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Cinema Fanatic’s 2011 Holiday Gift Guide
It’s that time of year. Everyone is frantically trying to finish end of the year projects at work or at school. People are freaking out because they are alone (hopefully not forever though!), etc. etc. It’s also that time of year when we celebrate those we love by giving them things we think they’ll love (or that we love and want to convince them to love, too). Thus I give you my first-ever Holiday Gift Guide, filled with 15 things that I think would make awesome gifts for the movie lover in your life.
The Magnificent Ambersons Available For Pre-Order On DVD!
This is a film that has never been available on DVD in North America, so this is exciting news! The downside (sort of?) is that it’s only available from Amazon as part of its 70th Anniversary release of Citizen Kane. I actually just bought Citizen Kane on DVD, but I think I may have to get this regardless. This is huge news for the classic film world. You can pre-order the films here.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942 (dir. Orson Welles)
Narrator: Something had happened. A thing which, years ago, had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town, and now it had come at last; George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He got it three times filled, and running over. But those who had so longed for it were not there to see it, and they never knew it. Those who were still living had forgotten all about it and all about him.
111 New-To-Me Films in a Month? I Don’t Call Myself A Fanatic For Nothing.
As I’ve said many times now, I work as a substitute teacher. But I’m only called in to work an average of 3 to 6 days a month. This leaves me A LOT of free time. I also recently got a DVR, which allows me to tape TCM (the best channel in the world) while I’m sleeping. So now it doesn’t matter when a film is being shown, if I want to watch it odds are I’ll watch it. Which brings me to my whopping new-to-me count for January. 111. Triple digits in one month. I’m pretty sure I’ve had some years where I didn’t even watch that many films in twelve months. I just really love film, okay? And I would love to watch every movie ever made. Well, maybe not every movie, but lots anyhow. After the cut I’ll post the entire list, as well as point out a few new favorites and do a breakdown by decade (spoiler alert: it’s mostly pre-70s films).
Oscar Vault Monday – The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942 (dir. Orson Welles)
It took A LOT of searching to find this movie. It is not available on DVD in the United States (click here if you want to try to do something about that). While probably not as well-known as Citizen Kane, I think this film is just as much a masterpiece Welles’ more famous film, though probably less universally approachable. I’m going to talk a little later about some of the production (and the headaches it caused). The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, though it went home empty-handed: Best B&W Art Direction, Best B&W Cinematography, Best Supporting Actress Agnes Moorehead and Best Picture. The other nominees for Best Picture that year were 49th Parallel, Kings Row, The Pied Piper, The Pride of the Yankees, Random Harvest, The Talk of the Town, Wake Island, Yankee Doodle Dandy and winner Mrs. Miniver.
the diary of a film history fanatic 