Frankly, my dear...I don't give a damn

The other day I watched Gilda and The Ten Commandments and it got me thinking about such classic films: Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, It's A Wonderful Life the list is long.

   

Films like that simply aren't made anymore, the sets, costumes, dance numbers and the actors: 
Glenn Ford, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Vivien Liegh....

Now, a lot of actors are models or singers trying to prove themselves multi-talented are thrust onto the screen. Sometimes it works, Justin Timberlake doesn't do too badly in comedy but personally falls flat in action film 'In Time' and sometimes it's goes horribly wrong, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in the forth Transformers movie need I say anymore?

But, if you ask me you can't beat some of the oldies.

One of my favorite films will always be the 1963 version of Cleopatra with the stunning Elizabeth Taylor. The opulence of the set and costumes was amazing and it simply cannot be recreated in the same way, which is why I am hoping no director tries to do a remake and butcher this film, even though it is technically a remake itself.

I am by no means a film buff/snob (though I have been told a few times I can be quite snobby) however I think it's true that nowadays most films are either remakes or book adaptations. I am not against either but it seems the film industry is lacking in originality [see: the endless rom-coms flooding cinemas near you.] 

So part of my new years resolution despite the fact it is nearly February, is to not waste my time with rubbish remakes, rom-coms out now but to watch proper films classics and more alternative films that make me think or read the subtitles.

Gosh, I sound so pretentious.

Anyway, that is the end of my rant, here is what I'm going to try watching (and re-watching) in no particular order:

• The Petrified Forest (1936) - A waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert

• Vertigo (1958) - retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's much-younger wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her

• Ben-Hur (1959) - When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge

• North by Northwest (1959) - A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and is pursued across the country

• Casablanca (1942) - Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications

• Gone with the Wind (1939) - American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction

• The Italian Job (1969) - Comic caper movie about a plan to steal a gold shipment from the streets of Turin by creating a traffic jam

source: http://www.imdb.com/