Bonnie and Clyde

"Bonnie and Clyde", #27/42, 1967

Oh, this was a good movie. It's about Bonnie and Clyde. You should watch it. And then you'll understand when people reference Bonnie and Clyde. 
It'll be great. 

Psycho

"Psycho" #18/14, 1960

Oh, Psycho. This is an excellent horror movie. 
I'm sure you've all seen a clip of the shower stabbing scene, or at least hear the music, so I'm not really giving much away there. But, there were things in this movie that I was not expecting. And I'm not going to give those away. I know I often ruin movie plot lines on here, but you should see this movie. 
The basic set up is that a bunch of stuff goes down at the Bates Motel. 
So just go watch it. 
Because it's classic. And it's Alfred Hitchcock. 
So, even if you're like me and you don't like horror movies, just watch this one. For the experience of it :)

Midnight Cowboy

"Midnight Cowboy", #36/42, 1969
So I watched this movie back in November, but apparently, I never wrote about it. Whoops.

And, I wrote those lines back in July and never finished the post. Which means it's been over a year since I watched this movie, and I'm about a dozen movies behind blogging in general. So, major whoops on that. Apologies to the one person who reads this blog.

This movie has some really great acting by the young Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight.
The opening scene is this montage between a whole bunch of southern diner workers shout "Where is that Joe Buck?" and Joe Buck, played by Voight, getting all gussied up as a cowboy. He then goes into the diner, announces he's quitting the dinner and moving to New York. And he does.
Joe Buck goes to New York with this great plan that he could be this suave southern cowboy and easily gain money by prostitution. He finds out that it's not quite the easy, carefree, rich lifestyle he'd planned on. But, he meets Ratso, played by Hoffman, who is used a street-smart thief who is used to the tough life of being beyond broke in New York. And they become friends.
And that's really the heart of the story. The odd deep friendship these two have and how they take great efforts to provide for each other. Ultimately caring more about the welfare of the other person over their own.
The content of the movie (prostitution, stealing, etc.) but, it was very sweet to see their unique and loving friendship. I guess I can't be too certain, since it has been a year since I've seen it, but I think I'd watch it again.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", #50/73, 1969
So this movie was not that great. It's about two people... Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They are bank robbers, who are being chased. The absolute best part of this movie, is they can't seem to shake the people chasing after them, which is weird because they run from people a lot, but none of their tricks are working. They keep repeating "Who are those guys?" I think it was like 5 or 6 times. But, other than that, it was just kind of drawn out and not really a good plot. I also had a really hard time knowing which was was Butch Cassidy and which one was Sundance Kid, but it didn't really matter.
So, in conclusion... it's not that great, so I'm not recommending it.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", New/#66, 1966
This is another movie that was added to the anniversary list even though it was around well before the original list.
This movie takes place all in one night, one very late, very drunken night. It's about two couples, one old(er) and one young. Both the men are professors at the same college and they just meet at a faculty & spouse get together. The young couple comes over to the old couple's house, and even before they arrive, we get to witness the old couple screaming at each other and the audience learns they're in this crazy, bitter, hate-filled, but also somehow loving marriage. At the beginning, the young couple seems like the perfect happy little couple, and then you learn little by little that they have issues too. The best part was when the young women went on this little rant about how she drinks very carefully not to get drunk, and then, naturally, three minutes later she gets very drunk and stays pretty plaster for the rest of the movie. The entire movie is just the couples chatting, drinking, and sharing deep, dark secrets with people they've just met.

One thing I found interesting is that I watched the whole movie without recognizing what actor was the young husband. He's name's George Segal, and I knew him from when he played Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me. This is not important information or anything, but the fact that after watching this movie, the most interesting thing about it is that I didn't recognize that actor pretty much tells you this was not a good movie. So, I would suggest not watching it.
The last thing is that the title doesn't have anything to do with Virginia Woolf. She's not a character in the movie at all. It comes from a joke at the faculty party, so the movie audience doesn't even really know what the joke is, but it singing "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf" to the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". And the movie audience gets to hear the couples talk about what a riot that was at the party. So, that's been stuck in my head for a while...

The Apartment

"The Apartment", #93/80, 1960
So, I haven't blogged in a while... I haven't watched too many movies off of the list lately because I got very distracted by catching up on television shows. I watched all of Veronica Mars and the entire series of The Office-bringing me up to speed with the current season, and I just have just started watching NCIS. The NCIS episode I finished referenced this movie, which was kind of awesome to hear a vague reference to a movie and know what it was about.
I'm going to give away some things here, but most of it is explained in the first few minutes, and then a lot of it is very predictable, so I don't really feel bad about giving it away. This movie is about Baxter, who works at some company at a low level, and he is trying to move up by helping out the top executives. The way he helps them out is by lending out his apartment to the top executives so they can bring the girls they are having an affair with for a few hours. Which is just weird and gross. Baxter has a crush on this girl in the office who runs the elevator, which really made me smile. Then there are a couple twists that I won't reveal.
Then Baxter gets the job and he cuts off everyone from using the apartment, except for his new boss. And then his new boss wants to take the girl to the apartment. And Baxter quits because he would rather have no job than have a job since it means letting the boss use his apartment with the girl. Then the girl finds out and chooses Baxter. So, happy ending all around.
It was a little difficult to watch the movie, it got kind of long, and I just felt so bad for Baxter for most of the movie. However, if you are going to watch all of NCIS, you should watch this movie first.

An American In Paris

"An American In Paris", #68/removed, 1951
This movie was pretty good. It is a musical featuring Gene Kelly. He is a really good dancer and pretty good singer, so most of the movies he made were musicals, or he played a musical character in them. Right away, the movie starts with this voice over of Kelly's character. He explains that he is in Paris, he is an American, and he's a painter. Then we heard his good friend explain that he's also an American in Paris, but he's a pianist. Then it switches to a Paris native who is a famous singer. So, being good friends with a pianist and a singer leads to a lot of songs in the movie. Although these beginning voice overs gave the audience a lot of interesting information, it went on for a long time and was getting really annoying. I was worried that the entire movie would be like this, but no worries, the characters soon started talking to each other.
The story line in a classic girl meets boy, boy meets other girl, that girl is with a different boy story. So, kind of a z-shaped love diagram going on. Then, the climax of the movie happens at this party, and the girl chooses the other boy and we're all kind of sad. Then, there is a random 15, maybe 20 minute long dream sequence that is just dancing. There are lots of dancers and many bright costumes going on. It was all good choreography, but it just went on too long. It lost my interest and I really like dance, and bright colors. But then the dream sequence ends and the audience returns to the party, and wouldn't you believe it, the girl comes running back to the boy.
Overall, I liked this movie. A friend who was watching it with me got a little squimish about the love Z going on, so there is that to consider. And there were some very interesting side notes throughout. However, if you don't have to pay a rental fee to watch this movie, you totally should.

Guess Who

"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", #99/removed, 1967. This movie may be familiar to you if you've see the 2005 remake with Ashton Kutcher and Zoe Saldana (the girl from Avatar and the new Star Trek movie before she was the girl from Avatar and the new Star Trek). I've seen the remake before I watched the original, so I spent a lot of the movie making comparisons between the two. The common set up the parents of a girl meeting her boyfriend, who is of a different race. The biggest difference I noticed between the movies, is that in the remake, the boy is white, and in this original, the boy is black. I was pretty surprised by this, but there are a lot of reasons why the remake needed to make this change. The original was made and takes place right in the middle of the Civil Rights Movements. The couple in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is engaged, and ready to be married quickly. One of the lines in the movie explains that the two of them getting married would actually be illegal in 16 states. That shocked me. So in that movie, it made sense for the parents to struggle with this idea, and they fought many internal battles throughout the movie trying to accept it. These parents actually wanted to accept it. In the remake, they had to switch the racial roles because in the remake, the father was adamant against the boy, which is why the dad had to be black and the boy had to be white. In 2005, it was funny for a black dad to be against a white boyfriend, and it would have been considered horrible for a white dad to be against a black boyfriend.

So, that's my rant on the race issue of it all... now, on to the actual movie critique... this movie was not great. It was pretty slow, and the entire movie took place in one day. There were a few gems in there. Like when this one girl appeared in about three insignificant scenes, and then didn't reappear in anything significant later on. Or the fact that the climax of the movie was a dinner, and more and more guests were added to the dinner, which resulted in the phrase "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" actually being said throughout it. The daughter's reaction when her mother's coworker shows up at the house. But, even with those few gems, I would suggest watching the funnier remake of it before you watch the original.