telophase | So, what *was* my favorite movie?

I forgot to post the movie Tampopo, which is one of my favorites also, but is not my mostest favorite.

Howl's Moving Castle - 4 - Nope! While I like the movie and own the DVD, the book is far better. Now, the book is indeed one of my favorite books.

City of Lost Children - 3 - Nope again! It's one of my favorites, and

chomiji probably remembered me telling her it was an example of the big lunk partnered with small cutie in a not-romantic way genre that's one of my narrative kinks, when I was explaining why I like the Kenpachi-Yachiru dynamic in Bleach ... but it's not my mostest favorite.

The Man from Snowy Mountain - 0 - OK, so I mistyped the title and it's actually The Man From Snowy River. Still not my most favorite. I watched it a lot when I was a teenager and it was the mostest favorite of a friend of mine, but not me. :) I'm just surprised nobody picked it - was it because I mistyped it, or because my friend and I are the only people ever to have seen it?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 3 - Very good movie. Just doesn't grab me enough to make it my favorite.

Spirited Away - 4 - Now, this one is really close to being the perfect

telophase movie, but it's still not my most favorite. :)

Casablanca - 4 - Wonderful movie. I can watch it over and over. Still not my most favorite.

The African Queen - 2 - Again, wonderful movie. Obviously I have a thing for Humphrey Bogart. But still not my favorite.

My Neighbor Totoro - 3 - Very charming, and like all Studio Ghibli movies, I love the attention to detail, with the reflections on the water, and so on. But not something I watch frequently.

Star Wars - 2 - Had you asked me this question when I was 12, this would have been my answer, and I would not have been able to conceive of ever answering differently. But no more! XD I don't think I've even watched it in the last decade.

Raiders of the Lost Ark - 4 - My friend Kathy had the entire script for this memorized. We could go to the movies and watch it - yes, this was in the days before VHS tapes were widely available, so it stayed in the theatres for, like, a year and we PAID to see it every time, you whippersnappers! - and she would recite EVERY SINGLE LINE as it was said. I never got quite that fanatic about it. :)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - 7 - This was the overwhelming choice among you, with a whole seven people voting for it. Guess what? It's a light fluffy movie that I loved when I was 16 and find rather annoying now. :) It's probably my least favorite of any on this list.

Ghostbusters - 1 - Awesome when I was a teenager, still enjoyable now, but not in the top ranks of my favorites.

Hero - 4 - I do love this movie, and the cinematography, and the retelling of the story, but ... it's not a comfort story for me and I don't rewatch it that much. (I do own the DVD, though.)

the LotR trilogy - 3 - I liked the movies, but the books are way better, and I've only rewatched the movies once. :D

So what does this leave my favorite movie as being?

The Dirty Dozen - 0 - I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU PICKED THIS ONE. This is a totally awesome movie, and if I start to watch it at any point, I get sucked in. It stars Lee Marvin as a tough-as-nail but unconventional and insubordinate Army major during WWII who is given command of a squad formed of 12 men who have been given either the death penalty or a long prison sentence for murder, desertion, striking a superior officer, etc. He's got 6 weeks to mold them into a fighting force that can take out a French chateau that's serving as a gathering point for a lot of German high brass. It's got several made-for-TV sequels which I have never seen and don't want to, because by all accounts they are dire. It stars, like, everyone: Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Ernest Borgnine, and a few more that escape me at the moment.

I don't even remember when I first saw it - I think I was changing channels one night, stopped for a few second as Lee Marvin was in one of the prisoners' cells talking to them, and got sucked in. The TiVo caught it for me, I don't know why, but now that I've watched it and given it three thumbs up, it thinks I like WWII movies and is trying to record Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and some other famous WWII film that escapes me at the moment.

My vague clues as to what movie I liked were (a) my mention to

chomiji that my favorite movie might give people insight into why I liked Bleach's 11th Division - note that wasn't Kenpachi and Yachiru, but the whole division. XD And (b) the second was that I used the Kenpachi icon in the poll post, which probably would have steered people more towards City of Lost Children instead of The Dirty Dozen, if they hadn't gotten the 11th Division clue. But I suspect that none of you bothered looking for clues anyway, and just picked the movies you liked off the list. :D

And so what did I get with my Amazon.com gift certificate?

the 2-disc deluxe DVD of The Dirty Dozen, duh. :D And also the manhwa Dokebi Bride 5, which is an excellent series that I never see in my local bookstores, for whatever reason. Yeah, I spent more than the $10 on the certificate, but it's not like I could ever limit myself to just $10 from Amazon, right? :D

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Wah, the original Dirty Dozen was on TV again the other night, and I intended to sit down and watch it finally because my dad keeps harping on me for not having watched enough classics. xD;

I totally forget I was going to try to watch it until right now. XDDD The blonde, it goes straight to my brain...

:D It's better rented anyway, because that way you don't have the commercials (if this was indeed the same showing on AMC that the TiVo captured for me).

other famous WWII film that escapes me at the moment.

If it's not The Devil's Brigade (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062886/) you really want to add that one.

*checks* I don't remember if it was that one or not, but it's showing on TCM on the 8th, so I told the TiVo to record it. :D Thanks!

Maybe it was Where Eagles Dare? http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=where+Eagles+dare
I always thought that was a really good pre-James Bond sort of WW2 Thriller. No worries, we Germans are the baddies as always. I just love the combination of Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

Ah well ... you can blame this one on my woeful ignorance of classic movies! If I was picking my favorite off that list, it would have been Spirited Away. (Hmmmm ... do I like that better than The Princess Bride? Now there's a question to keep me up at night!)

:D If there's a critically acclaimed classic movie on and I happen to start watching it, chances are I'll like it. But I usually never start watching them. XD I watched Casablanca because it had been cited as such a classic everywhere that I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about ... and wow! The African Queen was similar, and when I decided I liked Humphrey Bogart, I rented it, and turned out to like it a lot. :)

I probably ought to amend my ignorance and watch more of them - the problem is that I don't like watching movies by myself, so I mostly end up with the computer or a book when I want sit-down entertainment. But the Young Lady needed Stalag 17 and On the Waterfront for part of her school program, and all 3 of us ended up sitting around the home office watching them on her computer ... I'm not sure why we didn't just trundle them down to the rec room, where we could have all sat on the sofa!

XD That sounds like a nifty school - my schooling was merely adequate, and the closest we got to classic movies was Gone with the Wind for our junior English class.

I went and read a bit about The Dirty Dozen online, and found that it was roundly condemned for its violence at the time - 1967. XD Yeah, it pales in comparison. Guys tend to clutch their chests and collapse with no sign of blood until a mysterious pool suddenly starts spreading under their completely untouched bodies. There was one decent makeup job for a forehead shot, and there was serious implied war-is-hell amoral violence with civilians getting killed at one point, but absolutely nothing like you see on TV today.

And all the soldiers cursing with "lover" instead of what soldiers really say is hysterically funny. I've just BookMooched the novel it came from - I wodner what the language is like in there?

Both Casablanca and The African Queen are excellent. The latter was inspired by the Battle of Lake Tanganyika in WW I, amusingly written about in Giles Foden's recent book Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400075262/). It even has a commander in a skirt.

The Dirty Dozen is the best of the WW II caper flicks, but I'd second the recommendation of The Devil's Brigade and also suggest Where Eagles Dare, and possibly The Guns of Navarone and Force 10 from Navarone. It's hard to top the planning scene in Dirty Dozen though: "... and we all come out like it's Halloween!"

*checks library* Woohoo, the library I work at has it available as an ebook. XD The part in the blurb on Amazon that says modern Tanzanians have forgotten abut it isn't kidding - I used to live in Tanzania. If you go there now, all they talk about is Out of Africa.

I haven't seen the Dirty Dozen. Considering how much I like the rest of your list, I guess I should.

Why is the original 12 Angry Men not listed?

Oh, and Tampopo is excellent!

Why is the original 12 Angry Men not listed?

Simple: I've never seen the movie. :D I've read the script numerous times, though, because it was included in, like, all my English textbooks from 5th grade on, and I knew when I was bored in class I could always flip to it and read it. And the year we actually read the thing, the teacher got volunteers to be the various characters, so I shot up my hand and volunteered for Number 8, or whichever he was*, the best part in the play. XD

* My memory for details is like one of those whatchacallits with the holes in.

It's a really well done movie. One of those I always have to stop and watch if I catch it flipping channels (which happens rarely, alas).

Oh my gosh, I still love The Man From Snowy River (and sequel). It's a big love letter to everyone who loves horses. And it's got great music. (Funny aside - my mom was in the car with me when "Starless" from Rurouni Kenshin came up on the ipod, and she thought it was from Snowy River. We went back and watched the movies, and what do you know? The bit where the horses run through the snow sounds just like the beginning of "Starless".)

Bah. I knew it was going to end up being a movie I hadn't seen before. On your list I had about a 50/50 chance. I was really rooting for African Queen.

I've never seen it but it makes sense! Now it's on my list.

So, what was my favorite movie?

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Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure

Re: Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure

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