+11
Well, the big hitters are coming out now. I'm mentally downgrading some of my possibles to should-have-been's.
A Matter of Life and Death is my grandfather's favourite movie. He's watched it any number of times. He'd probably be incredulous if I told him it wasn't on my list, but while I think it is a fine film in many respects it didn't make the cut.
The Ghost and Mrs Muir is a wonderful film, Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison are both on fine form and there's a lot in this film about loneliness, companionship and family expectations and at times it's both sad and humorous whilst also being a love story and a ghost story. It was #16 on my list.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp I watched only a few days ago, I didn't get round to it before the list submission date. I thought it was an enjoyable film to watch, with an interesting sort of message in terms of wartime propaganda. I think my favourite part was the montage of him passing several years without war, shown by an increasing number of animal heads mounted on his all. Interesting to see how that early 20th century 'duels and hunting' mentality was being shown as a relic of a bygone each in 1943.
Les Enfants du Paradis - I'd like to say that this is criminally low, but I have a feeling many people just haven't got round to watching it. I almost didn't. In fact it was the very last film I watched before turning in my list and I'm so glad I did see it in time. Just an incredible film of love, jealousy and the theatre which has surely been very influential on subsequent films. And yet it's not the plot of the film that's particularly special, it's the way it looks, the way it unfolds, an indefinable mesmeric quality. I was one of the three people who had it at #6.
I have watched both The Killers and Out of the Past. Both start with an interesting amount of tension, a small town, a secret violent past etc. Out of the Past looks great, but the noir genre isn't my favourite and while there are noir films on my list, neither of these grabbed me enough to put in my top 25.