My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2025

It's that time of year again!  Time to sift through the movies I watched over the past year and figure out just which ones I liked best.

I really like that my list this year has movies spanning 97 years.  It's a pretty fun mix of genres too -- not shocking, as I am an eclectic and omnivorous movie watcher.

Anyway, here's my list!

1. Conagher (1991)  A rough-mannered cowboy (Sam Elliot) keeps crossing paths with a homesteader (Katherine Ross) and her adopted children, often helping them out of some difficulty or other, all while insisting he's going to be leaving the area any day now, he's totally not sticking around to look after her and figure out if her missing husband is ever coming back, nope, he's totally disinterested...  

2. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)  A former military intelligence officer (George C. Scott) is asked to investigate a list of people, but before he can, the man who made the list dies mysteriously.  And then people on the list start to die, too.  What can the connection be?  Why do so many of these people have very peculiar faces?  How many ways can you disguise Kirk Douglas?  SO many questions!  Also, I've never found George C. Scott particularly attractive, but maybe I've just been watching the wrong movies...

3. Desperate Journey (1942)  A WWII British bomber crew (Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ronald Sinclair) survive a crash landing behind enemy lines and daringly attempt to sneak their way back to Allied territory.  This movie gallops along, flinging our heroes from one tense and worrisome situation to another, but somehow never feels rushed.  Instead, it feels like an exciting series of adventures, each one making us more and more invested in the characters.

4. Glass Onion (2022)  Quirky and laconic detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) attends a house party thrown by a gazillionaire (Edward Norton) on a private island during the Covid-19 shutdowns.  People die.  Blanc figures out how and why.  There are twists on twists on twists, one of which I loved so much, it bumped this much higher on my list than it would have been otherwise.  This is the first movie I've seen that deliberately included the Covid-19 shutdowns in the storyline, complete with the face masks and the social distancing and the special rules for rich people, which was pretty interesting.  Because I don't have Netflix, I only got to see this because our local theater showed it on the big screen for a couple of days.  So happy that they did!

5. Salty O'Rourke (1945)  A gambler (Alan Ladd) needs to pay off a debt fast, so he buys a race horse and hires a jockey and does some dubious paperwork shuffling and falls in love with a school teacher (Gail Russell) and makes a lot of other bad decisions, but it all works out okay because this is a comedy.  I especially loved the sidekick played by William Demarest, of whom I grow and more fond with every movie I see him in.

6. The Invisible Man (1933)  A scientist (Claude Rains) turns himself invisible and slowly goes mad.  This movie makes no secret of the fact that the special effects are the main star of the film, and I am absolutely here for them.

7. The Pirates of Penzance (1983)  A band of jolly pirates (but are they?) led by a Pirate King (Kevin Kline) bids farewell (but do they?) to their apprentice (Rex Smith) when he comes of age (but does he?) and decides he will stop being a pirate and become a law-abiding citizen (but will he?).  Absolute madcap delightfulness from beginning to end, in the best Gilbert-and-Sullivan-but-make-it-1980s-instead style imaginable.

8. Kim (1950)  A British soldier's orphaned son Kim (Dean Stockwell) passes as a native of India to spy for the British, aided and mentored by the mysterious Mahbub Ali (Errol Flynn).  It's based on the Rudyard Kipling classic, but streamlined, and with a lot more for Errol Flynn to do than his character was granted page time for in the book.

9. Libeled Lady (1936)  A rich young thing (Myrna Loy) is libeled by a newspaper, and the editor (Spencer Tracy) responsible for running the libelous story cooks up a doozy of a plot to convince her not to sue the paper.  It involves his fiancée (Jean Harlow) and a slick-talking writer (William Powell), a sham marriage, and all the screwball hijinks the screenwriters could dream up and toss at the characters.  I will probably enjoy this a lot more the second time I watch it, but I only just watched it for the first time a few days ago and haven't had time for a second viewing.  Still, it wound up on this list, which means I did like it more than most screwball comedies...

10. The Gold Rush (1925)  A hapless but plucky prospector (Charlie Chaplin) tries to find gold in Alaska, but mostly finds problems and trouble and a lot of snow.  We saw this in the theater with my brother and his family, and it was the first silent film my niece and nephew had ever seen.  (My own kids had seen a couple before that, but years ago.)  It took them all about ten minutes to get used to the storytelling style, and then they all had a rollicking good time enjoying all of Chaplin's hijinks.  And, as a bonus, we all went to Alaska about a month later, and my nephew was able to relate historical things we saw regarding the actual Alaskan Gold Rush to things he saw in this movie.  I love it when fiction can bring real history to life for people that way!

Well, that's my list!  Have you seen any of these?  Did you make a list of favorite films you watched in 2025 too?  Please share!

I've been collecting my top ten new-to-me movies in posts like this for twelve years now.  You can find all of them at the bottom of this page.

Movie Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938)

Time to share a film score that is a classic in every possible way a soundtrack could be. From long ago, still enjoyable today, and something others might try to imitate but can never duplicate. And it even comes with an adventure story of its own, separate from the one in the movie it accompanies! 

Composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and his family escaped Vienna just before the Nazis invaded in 1938 thanks to this film score. According to the liner notes of my copy, Korngold was offered the job of composing the score for The Adventures of Robin Hood in Hollywood, and that gave him a legitimage reason to leave Austria in what was becoming an increasingly dangerous time.  He was able to bring his wife and younger son along, but had to leave his older son with family in Austria. They arrived safely in California, where Korngold promptly turned down the job because there was too much action in the film! He wrote operas and scored romantic movies, not action films, and he didn't think he could match the studio's needs and expectations. But they prevailed on him to try, so he stayed, and wrote the entire score in six weeks. During that time, Hitler invaded Austria, and the Korngolds were relieved to learn that their other son had escaped with his grandparents to Switzerland just before the Nazis arrived.

This score went on to with Korngold his second Oscar, which is amazing when you think that he didn't want to write it at all at first. It's a very sweeping, lyrical score, one I enjoy listening to on a glum morning to help boost the mood for me and my kids. They're actually the reason I bought this album in the first place -- they love the movie and kept asking why I didn't have the soundtrack. Well, I didn't have it because the original recording isn't available -- all you can get are re-recordings. I did some research and consulted with a knowledgeable friend, and learned that the 1988 recording available from the Varese-Sarabande label is the best available, so that's the one I got. It was produced by George Korngold, the composer's young son who accompanied him to Hollywood on the trip to compose the score. 

When we listened to this when they were younger, my kids would tell me exactly what's happening in the movie during different parts of the music, and sometimes act it out :-) Very fun, though sometimes a bit disruptive of breakfast. 

The first cue, "Prologue (Main Title)," begins with a lot of rollicky, boisterous prancing that lets you know this is the sort of movie that will make you bounce up and down in your seat and cheer. Then the mood shifts and a softer theme weaves its way in, alerting the audience to the fact that yes, there will be a love story here too. But that doesn't last long -- the piece ends with a some bold and vaguely regal flourishes.

This score has some of the most cheerful action music you'll ever hear. "Escape from the Castle" is a joyous romp from start to finish, lots of flourishes and musical galloping. 

My favorite track is "The Archery Tournament." It's brash and playful and ready to have a good time. Rather like Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) in this version, come to think of it.

This is a really fun movie. If you haven't seen it, I strongly encourage you to! You can read my review of it right here if you want to know more about it.  And you can listen to the soundtrack album here on YouTube.

(This review originally appeared here at J and J Productions on February 15, 2016.)

My Ten Favorite Swashbucklers

Swashbucklers are their own brand of swaggering cool, aren't they?  Devil-may-care heroes, feisty heroines, and plenty of sword fights and chases and fisticuffs to keep things galloping along.  A good swashbuckler is pretty well guaranteed to raise my spirits even on the gloomiest day.  Here are my favorites!

1. The Princess Bride (1987)  After Buttercup's (Robin Wright) true love Westley (Cary Elwes) is murdered by pirates, she agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), but gets kidnapped before the wedding. I'll never forget the first time I saw this movie -- it changed my ideas about humor and fantasy forever.

2. The Mask of Zorro (1998)  An aging Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) is unmasked and imprisoned by the greedy and cruel Don Montero (Stuart Wilson), who also steals his baby daughter Elena.  When Montero and a grown Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) return to California, Zorro trains a bumbling thief (Antonio Banderas) to be his successor and fight oppression in his place.  I saw this in the theater the summer before I went to college, and it kind of dominated my life for a while.  I had the poster on my dorm room wall, I listened to the soundtrack until my roommates were sick of it, and I watched the movie so often I basically memorized it.  Twenty-five years later, I'm still not tired of it!

3. The Black Swan (1942)  Former pirate captain Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power) kidnaps, then woos, then rescues a governor's feisty daughter (Maureen O'Hara) while also helping Governor Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar) clear the pirates out of the Caribbean.  This is one of the most fun movies I have ever seen, and I judge all other pirate movies by it.

4. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)  Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) has a jolly time robbing the rich Normans to feed the poor Saxons, wooing Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), and foiling Prince John (Claude Rains) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone) when they plot to steal the throne from King Richard (Ian Hunter).  It has everything I could possibly want in a Robin Hood movie :-D

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)  Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) resorts to commandeering, raiding, pillaging, plundering, and otherwise pilfering his weasely black guts out, all to regain his beloved ship. More fun than a barrel of undead monkeys!

6. The Three Musketeers (1993)  Young d'Artagnan (Chris O'Donnell) just wants to be a Musketeer, but he ends up embroiled in unmasking a plot against the king. His three Musketeer friends (Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, and Oliver Platt) are hilarious and awesome too.

7. The Count of Monte Cristo (1975)  Simple, honest sailor Edmund Dantes (Richard Chamberlain) is betrayed by his supposed friends and sent to prison on false charges. He escapes, gains staggering wealth, and seeks vengeance against his enemies. Based on the book by Alexandre Dumas, king of the swashbucklers.

8. The Mark of Zorro (1940)  Diego de la Vega (Tyrone Power) returns home to California from studying in Spain and discovers oppression and injustice everywhere.  He disguises himself as a cunning rogue called Zorro and sets about righting wrongs and championing the poor and dueling with Basil Rathbone and generally having a grand time.

9. Against All Flags (1952)  A roguish naval officer (Errol Flynn) pretends to be a pirate in order to infiltrate a pirate stronghold, only to find himself falling for a strong-willed, lemon-tongued Pirate Captain (Maureen O'Hara). Jolly good fun.

10. The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)  A British hunter (Stewart Granger) masquerades as the king (Stewart Granger) of a small European nation so that the king's enemies (including James Mason) can't usurp the throne while the king lies ill. Things get complicated when the fake king falls in love with the woman (Deborah Kerr) who is intended to marry the real king. 

Well, those are my ten favorite swashbuckler movies!  If you'd like to see my list of favorite swashbuckler books, I recently posted that on my book blog :-)

My Ten Favorite Non-Scary Movies for Fall

I don't like scary movies.  At all.  But I do like a good, broody, atmospheric, gothic-type movie, especially in October.  Something with dark vibes and dark shadows and dark characters, and maybe a little supernatural or psychological eeriness tossed in, but not actually a scary movie, you know?  Perfect for curling up on the couch with a mug of hot cider and a cozy blanket while the wind howls outside and the rain taps gently against the window...

Well, if you like those sorts of movies too, here's a list of ten I love and recommend!  Just in case you're craving some dark, moody, shadowy goodness yourself right now.  Links go to my own reviews so you can learn more about those titles if you'd like.

1. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988)  Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) and Dr. Watson (Edward Hardwicke) help Sir Henry Baskerville (Kristoffer Tabori) uncover the dark truth behind his forbear's death out on the wild and gloomy moors.  I crave this every October, really.  Some years, I make myself watch a different version, just to make this more fresh the next year, but this is my favorite fall watch.  I often reread the book in October too.

2. Jane Eyre (1983)  Lonely governess Jane Eyre (Zelah Clarke) finds understanding, companionship, and love with Mr. Rochester (Timothy Dalton) in this pitch-perfect BBC miniseries that absolutely kickstarted my devotion to the book it's based on.  (If you don't have time for all four hours, the 2011 version is my other favorite, and it's half as long.  If you want to go really classic, the 1943 version is shrouded in shadows and mystery.)

3. Hamlet (2011) Hamlet (Bruce Ramsay) suspects his uncle Claudius (Peter Winfield) killed Hamlet's father before marrying his mother (Gillian Barber), and he spends the night after their wedding trying to find out.  They trim all of Hamlet down to 1 hour and 27 minutes, give it a neo-noir feel, and it is spectacular.  However, please note that it is rated R for some easy-to-skip adult scenes.  (If you can't get your hands on this version, or don't want to deal with the adult content, the 1948 Olivier and the 2009 Tennant versions both have excellent shadowy vibes and are tamer.)

4. Laura (1944) Detective Mark MacPherson (Dana Andrews) tries to solve the murder of a beautiful woman named Laura (Gene Tierney).  Her family and friends all insist she was lovable, intelligent, talented, and altogether wonderful... so why did someone want to kill her?  This is my favorite noir film, and it has one of the best twists in any movie I've ever seen.  Go into it not knowing much more than this and prepare to fall in love with Laura yourself.

5. The Phantom of the Opera (2004)  A beautiful young singer (Emmy Rossum) reunites with her childhood sweetheart (Patrick Wilson), but her mysterious singing mentor (Gerard Butler) turns out to be an obsessive, possessive killer who wants her for himself.  The whole production is over-the-top lavish, dripping with candlelight and shadows and emotions.  

6. Dead Again (1991)  An amnesiac woman (Emma Thompson) keeps having nightmares about scissors.  A kind P.I. (Kenneth Branagh) tries to help her recover her memory.  And then they discover they may be the reincarnations of two doomed lovers who lived back during the Roaring Twenties, and solving that long-ago murder may be the only way to secure their own peace and happiness.  This one is also rated R because Robin Williams cusses a LOT in his few scenes, and there's some violence.  It would clean up easily with a filtering service, though.

7. Rebecca (1940)  A young bride (Joan Fontaine) is haunted by the suspicion that her new husband (Laurence Olivier) still loves his dead first wife, Rebecca.  Such a fascinating look at doubt, obsession, misconceptions, and consequences.  It's one of Hitchcock's best.

8. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)  A teen girl (Theresa Wright) adores her visiting uncle (Joseph Cotten) until she begins to wonder if he's connected to a recent string of murders.  Another masterpiece about doubt and fear from Alfred Hitchcock.

9. Cry Wolf (1947)  A widow (Barbara Stanwyck) thinks her late husband's uncle (Errol Flynn) is hiding a terrible secret.  It turns out he is, but it's not the secret she's expecting.  There's murder and madness and a gloomy old manor house dripping with shadows -- and also combative romance, just to keep things peppy.

 

10. Meet Joe Black (1998)  Death (Brad Pitt) takes on a human body to experience life, manipulating an aging man (Anthony Hopkins) into helping him.  Death romances the man's daughter (Claire Forlani), tastes peanut butter for the first time, and learns what it means to be both human and kind.  This one is PG-13 mostly for a short and easy-to-skip love scene.

Have you seen any of these?  What are some of your favorite non-scary movies to watch in the fall?

My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2021

It's that time of year when the world tells everyone who will listen just what they fell in love with over the past twelve months.  I already shared my top ten lists for books on my book blog, so it's high time I share my movie list too, eh?  Here are the ten movies I liked best of all the movies I watched for the first time in 2021.

1. Calcutta (1947).  A wary pilot (Alan Ladd) gets mixed up with a dewy-eyed dame (Gail Russell) who was engaged to his recently-murdered best friend.  One of Ladd's best noir outings, and the first of his movies to hit the top of one of my end-of-year lists!  Can you believe that?!?

2. Knives Out (2019).  A wealthy mystery author (Christopher Plummer) dies, and everyone in his large and weird family (Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, et. al.) suspects everyone else of having killed him.  Only an enigmatic private detective (Daniel Craig, whose southern accent is not as bad as I was led to believe) has any inkling of the truth for a long time.  My husband and I were so wrapped up in this movie that we watched the whole thing after our kids went to bed one night, staying up until midnight (very late, for us) to finish it.

3. Letters to Juliet (2010).  A lonely girl (Amanda Seyfried) on a pre-wedding trip to Italy gets caught up in a little band of women who answer love-advice-seeking letters written to Shakespeare's fictional Juliet.  She ends up helping answer a decades-old letter, which leads an elderly woman (Vanessa Redgrave) to arrive in Italy seeking her long-lost love (Franco Nero).  My favorite thing is that I grew up watching Redgrave and Nero play Guinevere and Lancelot in Camelot (1967), and they're a couple in real life too, so seeing them together again here is just marvelous.

4. Against All Flags (1952).  A roguish naval officer (Errol Flynn) pretends to be a pirate in order to infiltrate a pirate stronghold, only to find himself falling for a strong-willed, lemon-tongued Pirate Captain (Maureen O'Hara).  Jolly good fun.

5. Since You Went Away (1944).  A mother (Claudette Colbert) stays home and cares for her daughters while her husband is away fighting WWII.  I wish I'd seen this when I was in my Joseph Cotten phase because he is just yummy here.  Not that I still don't have a soft spot for him, because I do, but... you know what I mean.

6. Little Women (1949).  Meg (Janet Leigh), Jo (June Allyson), Beth (Margaret O'Brien), and Amy (Elizabeth Taylor) March do some growing up during the American Civil War with help from their mother (Mary Astor), their next-door neighbor (Peter Lawford), and a kindly German professor (Rossano Brazzi).  Probably never going to be my favorite version of this story, but I really liked Allyson and O'Brien in particular.  Again, wish I'd seen this when I was going through my Peter Lawford phase because he's at his most charming in this.

7. The Moonstone (1996).  A young woman (Keeley Hawes) receives a fabulous jewel for her eighteenth birthday, but it disappears, and she suspects the man she loves (Greg Wise) of having stolen it to pay off gambling debts.  I was kind of disappointed by the 2016 BBC version, so I sought this one out, and I'm so glad I did!  Much better.

8. No Time to Die (2021).  James Bond (Daniel Craig) grows up.

9. Chicago Deadline (1949).  A news reporter (Alan Ladd) finds a girl (Donna Reed) dead in a cheap rooming house, finds her address book before the police do, and goes around trying to figure out what her life was like and why she died so he can write an article about her.  It's pretty noir, but not deeply dark.

10. News of the World (2020).  A man (Tom Hanks) who travels around reading the news aloud to people in small, far-flung Texas settlements takes on the job to delivering a child (Helena Zengel) back to her family.  She's been rescued from her Kiowa captors, but she'd lived with them for so long she only speaks Kiowa anymore, and she's obviously got a lot of trauma in her past.  So does he, and the two bond during the journey.  I like stories of found families, lost and damaged people helping each other heal, and westerns, so... yeah, totally dug this movie.

The Fandom Tag

Eva tagged me with this on Coffee, Classics, and Craziness this week.  Thanks, Eva!  I was rather wishing for a good tag to do, as a matter of fact.

RULES:

1.  Include the graphic somewhere in your post!
2.  Answer the questions!
3.  Tag two fellow fandom fanatics!

Okay, that's all fun times, so let's go.

(Source)

What’s the first fandom you remember becoming a part of? 

Does Robin Hood count?  Because I've loved him since I was like three or four.  If he doesn't, then the Lone Ranger, as I've loved him since I was seven or eight.

My first really major fandom, though, was Star Trek.  I got into Star Trek: The Original Series in my very early teens, and it was the first fandom I was into that I could buy merch for, which was such a thrill.  I had Star Trek action figures, t-shirts, model kits to put together, books... and a few favorite episodes on VHS.  It was a lovely way to spend my teen years.

Cut from 1993 to 2016 when I got to attend the 50th anniversary Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas with my bff, which was a dream come true :-)

(I'm on the right here.)

Yes, we had costumes.  Yes, we had a lot of fun doing action shots!  Oh, and our tricorders were actually purses!

(I'm on the left here.)

What’s the newest fandom you’ve come to enjoy? 

The Mandalorian, I think.  Which is technically part of the Star Wars fandom.  Newest one that's entirely new to me?  Hmm.  Haven't picked up any brand-new fandoms lately.  I guess before Mando, it would have been the '90s TV version of The Magnificent Seven, but even there, it's based on a movie I've loved since my teens.

So the newest-to-me fandom that is TOTALLY new to me that I've gotten into recently (by which I mean like 4 years ago) would be Leverage (2008-2012), which is a supremely fun show about a group of criminals who work together to help people who've been hurt by other criminals.  It definitely has a Robin Hood aspect to it, but also that "found family" thing going on that I pretty much always fall for.  And it's got all kinds of con artist stuff going on, which always fascinates me.  Plus, yeah, Christian Kane and Timothy Hutton definitely were what first drew me to the show.

What’s a fandom guaranteed to give you feels? 

Um, if it doesn't give me all the feels, I'm not into it.  For real.  I demand many feels.  No feels?  No fandom for me.

Okay, fine, so one that gives me instant feels, no matter what, and all you have to do is say the show's name for me to be reduced to a puddle of sappy and lovesick nonsense is... Lost.  Which is all his fault:

My darling Sawyer, about whom I have waxed eloquent many times.  So today, instead of talking about how much I love James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), I'll tell you a little story that will show how well my brother's wife knows me.  We went to visit them once, years and years ago when we both lived somewhere other than where we are now.  And they were big fans of Lost, so they wanted to show us the first few eps to see if we'd like it too.  My s-i-l suggested it to my brother because she thought I'd like the characters a lot.  My brother said, "Yeah, but I just can't see Rachel liking Jack."  My s-i-l said, "No, no, not Jack.  Sawyer."  

Um, yeah, she called it.  The first couple of eps, I was like, "Why is he so horrible?" and then when I got to ep 8, "Confidence Man," I just gave up and fell for him.  Very hard, very fast, very deeply.  I've got a weird fondness for con artists anyway, and if you combine that with an authentic Southern accent and a redemption arc, there's no way I won't swoon.

What’s a guilty pleasure fandom of yours?

Ummmmmm... ummmmmmmmmm... I don't have one?  I don't feel guilty about loving any of my fandoms!  If they made me feel guilty, I would not be their fan.

 

What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve heard of/are a part of? 

Yeah, see, but you say 'weird' and I say 'whatever.'  I never know what people will consider weird.  Is it weird that my favorite TV show ever is a 1960s drama about WWII soldiers?  Is it weird that I've written fanfic that crossed that show with one about vampires?  I suppose the Buffy/Angel fandom is my weirdest, or maybe it's Lost instead?  They're both kind of unusual, maybe?

I do deeply love Angel: The Series.  It's my second-favorite TV show ever, and since it's about a vampire who basically becomes a detective and then a crime-fighter and assembles a crew with otherworldly skills to help the hopeless... I guess it counts as weird?

Favorite popular/widely-known fandom? 

Either the MCU or Star Wars -- I don't know which one is bigger, or which one I love most.  Okay, I probably love Star Wars a little more, simply because I've loved Han Solo for a looooooooong time.  And so deeply.  Yes, I think I do love him more than Thor.  Sorry, Thor.  I do love you, honest.  Just... I love Han more.  Can't help it.

Favorite bookish fandom? 

Sherlock Holmes.  No question.  Sherlock Holmes is my "book boyfriend" and I am not sorry.

(Mine from my Instagram account.)

What do you consider your ‘homebase,’ a fandom you can always come back to? 

Combat! (1962-67) always feels like home.  No matter how long it's been since I watched an ep.  I just watched several last month and it was so wonderful to be back with my best WWII buddies.  I've spent so much of my life in that world, writing reams of fanfic and even co-running a fansite for the show called Fruit Salad with my best friend.

No matter how long I've been away, Saunders and the guys will always welcome me back.  I love that.

What’s a fandom you know all about…but aren’t actually into it? 

Why would I know all about it if I wasn't in the fandom?  I don't bother learning all about things if I'm not into them.  Who has that kind of time?

I do know a lot more about The Hunger Games than I want to, so I guess that counts?  It was so unavoidable for so long, but I'm just not into it.  At all.

Which fandom has the best characters?

Probably The Lord of the Rings.  Just no end of fantastically nuanced, deep, rich characters.

 

Name your all-time favorite ship. 

Valancy Stirling and Barney Snaith from The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery.  I have read it over and over, and their story never fails to absolutely delight me.

(Also from my Instagram)

What’s a fandom you’re curious about joining?

Hmm.  Does Errol Flynn count?  Because I'm a little bit flirting with the idea of having a spring fling with him, as evidenced by me buying like four or five of his westerns recently.  But at the same time, I've already seen half a dozen of his movies, so he's not truly new to me either.  I'm considering reading Caraval by Stephanie Garber -- does that count?

That was super fun, and it took me days and days to answer these to my satisfaction :-)  Now I'm supposed to tag two people, so I'm tagging Movie Critic at Movies Meet Their Match and Katherine + Grace at Maidens of Green Gables.  But if you want to do this tag too, go right ahead!  Here are the questions, for your easy copying:

What’s the first fandom you remember becoming a part of? 

What’s the newest fandom you’ve come to enjoy? 

What’s a fandom guaranteed to give you feels? 

What’s a guilty pleasure fandom of yours? 

What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve heard of/are a part of? 

Favorite popular/widely-known fandom? 

Favorite bookish fandom? 

What do you consider your ‘homebase,’ a fandom you can always come back to? 

What’s a fandom you know all about…but aren’t actually into it? 

Which fandom has the best characters? 

Name your all-time favorite ship. 

What’s a fandom you’re curious about joining?

Answers to Which Pirate is Which?

Here be the answers to the game I posted earlier this week, and everyone's scores at the bottom.  

In the comments on the game, I agreed to award an extra half point for every actor's name you got correct, even if you didn't know the character's name or the movie, so now you understand the half points some people are getting here.  So the scoring was 1 point for every correct character name, 1 point for every correct movie title, and 1/2 point for every correct actor name.

1. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)
from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

2. Jamie Waring (Tyrone Power)
from The Black Swan (1942)

3. Peter Blood (Errol Flynn)
from Captain Blood (1935)

4. Roberts (Cary Elwes)
from The Princess Bride (1987)

5. Blackbeard (Peter Ustinov)
from Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)

6. Henry Morgan (Laird Cregar)
from The Black Swan (1942)

7. Macoco (Gene Kelly)
from The Pirate (1948)

8. Long John Silver (Robert Newton)
from Treasure Island (1950

9. Vallo (Burt Lancaster)
from The Crimson Pirate (1952)

10. Davey Crandall (Donald O'Connor)
from Double Crossbones (1951)

11. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush)
from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

12. Hook (Dustin Hoffman)
from Hook (1991)

SCORES:

Andrea -- 29

Caftan Woman -- 23

MovieCritic -- 18

Cordy -- 10

Heidi -- 7.5

Skye -- 5

"Against All Flags" (1952) -- Initial Thoughts

I'm really going to have to see Against All Flags (1952) a second time before I make up my mind as to whether I kinda like it or really like it.  I definitely liked a lot of aspects of it, and disliked a few things, and it's going to take that second viewing for me to settle just what I think of it.  However!  I really want to review it for We Love Pirates Week, so you're getting my initial thoughts today.

First, the things I loved:  Errol Flynn and Maureen O'Hara.  They are both perfectly enjoyable here.  Worth every penny of the price of admission, for sure. 

I've only seen older Flynn once before, in The Sun Also Rises (1957), but he's just a side character there, and my eyes were meant for Tyrone Power in that one.  Here, he's in his early '40s and just at the age I tend to find most men to be their most attractive; I have to say, Errol Flynn is no exception.  Sure, I love him as Robin Hood, and I enjoy his performances as young and cheeky pirates, or as young and cheeky cowboys, but the only other time I've found him this interesting was in Cry Wolf (1947), where he also had a more mature gravitas going on behind the charming suavity.  

In Against All Flags, Errol Flynn plays Brian Hawke, a British naval officer who is pretending to have deserted after being flogged.  Really, he's spying out the pirate stronghold on Madagascar so the Royal Navy can swoop in and drive out the pirates who are disrupting their trade with India.  

He's got to convince the pirates there that he's really turning pirate himself, along with two sailors who supposedly met him in the brig and agreed to escape with him.

As for Maureen O'Hara, she is breathtakingly lovely and insistently fiery.  She's playing another of her trademark roles as a woman who can stand toe-to-toe with any man and give better than she gets.  She is more than a match for Flynn when it comes to commanding the screen -- this was released the same year as The Quiet Man, and you know how magnificent she is in that, holding her own against John Wayne.  There was no question in my mind going in that she would be capable of holding her own against Errol Flynn here.

One disappointment for me was the fact that we never get to see her character commanding a ship.  I knew that this is "the movie where Maureen O'Hara plays a pirate captain," and I was really hoping to see her on deck giving orders and making daring battle plans.  Which doesn't happen.  This is why I need a second viewing -- I did have some Expectations that I needed the first viewing to clear away.  Now that I know what really does happen in here, I'll like it better, I'm pretty sure.

Maureen O'Hara plays Captain "Spitfire" Stevens here, the daughter of a pirate captain who bequeathed his ship, his gunsmithing business, and his rank as Pirate Captain to his daughter when he died.  

He also left her a map of where all the secret gun emplacements are on the island, which she framed and hung in her bedroom so that any spies would totally be able to see it with no problem whatsoever, because that's what the script demanded.

Although we don't get to see Spitfire Stevens command a ship, she does get to do battle!  She proves herself a crack shot with a pistol, and also gets to take part in the giant sword fight at the end of the film.  And, of course, she also trades sharp words with just about every character in the film, which is always fun.  

Spitfire Stevens does not initially believe that Brian Hawke has really run off from the Royal Navy, and she remains suspicious of him longer than any of the other pirates except Roc Brasiliano (Anthony Quinn), the villain of the picture.

Now, before you lambast this film for naming the villain a ridiculously made-up name like Roc Brasiliano, let me inform you that he was a real person!  Although the real Brasiliano stuck to the Caribbean and didn't hang out over between Africa and India basically ever, and he was already dead by the time this is supposed to take place (1700), it's obviously such a great pirate name that it's not surprising they decided to use it here.

Brasiliano has designs on Spitfire Stevens, as we learn in her first scene in the film when she berates him for his behavior "last night" and insists he needs to leave her alone.  Which he obviously never does, being the villain of the picture.  This adds some credibility to her repeated rebuffing of the heroic and charming Brian Hawke, for me.  She's tired of men trying to seduce her and assumes he's going to be the same, which is a pretty safe assumption since he's played by Errol Flynn, to be brutally honest.  Except for the fact that his character is a British Officer and Gentleman, so of course he's just going to be roguish, not rapacious.

Hawke is definitely attracted to Stevens, but he really is supposed to be here spying on those gun emplacements, so in theory, his attempts to get inside her bedroom are all about seeing that map she's got framed there.  

He starts out only half-heartedly wooing her, but the more she turns him away, the more interested he gets... until she turns the tables on him and pursues him, whereupon he turns her down cold.  

That's one of the things I like best about this, that there's a message of "both parties have to be willing and in the mood before any sort of kissing or canoodling can occur."  

It's only when they've both acknowledged their attraction and are both ready for it that they can make with the smooching, and I dig that.

Now, by far my least-favorite thing about this movie is a little wisp of a girl called Princess Patma (Alice Kelley).  She provides a big chunk of our plot, as she's a sultan's daughter but gets kidnapped by pirates, and woe be unto the whole British Empire if she gets molested by pirates and the sultan finds out that the British Empire failed to protect her.  So Brian Hawke has to stop everyone from finding out who she really is, save her from getting auctioned off as a "lawfully wedded bride" to any pirates, and generally safeguard her whenever possible.  And that's all good stuff, it really is.  Much conflict.  Very good.

But.

She's the stupidest sheep of a girl ever and, after forcing a kiss on Brian Hawke when he rescues her initially, she pursues him relentlessly, insisting he kiss her "Again?" every chance she gets.  Which does provide some nice humor, as Hawke tries to find chaste and boring ways to kiss her as he gets more and more fed up with her stupidity.  

But my word, she was so ANNOYING that I got very tired of her after her first scene and had to roll my eyes every time she showed up after that.  She's a great example of how NOT to write innocent girls with crushes on pirates, I guess, but that's the best I can say for her.

Anyway.  On a whole, it's a very jolly hour and twenty-four minutes with some good set pieces and exciting fights, and the chemistry between O'Hara and Flynn is everything you'd want it to be, so I'm calling it a win, over all.  And you know what else is a win?  You can watch it for free on Amazon Prime right now!

Also, belay me, but Anthony Quinn pulls off the pirate look extremely well.  If he wasn't the villain of the piece, I could find him rather fascinating.

This is my final contribution to We Love Pirates Week, which I've had so much fun hosting.  Thank you to everyone who has participated, whether by contributing a post or just playing the games and commenting on other people's posts.  Don't forget that the giveaway ends at midnight tonight, so get your entries in while you still can!