least 2 of the movie adaptations. I wish I would have found this sooner, since I just read and watched The Thin Man (the first time for each) in an attempt to catch up on classics I somehow missed. Fortunately, I've just started another book along those same lines, so I'll make it my first pick.

1. The Grapes of Wrath

There are so many other book/movie combos I've already enjoyed, but I wanted to try some that I hadn't seen or read yet. I came up with:

2. Jane Eyre
3. Matchstick Men

Two more to go, and I think I will go for books where I have already seen the movie and enjoyed it:

4. Awakenings
5. Build My Gallows High (the basis for the great noir film Out of the Past)

So, that's my list for now, since for this challenge I can change my mind and my books if I need to. If anyone is looking for help on a list of their own for the challenge, let me recommend the following, where both book and movie versions are good: The Princess Bride, Much Ado About Nothing, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.