Movie Review: Casablanca

I know, right? Like you need me telling you about Casablanca. The movie is older than your grandparents. Only dopes like me have gone this far in life without actually seeing it.

Well, LAY OFF, OK?!

Sorry. Anyway, yes, it did take me more than 28 years to see the movie that is universally beloved and wound up as No. 1 on my Greatest Movies of All Time? list. Not only that, but unlike a lot of "You've never seen THAT?" movies, I didn't even know what it was really about. I mean, I know Darth Vader is Luke and Leah's father, I know Rosebud is a sled, and until a few months ago, I knew a bloody Rocky would go all "yo, Adrian" from the middle of a boxing ring. But I didn't even know what Casablanca was about. I'm a terrible member of society.

For anyone else who has been living under a rock for the past 71 years, let me sum up. Casablanca is a town in French Moracco and during World War II (post-Paris invasion, pre-Pearl Harbor), served as kind of the docking station for people trying to escape Nazi-occupied France. Except a lot of people got as far as Casablanca before getting stalled due to a lack of transmit papers to get them to the U.S. or wherever.

Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is an American who owns Rick's Cafe Americain, part restaurant, part bar, part night club, part casino. At the beginning of the film, Rick comes into possession of a pair of transmit papers that will allow two people to escape the war zone. Around the same time, Major Strasser shows up looking for a Czechoslovakian revolutionary named Victor Laszlo, who has spent time in multiple concentration camps while devoting his life to fighting Nazis.

Laszlo also shows up, joined by his wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). Ilsa just happens to be Rick's ex-girlfriend; the two had a fling and meant to escape together when the Nazis invaded Paris but she ditched him without explanation. Let's just say Rick's a little bitter.

The rest of the film is spent learning just what type of guy Rick is - is he the gruff loner he portends or does he have a heart of gold underneath? - as well as what, exactly, Ilsa's problem was all those years ago (hint: she has a pretty good excuse). What will become of Laszlo, not to mention Rick's secret transmit papers?

Casablanca was impressive for a lot of reasons but the one that stuck out to me was its scope. So many movies and TV shows from that time period are centered around white WASPy guys. And while Rick certainly fits that description, Ilsa's character is a complicated and intelligent person. Only three actors - Bogart, Dooley Wilson as Rick's trusty nightclub performer friend Sam, and Joy Page, the young Bulgarian wife trying to afford transmit papers for her and her husband - are American, and one is a woman and one is an African-American man. It really is  League of Nations.

Anyway, like I said before, you don't need me to tell you Casablanca was a good movie. FYI, To Kill a Mockingbird was a pretty OK book, too. So let me tell you how it was ranked No. 1 on the GMoAT? list.

• Oscar winner for Best Picture in 1944. (It also won for Best Director and Best Writing, although that didn't go into consideration.)
• No. 2 ranking in the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Greatest Movies list in 1998.
• Held on for a No. 3 ranking 10 years later.
• No. 32 ranking in AFI's 100 Years, 100 Cheers (i.e. most inspiring movies).
• Counted for six of the AFI's most memorable quotes, by far the most quoted movie in the bunch (Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three). They are:
• "Here's looking at you, kid." (No. 5)
• "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (20)
• "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" (28)
• "Round up the usual suspects." (32)
• "We'll always have Paris." (43)
• "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." (67)
• Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Humphrey Bogart.

Before I leave you, I want to drop one other fun fact learned from IMDB.com's Trivia page.  In the 1980s, someone sent the script to Casablanca to a bunch of studio executives under a different name (the original title - Everybody Comes to Rick's). A few people recognized the script, but the rest complained that it was "not good enough" to make a good movie, was "too dated," had "too much dialogue" and "not enough sex." I don't really know about what that says about the state of movies today, but I thought it was interesting.

Book Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl is Mary, younger sister of the famously ill-fated Anne. When we meet Mary, she is about 14, already married to nobleman William Carey via arranged marriage, welcoming her sister back to the English court after studying in France and catching the eye of King Henry VIII, who has grown frustrated with his aging and seemingly barren wife, Katherine of Aragon.

Mary's parents and Uncle Howard, ceaselessly driven by the motivation to increase their family's fortunes at any cost, basically force her into bed with the king, in hopes that she will conceive a male heir that he will recognize. Why they thought this is beyond me, as the king had already produced a bastard son from another affair and didn't give him any claims to the throne, but I digress. Mary plays along and has two children - a daughter she bizarrely names Catherine after the woman whose husband she's sleeping with, and a son named Henry. This happy news doesn't quite produce the expected results, since Mary and Henry are both technically married and Henry's eye has now traveled to the beautiful and seductive Anne.

Anne is far more worldly, smart and manipulative than Mary, and with the help of their brother George (and of Mary herself), Anne gets Henry to annul his marriage to Katherine and marry her instead. Along the way, she also steals and "adopts" Mary's son as insurance in case she also has problems producing a male heir.

Which she does. After giving birth to Princess Elizabeth, Anne gets a case of the miscarriages. Meanwhile, William Carey dies and new widow Mary dreams of spending all her days at the family estate with Catherine and Henry. Things get dicey for her when she falls in love with, secretly marries and gets impregnated by William Stafford, a commoner. Anne shuns her from the court, but not before separating her from her two older children, and Mary spends a few months in simple bliss on William's farm.

Things never stay simple and when Anne gets pregnant again, she calls Mary back to court. While this book is historical fiction, and there are definitely large portions that are simply not true, I don't think I'm ruining the ending for anyone when I say that Anne's pregnancy ends in miscarriage again, this time with a deformed fetus that apparently came not from Henry, but from her brother George (ewwww). Frustrated by her lack of male heir production and her strong and angry personality, and drawn to the sweet Jane Seymour, Henry turns on Anne with messy results.

I did not like this book.

Part of it is my fault. Not knowing anything about Mary Boleyn, I was curious and began researching her life shortly after starting the book. Which led me to this list of discrepancies between the book and real life. But I don't actually think that's the reason I didn't like the book. After all, I still like Braveheart even after I learned that pretty much the entire storyline is not true. I get people have to indulge in certain ways to make things entertaining and that's why they call it historical fiction.

No, I think the reason I so disliked this book was lack of complexity of any of the characters. Mary was loyal and good, even while she seduced a married king. Anne was selfish and cruel and manipulative. Uncle Howard was selfish and evil. Henry was immature and petulant. William Stafford was good and strong and honorable. The only real complex character was George, whose loyalty to his family (especially Anne) had him doing things that he knew were wrong and whose own love problems (he was gay and had fallen in love with Francis Weston, one of the other courtiers) tore at him.

Still, Mary's loyalty to Anne and even George was infuriating to me. There were no scenes or hints at some sort of warm past or closeness in their childhood; Anne treated her like garbage from Page 1 and Mary still did whatever she said. Part of it was out of loyalty to her own children - despite the fact that she had never received an ounce of parental love or devotion, Mary constantly wanted to be with her children and Anne often exploited that to get Mary to do what she wanted or to punish her - but she still did things and protected Anne when she didn't have to. WHY? Anne did nothing to deserve it.

I read this book because I had heard good things and because I do have a really bizarre interest in the Henry VIII era of English history. Ask me about any other time period and I have no idea, but I can list Henry's six wives and their ultimate ends, as well as the fates of his children. Learning more about Anne Boleyn and her family appealed to me, and I feel let down.

Best Movies of All Time?

I'm nothing if I'm not obsessive-compulsive, so over the past few days, while contributing to the furthering of my intellect and that of society watching marathons of past Daily Shows and Colbert Reports, I've created a list - in order - of the Greatest Movies of All Time.

Why did I waste my time doing this? SHUT UP is why! I mean, because I realize that while I love movies, there are a lot of "classics" that everyone has seen that I've somehow missed. Like The Godfather trilogy. And every Star Wars movie. And, um, pretty much everything made before 1950, with the exception of Christmas movies. I wanted to make a list of those movies everyone knows and loves and respects and then dutifully check off each title as I watch them. Shocking, I know, coming from the woman who is currently re-reading the entire Stephen King anthology chronologically.

So how did I come up with my list? I took a few things into consideration - Academy Award Best Picture wins and nominations, Best Actor/Actress wins, and inclusion on a handful of different American Film Institute lists (namely, the 100 Greatest Films and the 10-Year Update of the 100 Greatest Films, the 100 Most Inspiring Films, the 100 Greatest Comedies - because I feel like comedies get a raw deal from the Academy - and films included in the 100 Greatest Quotes - because I figure any movie whose quote has stood the test of time has obviously left its mark on society). Then I weighted them: the more lists a film was included on, the higher it rose, with Best Picture winners getting top billing, followed by Best Picture nominees, the most recent version of the 100 Greatest Films, the older version, the Most Inspiring, Greatest Comedies and finally, Greatest Quotes. Best Actor/Actress winners were used as tiebreakers or to reorder titles within a selection.

I told you I need a hobby.

In addition, I also put sequels together because it seemed silly to that the third Lord of the Rings movie would be listed above the original, as it actually won Best Picture. And even though Rocky V is on no one's list of Greatest Movies of All Time, I can't not include the whole series, so my bad.

Anyway, I welcome discussion. What movies do you think should be included in the GOAT discussion? The AFI lists are imperfect in that they all came out in the mid-2000s, so what recent comedies or quotes or Best Movies would you add? Either way, I think I've got my work cut out for me.

Casablanca

Gone With the Wind

On the Waterfront

Rocky

Rocky II

Rocky III

Rocky IV

Rocky V

Rocky Balboa

Annie Hall

Lawrence of Arabia

Schindler’s List

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Best Years of Our Lives

The Sound of Music

Ben-Hur

It Happened One Night

The Apartment

The Godfather

The Godfather Part II

The Godfather Part III

All About Eve

Midnight Cowboy

The Silence of the Lambs

In the Heat of the Night

Forrest Gump

West Side Story

The Deer Hunter

Unforgiven

Platoon

The French Connection

Dances with Wolves

Titanic

From Here to Eternity

Amadeus

All Quiet on the Western Front

An American in Paris

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Patton

My Fair Lady

Gandhi

Mrs. Miniver

Braveheart

Rain Man

Driving Miss Daisy

A Beautiful Mind

Chariots of Fire

Grand Hotel

The Artist

The King’s Speech

Million Dollar Baby

Gladiator

American Beauty

Shakespeare in Love

Terms of Endearment

Kramer vs. Kramer

A Man for All Seasons

Marty

All the King’s Men

Hamlet

The Lost Weekend

Going My Way

The Great Ziegfeld

Argo

The Hurt Locker

Slumdog Millionaire

No Country for Old Men

The Departed

Crash

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Chicago

The English Patient

The Last Emperor

Out of Africa

Ordinary People

The Sting

Oliver!

Tom Jones

Gigi

Around the World in 80 Days

The Greatest Show on Earth

Gentlemen’s Agreement

How Green Was My Valley

Rebecca

You Can’t Take it With You

The Life of Emile Zola

Cavalcade

Cimarron

The Broadway Melody

Wings

The Wizard of Oz

Star Wars

The Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

Shane

Yankee Doodle Dandy

The Graduate

Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

It’s a Wonderful Life

The Grapes of Wrath

To Kill a Mockingbird

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

High Noon

The Philadelphia Story

M*A*S*H

American Graffiti

Tootsie

Citizen Kane

Sunset Boulevard

Chinatown

Apocalypse Now

The Maltese Falcon

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Bonnie and Clyde

A Streetcar Named Desire

Taxi Driver

Jaws

Network

Raging Bull

Double Indemnity

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Temple of Doom

The Last Crusade

A Clockwork Orange

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Goodfellas

Pulp Fiction

Saving Private Ryan

The Shawshank Redemption

All the President’s Men

12 Angry Men

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Fargo

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

The Sixth Sense

Apollo 13

The Pride of the Yankees

Field of Dreams

On Golden Pond

Dead Poets Society

Moonstruck

She Done Him Wrong

Auntie Mame
Nashville

Cabaret

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Last Picture Show

Doctor Zhivago

Stagecoach

Wuthering Heights

Giant

A Place in the Sun

Breaking Away

Miracle on 34th Street

Norma Rae

The Diary of Anne Frank

The Right Stuff

Lilies of the Field

Seabiscuit

The Color Purple

The Defiant Ones

Sergeant York

The Killing Fields

Sounder

Coal Miner’s Daughter

Dark Victory

Erin Brokovich

The Verdict

The Ten Commandments

Babe

Boys Town

Fiddler on the Roof

Working Girl

Captains Courageous

Places in the Heart

Madame Curie

Ray

Born Yesterday

The Thin Man

The Great Dictator

Ninotchka

Broadcast News

The Awful Truth

Father of the Bride (1950)

Love Story

Jerry Maguire

A Few Good Men

Funny Girl

Dog Day Afternoon

42nd Street 
As Good as it Gets

Coming Home

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

Black Swan

The Blind Side

Milk

The Reader

There Will Be Blood

The Queen

Capote

Mystic River

The Hours

The Pianist

Shine

The Piano

Howards End

Scent of a Woman

My Left Foot

Children of a Lesser God

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Tender Mercies

The Goodbye Girl

A Touch of Class

The Lion in Winter

Darling

Mary Poppins

Judgement at Nuremberg

Elmer Gantry

Room at the Top

Separate Tables

The King and I

The Rose Tattoo

The Country Girl

Roman Holiday

The Heiress

Johnny Belinda

Mildred Pierce

Gaslight

The Song of Bernadette

Watch on the Rhine

Suspicion

Kitty Foyle

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Jezebel

The Good Earth

The Story of Louis Pasteur

The Informer

The Private Life of Henry VIII

The Champ

Disraeli

The Divorcee

In Old Arizona

Seventh Heaven

Amour

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Django Unchained

Les Miserables (2012)

Life of Pi

Zero Dark Thirty

The Descendents

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids are Alright

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story

Toy Story 2

Toy Story 3

True Grit (2010)

Winter’s Bone

Avatar

District 9

An Education

Inglorious Basterds

Precious

A Single Man

Up

Up in the Air

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Atonement

Juno

Michael Clayton

Babel

Letters from Iwo Jima

Little Miss Sunshine

Brokeback Mountain

Good Night and Good Luck

The Aviator

Finding Neverland

Sideways

Lost in Translation

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Gangs of New York

Gosford Park

In the Bedroom

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Chocolat

Traffic

The Cider House Rules

The Green Mile

The Insider

Elizabeth

The Thin Red Line

The Full Monty

Good Will Hunting

LA Confidential

Secrets & Lies

The Postman

Sense and Sensibility

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Quiz Show

The Fugitive

In the Name of the Father

The Remains of the Day

The Crying Game

Beauty and the Beast

Bugsy

JFK

Prince of Tides

Awakenings

Ghost

Born on the Fourth of July

The Accidental Tourist

Dangerous Liaisons

Mississippi Burning

Fatal Attraction

Hope and Glory

Hannah and Her Sisters

The Mission

A Room with a View

Prizzi’s Honor

Witness

A Passage to India

A Soldier’s Story

The Big Chill

The Dresser

Missing

Atlantic City

Reds

The Elephant Man

Tess

All That Jazz

Heaven Can Wait

Midnight Express

An Unmarried Woman

Julia

The Turning Point

Bound for Glory

Barry Lyndon

The Conversation

Lenny

The Towering Inferno

Cries and Whispers

The Exorcist

Deliverance

Nicholas and Alexandra

Airport

Five Easy Pieces

Anne of the Thousand Days

Hello, Dolly!

Rachel, Rachel

Romeo and Juliet

Doctor Doolittle

Alfie

The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming

Sand Pebbles

Ship of Fools

A Thousand Clowns

Becket

Zorba the Greek

America, America

Cleopatra

How the West Was Won

The Longest Day

The Music Man

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

Fanny

The Guns of Navarone

The Hustler

The Alamo

Sons and Lovers

The Sundowners

Anatomy of a Murder

The Nun’s Story

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Peyton Place

Sayonara

Witness for the Prosecution

Friendly Persuasion

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing

Mister Roberts

Picnic

The Caine Mutiny

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Three Coins in the Fountain

Julius Caesar

The Robe

Ivanhoe

Moulin Rouge (1952)

The Quiet Man

Decision Before Dawn

Quo Vadis

King Solomon’s Mines

Battleground

A Letter to Three Wives

Twelve O’Clock High

The Red Shoes

The Snake Pit

The Bishop’s Wife

Crossfire

Great Expectations

Henry V

Razor’s Edge

The Yearling

Anchors Aweigh

The Bells of St. Mary’s

Spellbound

Since You Went Away

Wilson

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Heaven Can Wait

The Human Comedy

In Which We Serve

The More the Merrier

The Ox-Bow Incident

49th Parallel

Kings Row

The Magnificent Ambersons

The Pied Piper

Random Harvest

The Talk of the Town

Wake Island

Blossoms in the Dust

Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Hold Back the Dawn

The Little Foxes

One Foot in Heaven

All This, and Heaven Too

Foreign Correspondent

The Letter

The Long Voyage Home

Our Town

Love Affair

Of Mice and Men (1939)

The Adventures of Robin Hood

Alexander’s Ragtime Band

The Citadel

Four Daughters

Grand Illusion

Pygmalion

Test Pilot

Dead End

In Old Chicago

Lost Horizon

One Hundred Men and a Girl

Stage Door

A Star is Born

Anthony Adverse

Dodsworth

Libeled Lady

Romeo and Juliet

San Francisco

A Tale of Two Cities

Three Smart Girls

Alice Adams

Broadway Melody of 1936

Captain Blood

David Copperfield

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Les Miserables (1935)

Naughty Marietta

Ruggles of Red Gap

Top Hat

The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Cleopatra

Flirtation Walk

The Gay Divorcee

Here Comes the Navy

The House of Rothschild

Imitation of Life

One Night of Love

Viva Villa!

The White Parade

A Farewell to Arms

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang

Lady for a Day

Little Women

Smilin’ Through

State Fair

Arrowsmith

Bad Girl

Five Star Final

An Hour with You

Shanghei Express

The Smiling Lieutenant

East Lynne

The Front Page

Skippy

Trader Horn

The Big House

The Love Parade

The Alibi

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

The Patriot

The Racket
City Lights

2001: A Space Odyssey

Some Like it Hot
The African Queen

Singin’ in the Rain

The Gold Rush

Duck Soup

Modern Times

Bringing Up Baby

Sullivan’s Travels

Psycho

King Kong
Vertigo

The Searchers

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Rear Window

North by Northwest

The Wild Bunch

Easy Rider

Spartacus

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The General

A Night at the Opera

Harold and Maude

Frankenstein

The Jazz Singer

Cool Hand Luke

Airplane!

National Lampoon’s Animal House

When Harry Met Sally

Caddyshack

Sons of the Desert
Sunrise

Sophie’s Choice

The Miracle Worker

Philadelphia

Cat Ballou

Wall Street

Intolerance

Swing Time

Do the Right Thing

Blade Runner

The Birth of a Nation

The Third Man

Fantasia

Rebel Without a Cause

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Hoosiers

National Velvet

Glory

Pinocchio

Meet John Doe

Rudy

The Black Stallion

A Raisin in the Sun

Silkwood

The Day the Earth Stood Still

An Officer and a Gentleman

The Spirit of St. Louis

Gunga Din

Birdman of Alcatraz

Thelma and Louise

Serpico

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Stand and Deliver

Hotel Rwanda

The Paper Chase

Fame

Searching for Bobby Fischer

The Karate Kid

Blazing Saddles

The Producers (1967)

Young Frankenstein

The Odd Couple

His Girl Friday

A Fish Called Wanda

Adam’s Rib

Being There

There’s Something About Mary

Ghostbusters

This is Spinal Tap

Arsenic and Old Lace

Raising Arizona

Groundhog Day

Harvey

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Big

My Man Godfrey

Manhattan

Shampoo

A Shot in the Dark

To Be or Not to Be

The Seven Year Itch

Arthur (1981)

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek

The Lady Eve

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Diner

It’s a Gift

A Day at the Races

Topper

What’s Up, Doc?

Sherlock, Jr.

Beverly Hills Cop

Horse Feathers

Take the Money and Run

Mrs. Doubtfire

Bananas

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Monkey Business

9 to 5

Victor/Victoria

The Palm Beach Story

Road to Morocco

The Freshman

Sleeper

The Navigator

Private Benjamin

Lost in America

Dinner at Eight

City Slickers

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Beetlejuice

The Jerk

Woman of the Year

The Heartbreak Kid

Ball of Fire

Silver Streak

Bull Durham

Court Jester

The Nutty Professor (1963)

Good Morning, Vietnam

Sudden Impact

White Heat

Dr. No

To Have and Have Not

The Terminator

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Now, Voyager

Dirty Harry

Animal Crackers

A League of Their Own

Scarface

Beyond the Forest

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Planet of the Apes

The Shining

Poltergeist

Marathon Man

Mommie Dearest

Little Caesar

Soylent Green

Dracula

Knute Rockne All American

Goldfinger

The Naughty Nineties

Top Gun

Dirty Dancing

The Iron Lady

Crazy Heart

The Last King of Scotland

Training Day

La Vie en Rose

Walk the Line

Monster

Monster’s Ball

Life is Beautiful

Leaving Las Vegas

Reversal of Fortune

Boys Don’t Cry

Dead Man Walking

Blue Sky

Misery

The Color of Money

The Accused

Trip to Bountiful

Harry and Tonto

Save the Tiger

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Klute

Women in Love
True Grit (1969)

Charly

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Hud

Two Women

BUtterfield 8

Stalag 17

Cyrano de Bergerac

I Want to Live!

Three Faces of Eve

Anastasia

Come Back, Little Sheba

A Double Life

The Farmer’s Daughter

To Each His Own

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A Free Soul

Dangerous

Morning Glory

The Sin of Madelon Claudet

Min and Bill

The Way of All Flesh

The Last Command

Coquette

Street Angel