The Month in Film: May 2013

Wow, school didn’t end till the last week of May and I still found time to watch almost fifty movies in a month!  If that’s not a blog record, I don’t know what is.  Several of the movies I watched were box sets, which I’m sure upped my intake.

1.  Paddy O’Day

2. Fright Night (1985)*

3. Iron Man 3

4. High School

5. Rascals

6. Primer

7. The Raven (1935)

8. Gangster Squad*

9. Meet Me in St. Louis

10. The Great Escape

11. Safe Haven

12. Bram Stoker’s Dracula*

13. The Great Gatsby (2013)

14. Psycho (1998)

15. Red Dust*

16. The Farmer Takes a Wife

17. House at the End of the Street*

18. Major Dundee

19. Pain & Gain

20. The Rescuers Down Under*

21. Crossfire

22. Harlow (1965)

23. School Ties*

24. Movie 43

25. Mud

26. Brubaker

27. Don’t Say No Until I Finish Talking: The Richard D. Zanuck Story

28. Cleopatra

29. A Summer Place

30. There’s Always Tomorrow

31. Magic Mike*

32. The George Raft Story

33. Viva Zapata!

34. Romeo and Juliet (1968)*

35. Behind the Candelabra

36. Where the Sidewalk Ends

37. Medium Cool

38. Too Many Husbands

39. Endless Love

40. The Ox-Bow Incident

41. Immortal Sergeant

42. Jesse James

43. The Return of Frank James

44. My Darling Clementine

45. Daisy Kenyon

46. Message in a Bottle

TOTALS:

46 films watched in May (up 11 from April)

9 were rewatches

37 were first-time viewings

5 were theatrical releases (four were new movies, one was classic shown on the big screen)

Top 5 Favorite Classic Films of the Month:

1.   Meet Me in St. Louis – this was a no-brainer if you read my gushing review.  I hope to purchase this soon.

2.  Too Many Husbands – My review should be up soon, but this was just similar enough to My Favorite Wife to be fun already, but vastly different in tone and acting to be its own animal.  A fine trio of performances creates a solid comic caper.  

3.  The Ox-Bow Incident – Still my favorite from the Henry Fonda Collection. 

4.  Cleopatra – I may have called it “The Liz & Dick Show” but it’s THE “Liz & Dick Show.”  Sumptuous, vibrant, epic.

5.  My Darling Clementine – Another surprising Henry Fonda western following the failures of progress with a fantastic cast.

Favorite Theatrical Film of the Month: Mud is a close second, but I loved the hell out of Pain and Gain.  It’s madcap, brutal, and while I cringed at the vilifying of the victims it’s tempered by the stupidity of the “heroes.”  Michael Bay returns to what he knows best.

Worst Film of the Month:  The Great Gatsby in terms of theatrical.  Endless Love and Message in a Bottle for home viewing.