Gone With The Wind

While I'm apt to like movies more than they deserve, I still consider myself more or less careful about grading a movie at the absolute highest, that being an (A+). I generally like to have seen the movie more than once, though I'll overrule that every now and then, and I only ever give them to movies that really changed the way I look at the cinema. The Star Wars original trilogy are among the few, as are the Lord of the Rings movies. The first Matrix movie is also my list, as are The Kill Bill movies (I count them as one), Pan's Labyrinth, The Wizard of Oz, and Casablanca. There are only two animated movies I'd give an (A+) and they are Beauty and the Beast, and Spirited Away. The point is, I've written reviews for a very few number of those movies and it's high time I did so, considering that they comprise my actual list of favorite movies. Not that any of all that has anything to do with Gone With The Wind, but it's just sort of a warning that, as I approach my 100th movie review on this blog, I will probably be marking the occasion by writing reviews for all of the movies mentioned above that do not already have one written. Gone With The Wind is relevant for two reasons, one because it earned a place on the list in question, and two because I just watched it for the first time since watching it for the actual first time. I remembered practically nothing from my first viewing, though this is not surprising since that was 9+ years ago. I knew a handful of the lines, though I wasn't familiar with what I consider to be the most dramatic part of the whole movie, and for that I was not just pleasantly, but ecstatically surprised. For any of you who have seen it, the most dramatic part I mean, it's Scarlett's final line at the end of act one. The composition of the scene, as well as the dramatic delivery made for a scene of wildly potent cinema, if that makes sense. I could probably describe the whole movie that way; wildly potent. The colors are all so saturated, and the script is so classic Hollywood, it is pretty much as close to perfect as a movie can be. It no longer boasts having the most spectacular sights on film, special effects (which I love don't get me wrong) have since made it possible for endless masses of people and epic scale disasters to become commonplace in the movies. However, watching this one, even now, you can recognize its grandeur because they didn't have special effects and CGI during the time it was made. Scarlett making her way through the thousands of injured war victims is a scene created by all real people and you can just imagine how majestic it must have looked for the first time. The story is so long that I dare not go into it, but like all great cinema classics it's about men and women who can and can't have each other during trying times. It remains to this day as the movie that has sold the most tickets ever. Though it only made $400 million worldwide in it's theatrical days, its total gross adjusted for inflation is $2.7 billion. It's not hard to see why; for the price you'd pay for any old movie you'd get this utterly spectacular epic. I could go on and on about it for paragraphs but I won't. It is a piece of film history at its very least. At its most it is one of the finest movies ever made, and perhaps the greatest example of why people, American or otherwise, love the movies so much. Don't believe me? Watch it, and if you've already seen it, watch it again. I kid you not, after 3 hours and 58 minutes I was ready to put in the first disc and start it over again right there and then, it's that good.

A+