For the fifth year in a row, I trail like a Christmas puppy behind my blogger-friend Aurora. Every year at this time at her blog Once Upon a Screen, she provides a blog entry titled #PayClassicsForward, using a “12 Days of Christmas” motif to share some of her favorite films and movie themes with her readers, and I dutifully follow suit.
For a better idea of what I’m talking about, click here to read Aurora’s entry for this year. I have provided my own version of this Christmas chestnut below. Don’t agree with my choices? Did I leave out some of your favorites? Feel free to create your own #PayClassicsForward blog entry to share some movie love with us this holiday season!
(By the way, many of the movies or scenes which I have listed below are available for free viewing on YouTube, or were reviewed by me at this blog and my previous blog, Movie Movie Movie Blog. I highly encourage you to seek them out and add them to your film “vocabulary.”)
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One heartfelt plea to The Walt Disney Co.
You bought 20th Century-Fox’s movies, so of course you have the right to do what you want with them. But, for the sake of film history…please share.
Two one-joke-punchline movies
Bambi vs. Godzilla (1969)
A Single Life (2014)
Three movies where you came for the plot…honest
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Magic Mike (2012)
Four hairy stories
Georges Melies’ The Untameable Whiskers (1904)
Hair (1979)
The Peanut Butter Solution (1985)
Cast Away (2000)
Five movies with lead characters who take the fifth
The Bank Dick (1940)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Arthur (1981)
The Hangover (2009)
The World’s End (2013)
Six post-silent-era silent movies
Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936)
Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie (1976)
Sidewalk Stories (1989)
The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (1991)
The Artist (2011)
Seven memorable seven’s
Seven Chances (1925)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
Se7en (1995)
Eight indelible movie settings
An on-the-move train in the Civil War, The General (1926)
Tara, Gone with the Wind (1939)
Oz, The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Xanadu, Citizen Kane (1941)
The Bates Hotel, Psycho (1960)
The Overlook Hotel, The Shining (1980)
The terminal of JFK Airport, The Terminal (2004)
New York City (you choose)
Nine movies that respect death yet celebrate life
Gates of Heaven (1978)
The Big Chill (1984)
My Life as a Dog (1985)
Steel Magnolias (1989)
Ghost (1990)
Defending Your Life (1991)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
The Lion King (1994)
Up (2009)
Ten Bechdel Test passers
Gone with the Wind (1939)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
The Exorcist (1973)
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
Aliens (1986)
GoodFellas (1990)
Titanic (1997)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Wonder Woman (2017)
Eleven not your grandfather’s Christmas movies
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Trading Places (1983)
Gremlins (1984)
Brazil (1985)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Die Hard (1988)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Batman Returns (1992)
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
The Ref (1994)
Twelve movie characters with no names, just memorable characterizations
The jurors of 12 Angry Men (1957)
MovieMovieBlogBlog II 