His Pick 1960s: Mary Poppins

Okay, so technically, Corey's first pick for a movie from the 60's was Lawrence of Arabia.  But, after it taking us a week to watch a slightly (if you can imagine) shorter Seven Samurai, he had decided he would change it to something else.  So when the opportunity came for us to go see this classic at the Fox Theater, we thought it would be a fun way to have a date and knock another movie off the list.  It is truly one of both of our favorite movies.  And it's the first one all summer that I have actually seen before.

Another thing worth  noting is that this was a "singalong."  The words to all the songs were up on the screen and EVERYONE in the audience was encouraged to sing along, clap along, snap along, sway along, and whatever else along with the movie.

(the mouse icon is just the only photo I could find online of a singalong example, that's not what it looked like in the theater).  That shot above is from one of my favorite scenes actually, the laughing on the ceiling.  I don't know why but it just makes me laugh too.

This is another favorite, the entire animated sequence.  Very well done for the time it was made, it holds up!

Jane and Michael... for lack of a nicer way to say it, they are well cast for their roles, haha.

I mean, is there anything more fun than Mary Poppins and Bert "stepping in time" here? My other favorite scene.

I feel like I don't really need to tell anything else about this, surely everyone has seen it.

It's a good movie, a good story, amazing and catchy songs, and a good ending.

A classic kids movie for a reason, it's just good.  There is no comparing it to other kids movies of the same era, no wonder it rose above and became so popular.

I give this movie a 9/10 because of the quick turn around of the dad.  The musical does such a better job of digging into that storyline from the book, and the change made is more believable than the one little talk from Bert and the bank interaction changing his entire personality.

Deservedly part of our summer movie challenge, this was a great life experience to see on a big screen in a historic theater. Even if all the singalongers weren't exactly talented vocalists, haha.

His Pick 1940s: Rope

We watched Alfred Hitchcock this past weekend.

It's an interesting movie.  It doesn't take much, but this one definitely kept me nervous the entire time, but not too badly.

I won't ruin anything for you by telling you that this movie is about two guys who use a rope to strangle a mutual "friend" and stuff the body in a trunk until dark so they can get rid of it. That part happens in the first scene.  The motive is kind of unbelievable..they did it just to prove they could, that they are superior.

The rest of the movie takes place during a dinner party.  The excuse is that it's a going away party for one of the guys, but it's really another way to just gloat that they've done this thing and they aren't going to get caught.  The guests are a surprising mix of the victim's friends and family.

James Stewart is a former mentor of the two men on each side of him who are the murderers.

The trunk with the body inside. 

It's pretty stressful knowing that the body is right there in the room the entire time.  One of the guys is confident and smug.  The other is scared and nervous. 

It's not the best acting I've ever seen, or the most complicated plot.  But it definitely evokes emotion, it did from me anyway. There were some technologically advanced methods used in the filming which you can read about more on the IMDb page, one being that Hitchcock uses only ten separate takes for the entire movie, necessitating a lot of interesting methods with scenery, etc.

I had never heard of any of the actors except James Stewart.  I did enjoy his part pretty well, I think I'm discovering I like his movies.  I had never really seen any except It's a Wonderful Life, haha.

I would give this movie a 6 out of 10.  I mean, I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't extremely memorable or impressive to me. I was very interested to see how it ended, but not because of any particular interest in the characters, just because of the "are they going to get caught?!" factor. That part was pretty stressful.

We've got a few more movies left to go, I think we can do it!

Her pick 1940s: The Philadelphia Story

Big name stars and awards.  Interesting plot.

I finally picked a good one again, ha!

This is Katherine Hepburn and Carey Grant as a divorced couple, she's about to be married again, and he drops in with some papparazzi to cover the big wedding event (they are high society, rich, etc).

Jimmy Stewart is a writer who has stooped to tabloid writing to make a living.  His partner, the photographer (struggling painter/artist) comes along as well.

We end up with a love triangle situation.

Far left, fiance, middle, ex-husband, right, wild card thrown in.

We ended up having to split this movie up over several nights due to the crazy sleep schedule around here lately, and I would love to sit and watch it straight through.

There is some great writing, one-liners, it's just very witty and quick at it too.

The guys are never really mean toward each other, really just united against the groom to be.

Here's the writer and photographer considering the assignment.

I really enjoyed this movie.  It might be my favorite.  The humor was more enjoyable to me than The Apartment.  As cliche as the characters were in the upper class vs. working class struggle, I still thought they had depth.  The character development wasn't as deep as in The Apartment.  But the interaction between all these characters was more entertaining. I like when an old movie can be smart funny and not just slapstick funny or cheesy.

So, I guess because of liking the actors and interaction and wit better, this one wins as my favorite.

I give it an 9 out of 10.  Don't know what I'm saving 10 for but I guess I will know it when I see it.

Thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to watch it again one day.

12 movies down, 8 more to go!

His pick 1950s: Seven Samurai

If you want to live forever and never die, start watching this movie.

Seriously though.

Ever sang that "song that never ends" haha.  Okay, okay, I'm done.

But not with this movie yet.

Okay for real, we started watching this the day after we watched The Iron Giant.

It took us almost a week to finish.  Mostly, because Corey has been so tired with switching work shifts. But, also because this movie is very long.

It's in black and white.

And it's in Japanese.  Subtitled in English.

The story is that these Japanese farmers were attacked by bandits who promised to come back and steal and plunder and all that stuff when their harvest comes in.  So, they decide to try to find samurai to come and help them defend themselves.  But they can only pay them with food.

The guy on the left is the leader and helps find six more samurai to help them. Obviously, since they are only being paid with food, these samurai have good intentions and motives and have good overall character.

The entire first half (first disk) of the movie is them deciding to, and finding, the samurai. Approximately 100 minutes at least.  And a little bit of the samurai starting to figure out how to best fortify and defend the village (I think, maybe that party was on the second).  I really could've done with about 90% less of this entire half of the film, because to be honest, the second part wasn't bad.  The second part involved more preparations, some development of the small love story, and the actual battle against the bandits.

The battle is pretty long, but not constant.  It's interesting and a good ending to the movie.

Apparently this guy did a lot of new stuff with camera work and shooting outdoors, battle scenes, etc.  I find it really difficult to watch black and white movies with outdoor scenes, it's just so difficult to distinguish the scenery and all.

The development of a few of the characters was done pretty interestingly.  But then others I kept getting mixed up because, and I hate that this sounds bad, but the names were so confusing to me!

It is really difficult to rate this movie. I hate to say it, but the subject matter just wasn't interesting to me.  It wasn't visually appealing to me because of the outside black and white stuff, and I don't like having to watch a movie and read it at the same time.  I'm just not sophisticated enough and I won't pretend to be, haha.

I give it a 5 out of 10. I didn't strongly dislike it as far as content, etc.  And I didn't love it either.  It's not a movie I would've kept watching had it not been on the list.  To me, the length wasn't justifiable with my level of interest in the story.  And that's just my opinion.