I'm not much on rear-window ethics

This is a good mix, with something for everyone—or at least not the same things as usual!

Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944) - "A poor family in Florida saves all the money they can in order to plan something special for the soldier they've invited to Sunday dinner. They don't realize that their request to invite the soldier never got mailed. On the day of the scheduled dinner, another soldier is brought to their home and love soon blossoms between him and Tessa, the young woman who runs the home."
Source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: it was Thanksgiving day, I was lonesome for family, and wanted to watch something uplifting
IMDB: 6.6/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: N/A%

notable quote: "Come home."
story: the plot probably made more sense in 1944? 
visuals: filmed on location in Florida
costumes, hair & makeup: fitting for the piece
acting: Connie Marshall (Mary Osborne) was terrific for her age. I liked the main characters, played by Anne Baxter (Tessa Osborne) and John Hodiak (Sgt. Eric Moore)—who later married, having met while filming this movie.

intangibles: sweet and touching. It's a good one.
overall: warmly recommended

Crash (2004) - "Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss, and redemption."
Source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: I'd heard good things
IMDB: 7.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 74% Audience: 88%

notable quote: "In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."
story: a day in the life of Los Angeles
visuals: it is visually striking
costumes, hair & makeup: effective
acting: I particularly liked Ryan Phillippe (Officer Hanson), Loretta Devine (Shaniqua) and Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges (Anthony)—whose acting always impresses me. On the other hand, some better-known players mailed in their performances. (I'm talking to you, Bullock.)

intangibles: this could have been a life-changing movie, if there weren't so many cheap (i.e. emotionally simple) shortcuts taken
Academy Award winner:
• Best Picture

• Best Writing, Original Screenplay

• Best Film Editing
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Supporting Actor—Matt Dillon (Office Ryan)

• Best Director—Paul Haggis

• Best Music, Original Song
overall: recommended with some reservations

Great Expectations (1946) - "A humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor."
Source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: I think we saw this when we read the book in junior high? I recall the story but not the movie.
IMDB: 7.8/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 100% Audience: 88%

notable quote: "In trying to become a gentleman, I had succeeded in becoming a snob."
visuals: very nicely done for the era. Moody and tense - with nice moments of gaiety.
costumes, hair & makeup: appropriate for the period
acting: I was entranced by the charming Sir Alec Guinness (Herbert Pocket), and Finlay Currie (Abel Magwitch) was wonderful

intangibles: this is not just a good adaptation or a good historical film - it's a flat out fun movie
Academy Award winner:
• Best Cinematography, Black & White

• Best Art Direction—Set Decoration, Black & White
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Picture

• Best Director—David Lean

• Best Writing, Screenplay
overall: highly recommended

Back to Bataan (1945) - "In 1942, after the fall of the Philippines to the Japanese, U.S. Army Col. Joseph Madden stays behind to organize the local resistance against the Japanese invaders."
Source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: my dad gave me a huge folder of movies from his archive and I've been working my way through the ones that I have not already seen. It would be way more fun to watch them with him, like we used to do when I was growing up, but watching them on my own and then texting him about them is the next best thing. That's where all these seemingly "random" titles are coming from. 
IMDB: 6.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: N/A% Audience: 63%

notable quote: "You're the guy we're fighting this war for."
visuals: black and white jungle
acting: nothing Oscar-worthy

intangibles: not my favorite war movie. It's overlong and profusely schmaltzy.
overall: marginally recommended

Madame Bovary (2000) - "A young woman in her late teens, a reader of novels and with high hopes of romance and passion, marries a widowed country doctor. First, she gives her imagination to a law student in town, and next she takes a lover. When he refuses to run away with her, she takes up again with the law clerk. Her spending on dresses and furnishings mounts; these debts and her ill-advised professional counsel to her husband bring his ruin."
Source: streamed on Amazon Prime
I watched it because: who hasn't heard of this Gustave Flaubert novel? I'd neither read it nor seen any adaptation.
IMDB: 6.5/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: N/A% Audience: 61%

notable quote: "...you need to attract a better class of invalid."
story: foolish, spoiled Emma marries Dr. Bovary because she has a crush, soon finding out it's not all about getting her own way. She distracts herself with the attention of a schoolboy until he has to leave town. She then launches an affair with a notorious gentleman, which ends only when he refuses to start a new life with her. Her path of destruction spirals miserably.
costumes, hair & makeup: the contrast between what Emma has and what she wants is clearly revealed through the clothing that the characters wear at different times
acting: Greg Wise (Rodolphe) is terrific as the notorious gentleman with whom Emma engages in the affair. His emotional range is exquisite.

intangibles: this is an unpleasant story, and the female lead (who is almost never offscreen) is unpleasant to watch in it. Some of the supporting cast are quite good, but cannot make up for such a huge drawback.
overall: not recommended

Rear Window (1954) - "A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder."
Source: I borrowed this DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: I'd seen it before, many years ago, sufficiently long enough to have forgotten the story
AFI: 100 Years ... 100 Movies (original list 1998) #42

100 Years ... 100 Thrills (2001) #14

100 Years ... 100 Movies (10th ann. ed. 2007) #48

10 Top 10 (2008) Mystery #3

IMDB: 8.4/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 99% Audience: 95%

notable quote: "'There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.'

'Intelligence. Pfffftt. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.'"
story: L.B. Jefferies is a famous photographer who will do almost anything for a thrill, which is how he ends up getting smooshed in the line of duty and confined to a wheelchair while his broken leg heals. Immobilized, he is left to finding inventive ways to scratch and making up stories about his neighbors for his high-society girlfriend, Lisa... until he thinks he's witnessed a crime....
visuals: deliciously, deviously simple
costumes, hair & makeup: the wardrobe for Grace Kelly (Lisa Carol Fremont) is superlative. She was so glamorous anyway, but wearing those dresses and gowns, she was spectacular.
acting: Kelly is marvelous here. Thelma Ritter (Stella) is funny and charming. James Stewart (Jefferies) is all right, too.

intangibles: one of Alfred Hitchcock's very best
Academy Award nominee:
• Best Director—Hitchcock

• Best Writing, Screenplay

• Best Cinematography, Color

• Best Sound, Recording
overall: highly recommended

[the title quotation is from Rear Window]