#23: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Emily says:
This was the movie that started it all.  We watched this last summer, right after we moved to Vancouver and when Paul mentioned that it was on the Top 100 list, the idea to watch the entire list was hatched.

Watching it again, almost a year later, I enjoyed it just as much.  Humphrey Bogart makes an excellent private investigator, and Mary Astor is constantly unraveling until you come to understand the layers of the plot.  I think of this as a classic film noir, so it's no surprise that its often cited as the first American film of this genre.

I also love that famous line from this movie: "The stuff dreams are made of..."  All this trouble over a fake falcon.  Seems like a good metaphor for all of the other silly material things we spend our lives running after.  Ultimately, they don't matter.

Paul says:

#96: The Searchers (1956)

Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles
Director: John Ford
IMDB

Emily says:

Now, you have to remember that I am not the Western-lover that Paul is - I've seen some good Westerns but I wouldn't count this as one of them. I thought it was terribly long, one dimensional, and lacking characters in whom you could invest enough to merit the length of the film. Most of all, I didn't think the landscape looked at all like the Northwest part of Texas it was meant to be set in and this continually irked me throughout the film. This one wouldn't have made the list if it had been me deciding.

Paul says:

As someone who's seen a lot of Westerns with Eastwood and not a lot with John Wayne, this wasn't quite what I was expecting, they each have their own style and make for very different movies. This movie was certainly ranging and epic in scale, and there are a lot of beautiful scenes, but in the end there was a lot of wandering around in various landscapes. There's a pseudo-happy ending, but I don't even know if that's satisfying. There are some side-plots that feel kind of contrived and cobbled together, not enough time given to make them real, too much to just ignore them. I dunno, I guess that if a Western isn't going to be terribly substantive and is just gonna be pretty, the least we can ask for is some great action or a lot of cheesy one-liners, right?

Rating: 7/10

#97: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Starring: Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant
Director: Howard Hawks
IMDB

Emily says:
After watching Katherine Hepburn as a mother in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner it was fun to see her here as a much younger actress. She's unbelievably beautiful and hilarious in this film - and Cary Grant's straight man is fun to watch alongside her silly, playful character.

I have to admit, this one doesn't have a ton of substance, but the silly antics of the characters as they try to capture the missing leopard are much fun to watch - a fine example of a comedy.

The scene at the very end with the collapsing dinosaur is a personal favorite - Grant's love for Hepburn in spite of her antics is a heart warming ending to a hilarious film.

Paul says:

Sure, the movie's funny, but I don't think that I even like any of the characters by the end Cary Grant is kinda dumb and Hepburn is horribly inconsiderate. Maybe it was good in its time, and it's pretty entertaining fluff, but it's nothing more. If it were played exactly the same with no-name actors it wouldn't even come close to this list, and that's kinda a shame.

Rating: 7/10