I know, I know - you don't give a whoop what I do, but when I do it, you get sore...

Next year, I promise to focus on quality rather than quantity in my holiday movie-fest!

Destined at Christmas (2022) - "Kim and Theo meet in the midst of Black Friday shopping madness but there's a definite spark between them. When a power outage causes some panic at a store, the couple gets separated. With Christmas coming, there should be plenty of distractions but neither Kim nor Theo can forget the other. Both yearn to find each other but how with so little information to go on?"
source: Freevee (Prime)
IMDB: 6.9/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: N/A% Audience: 67%
my IMDB: 5/10 🤶🏻🤶🏻🤶🏻🤶🏻🤶🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻

MPAA rating: TV-PG

directed by: Brittany Wiscombe

my notes: it's a fresher story than a lot of them, with essentially non-stupid characters. But the search goes on for quite a long time, leading the viewer to wonder what kind of desperation leads these two people to be so intent on finding someone who maybe didn't want to be found.

overall:  very mildly recommended

Random Acts of Christmas (2019) - "While uncovering who is behind the random acts of Christmas popping up around her city, investigative journalist, Sydney (Erin Cahill) meets a competing reporter, Cole (Kevin McGarry), who ignites her Christmas spirit and captures her heart."

source: Prime, maybe?
IMDB: 6.5/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: N/A% Audience: 71%
my IMDB: 3/10 🤶🏻🤶🏻🤶🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻

MPAA rating: TV-G

directed by: Marita Grabiak

my notes: again, it's not a terrible idea for a story - but the execution is inherently flawed. For one thing, the characters are uninteresting and unbelievable. Also, it's a completely flawed idea of how media works, and definitely about corporations. (Have these writers ever had a real job, or known someone who did?)

overall: not  recommended

To Have and Have Not (1944) - "During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer."
source: DVD
I watched it because: Bogie & Bacall are a cultural phenomenon about which I know nothing, and it's about time I learn
IMDB: 7.8/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 94% Audience: 90%
my IMDB: 7/10

AFI: 100 Years…100 Passions (2002) #60

notable quote: "'I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me.'

    'You know what you're getting into. It's gonna be rough.'"

MPAA rating: passed

directed by: Howard Hawks

my notes: moody, dark, and sexy. I'm starting to understand what all the fuss is about with these two.

overall:  recommended

Bullitt (1968) - "Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses."

source: DVD
I watched it because: my parents dig Steve McQueen, so I'm trying to see more of his stuff
IMDB: 7.4/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 98% Audience: 85%
my IMDB: 5/10

notable quote: "Play it by the book from now on."

MPAA rating: M/PG

directed by: Peter Yates

my notes: meh. I didn't hate it, but it's repetitious and kinda numbing. The car chases are pretty cool.

Academy Award winner: Best Film Editing—Frank P. Keller
Academy Award nominee: Best Sound
overall: equivocally recommended

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) - "Working for the British government, Sherlock Holmes manages to spirit Dr. Franz Tobel out of Switzerland and into England before the Gestapo are able to get to him. Tobel has devised an immensely accurate bomb site and while he is willing to make it available to the Allies, he insists on manufacturing it himself. Soon however, he vanishes and it is left to Homes, assisted by the bumbling Dr. Watson, to decipher a coded message he left behind. Holmes soon realizes that he is up against his old nemesis, Professor Moriarty. "
source: DVD
I watched it because: I adore Sherlock Holmes, in all his guises
IMDB: 6.5/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: N/A% Audience: 53%
my IMDB: 7/10

notable quote: "Brilliant man, Sherlock Holmes. Too bad he was honest."

MPAA rating: approved

directed by: Roy William Neill

my notes: this is a particularly good entry in the series. Rathbone is amazing as the great detective, arrogant and obnoxious but never mean. I'm not so fond of Nigel Bruce's Watson, who is irritating and foolish. This story is clever and particularly well-shot.

overall:  recommended

Goodbye Again (1961) - "In this adaptation of Françoise Sagan's best selling novel, Paula is a beautiful and successful 40-year-old businesswoman. She is deeply in love with Roger, her mature consort of five years. Roger is a very charming gallant who loves Paula but is too selfish to give up the freedom to be promiscuous. When Paula meets Phillip, the immature 24-year-old son of one of her rich clients, he falls hopelessly in love with the glamorous, sympathetic older woman and insists that the age difference will be no barrier to a romance. Paula resists the young man's persistent advances, but she finally succumbs when Roger initiates yet another affair with one of his young 'Maisie's. An affair begins, and society does not approve."

source: DVD
I watched it because: I was curious about Anthony Perkins in a worldly European love story
IMDB: 7.0/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: N/A% Audience: 76%
my IMDB: 9/10

notable quote: "In France, it's different. The French have a logic and a sophistry and a true sense of drama. J'accuse! Sorry. I accuse. In the name of the dead, I accuse you of aborting your duty as a human being. I accuse you of letting love go by. Of neglecting your duty to be happy. Of living on evasion and subterfuge and resignation. You should be sentenced to death. You will be sentence to solitude."

MPAA rating: NR

directed by: Anatole Litvak

my notes: this is a profoundly sad movie. If that doesn't appeal to you, then you should avoid it. If you like that nuance, though, it's marvelous. Ingrid Bergman is quiet, serene, and gorgeous. Yves Montand is handsome, suave, and morally bankrupt. And Perkins... he's a much better actor than he is stereotyped to have been.

overall: highly recommended

 

[the title quotation is from To Have and Have Not]