My Favorite Films

Theodore Kamis

Lights, camera, ....

Internet Movie Database
de rigeur for movie buffs to find movie info...
62 West Wallaby Street
A very good Wallace and Gromit page!
The Greatest Films of All Time
Very detailed plot summaries, and a whole lot more...

My Favorite Films...

`Attention!! This update is as of 16 August 1997`

`You may link from the pictures at this time!`

However, I do have a lot of work to do writing my reviews. Sorry for the delay...

North by Northwest - the review is now done...

The Blues Brothers - it's done also...

All others have not yet been completed. Links to them will work, and some even have links to other resources, like their entries in the Internet Movie Database...

I am not yet a member of the Reel Ring. However, I do have to have those graphics up before I can be admitted. They do work...

`Please be patient during construction... I hope to make it well worth your while.`

The Management

Everyone has their own list of favorite films. Jewell Fitzgerald, my Film Criticism instructor at Edgewood College, would probably wonder why some of the films on my list are there. Then again, she would probably be pleased that some of the films she believed were worthy enough to be shown in class, or made available as subjects for a final paper did make the list.

There is a very good reason why they are on the list - I like them. For any filmgoer, that should be enough for a good start.

However, just to keep Jewell out of my dreams (she is a very formidable person, awake or asleep!!), I shall select films that I think have some merit. This is, of course, no guarantee that she will agree. Nor is there a guarantee that you will, either. However, since she can't change my grade, and neither can you....(A final paper on North by Northwest, along with a biography comparing Hitchcock with Chuck Jones, earned me an "A", bringing my final grade to an "AB". (Try linking to the paper - see my North by Northwest page here and now.)

Each of the films will have some explanation as to why I would recommend that you should watch them. The explanations will be entirely my own, but may have been influenced by others, such as any stray Siskel & Ebert reviews. I do tend to look a lot at technical aspects of these films, although the stories are often quite interesting as well...

There are several rules I shall apply to each film to see if it warrants inclusion:

Have I actually seen the film? There are some excellent films which I have not actually seen yet, such as Dead Man Walking, Braveheart, and The Producers, that should be included in someone's favorite film list, which I haven't seen. How can you trust me not to be a shill if I recommend films sight unseen?
Has the film been theatrically released? I'm sorry, but this will eliminate some excellent television films (such as Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen, several Maigret mysteries produced by Granada Productions for Mystery!, and Pride and Prejudice. I'm happy that this will also exclude many of the horrendous made-for-TV movies and miniseries.
Is there a rational reason for me to recommend the film? The definition of "rational" is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Since this is my site, and I'm paying for the server space, I alone am responsible for defining "rational". Of course, emotion does complement reason, as studios know all too well - else why would anyone see the latest Stallone clinker?
And finally, it helps if I can find a .gif or .jpeg image relating to the film. To make my linking system look nice, I use a reduced .gif image related to the film, preferably from the film itself, or a movie poster. (One execption to this rule exists - the link to Auntie Mame. Since Auntie Mame was first produced as a Broadway production, and I thought the poster looked very good, I was able to make an exception. Of course, it helped that Rosalind Russell starred in both the Broadway production and the movie.) Therefore, such excellent films that I wished to include, such as Mister Roberts, Driving Miss Daisy, Hatari!, Roger and Me, and Stalag 17 can not be included now. (Any help in finding suitable images for these films will be most appreciated - I crashed my computer twice trying to find such images. E-mail me if you can help - links to your movie web site can be provided.)

There are 20 films on my list. Why?

One, I do not have the time or server space to review more films now.

Two, there are many other pages out there that give you choices and recommendations. I do not need to compete with them in terms of quantity of recommendations, only in quality.

Third, in the words of Daffy Duck, "I'm despicable!" Or, maybe, I just am not a film critic, but a person who enjoys good films. Yes, there are a lot of films that I haven't seen, that may be better than those I have chosen to be listed here.

In that case, I may expand this list. Then again, I may not.

Your comments are welcome - just remember, I only have two hands...

And finally, twenty is a nice, even number to start with.

(Oh, by the way, two of the picture links - the Gromit / penguin and Bugs and Elmer - lead to multiple film reviews. Just because they are animated films doesn't mean that they each do not warrant their own review. I did this for aesthetic and technical reasons.)

This page was updated on 13 July 1997.

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