What I’m watching: you’ll have to check my Facebook page to find outDate: 9/20/2022 I’ve written about film for The Valley Advocate and The Westfield News. I’ve freelanced for Video Watchdog magazine. I co-owned, edited and was the primary writer for two nationally distributed magazines about animation, first Animato! and then Animation Planet. I taught film courses at Western New England University. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing many actors, directors and producers during my time in print and when I was on WREB radio in Holyoke.
I’ve been a very lucky film fan.
For the past 20 or so years, I’ve done a column for this newspaper. And now that chapter in my life and career is over. While I won’t be writing for a print publication, I will be putting reviews up on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/gmichael.dobbs).
Matt Conway will be taking my place with these duties. He is a knowledgeable film guy. I’m sure you will like his take on movies.
I’ve appreciated the comments I’ve received over the years and have been happy to write about a medium that has been a major part of my life since junior high school.
One question posed to me over the years is what my favorite movie is. I can’t answer that query because I can’t just pick one. I thought I would end this column with my essential films, ones that I revisit time and time again.
In no particular order:
The works of animation legend Max Fleischer, who produced the Popeye, Betty Boop, and Superman cartoons, among many others. Subscribe to the Fleischer Studio channel on YouTube to see some of the best.
I love other animation as well, such as the classic Warner Brothers shorts with Bugs and Daffy, as well as the cartoons made by Tex Avery at MGM in the 1940s.
The silent films of Buster Keaton – with time, his silent comedies have shown they were among the most innovative movies ever made. Keaton was an amazing comic and filmmaker.
“The Big Lebowski,” “Miller’s Crossing,” “Blood Simple,” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” are among my favorite Coen Brothers movies.
John Ford’s “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “The Man who Shot Liberty Valance,” “Grapes of Wrath,” “Stagecoach” and “My Darling Clementine” are all marvelous.
Orson Welles has been a hero, a flawed hero, but a hero nonetheless, of mine for years. “Citizen Kane,” “The Stranger,” “Touch of Evil” and “Chimes at Midnight” are amazing films. Welles was perhaps his own worst enemy but he deserved better than what the film industry gave him.
I will sit through almost anything with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. In fact, if a movie was made by Warner Brothers in the 1930s and ’40s, I will watch it, although “The Maltese Falcon,” “Five Star Final,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “Footlight Parade,” “Casablanca,” “Wild Boys of the Road” and “42nd Street” are go-to movies for me.
Horror films are what attracted me to film. I was deathly afraid of them as kid and decided to rid myself of this fear. The best way was to watch them, and I fell in love. Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, all led me not just to horror films, but to other films in which they performed. I’m very lucky, as I met Cushing, asked a question to Lee and interviewed Price, a high point in my career and life.
“Bride of Frankenstein,” “The Devil’s Bride,” “The Wolfman,” “The Mummy,” “The Horror of Dracula,” “White Zombie” are all great.
Anything made by Republic Studios is worth my time. The studio produced a wide variety of low-budget films but did so with such style and competence they didn’t look low budget. The studio excelled in westerns and serials. In fact, they made the single best chapter play ever made, “The Adventures of Captain Marvel.” Their films are worth discovering.
I love comedy and The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and The Three Stooges are aces to me. My absolute favorite is W.C. Fields, though. He was a towering figure in comedy, crafting a unique persona.
“Big Trouble in Little China,” “Metropolis” “The Rocketeer” and “Buckeroo Banzai” are films that if I see them on TV, I must watch them.
And this listing is not complete. Did I mention my love for documentaries? How about how much I love director Fritz Lang? And movies from Hong Kong?
I know I forgot other titles.
I hope you go to the theater to see films and buy actual physical media of the movies you love. Be open to different kinds of film experiences: subtitled foreign films, low-budget movies, silent movies and movies about which you know nothing. Be adventurous and enjoy the show.
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