Becket is outstanding.

Doctor Dolittle is fun, though I can't believe it actually won best picture.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is great if only to see a bunch of actors with thick New York accents (especially Jimmy Cagney as Bottom) pulling off Shakespeare.

I love Ordinary People, but it could be considered a standard family drama these days, though Mary Tyler Moore is a revelation in it.

The Dresser is extremely well-written and done with skill.

Hold Back the Dawn and Seventh Heaven I haven't seen.

Imitation of Life is one of your dreaded (my beloved) melodramas. It's a great one, too.

But apparently I won't consider Imitation of Life a melodrama if I like it. Plus, I've heard great things about it from utter cynics.

I have a copy of Seventh Heaven on tape. If you're interested, I can copy it and give it to you next time you come to a certain bank-owned revival house.

Dude! I only just got the schedule yesterday at DOC films. I'll pick a date and let you know! Thanks.

Becket is a surprisingly good film. I usually hate that time period but it was a surprisingly interesting and relevant story.

Ordinary People is one of my favorites. A lot of people are still bitter that it beat Raging Bull but it's actually a remarkably well-made film. I prefer it to Raging Bull myself.

Hold Back the Dawn is a standard "woman's picture" although Boyer and de Havilland are good.

Imitation of Life is a fine film, but I prefer the Sirk remake.

Nashville is a true masterpiece. The only Altman film I truly love and could watch over and over again.

Gone With the Wind is my favorite film of all time. Enough said.

Congratulations on getting through the enormous list! That requires a lot of dedication. I'm at about 65-70% right now.

To answer the inevitable "OMG I can't believe you've never seen Gone with the Wind!": I didn't start seriously watching older movies until late in high school. By then, most people had already seen it, and it seems like a movie you'd want to share with someone. Then in college I studied 19th century American history, and from what I knew about GWTW's take on slavery and the Civil War, I knew it would piss me off. Later, when I came to realize that historical accuracy didn't matter as much as I had thought it did, the fact that I had not see GWTW became a point of perverse pride. Then, as I got closer to finishing, I decided to end things with the best-known, most iconic Best Picture winner of the bunch.

Not seeing Nashville before this? That's just lame.

Getting very near the end, eh? I wish I could say the same. Congrats. As for favorites, Nashville seemed like a '70s Americana version of a Renoir film to me, if you see what I mean; I love it. And Borzage's poetic Seventh Heaven, which I discovered thanks to your 1927 blog-a-thon, remains one of my favorite films of all time.

Oooooh, this is quite a list! lemme see here:

Becket (1964) saw it as a teen and it bored me. Might be worth a revisit.

Doctor Dolittle (1967) I liked this as a kid but even then I had a weakness for anything shot in Britain in the 1960s. Not to mention musicals. Just read the Harris book on 1968's Oscar nominees and the stuff on Rex Harrison made my hair curl. What a douche he was!!

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) This is beautiful to look at, and I think Cagney is very good in it. Also Olivia, for whom I know you entertain a soft spot, is so lovely and young and not bad, if not entirely up to the task.

Ordinary People (1980) It isn't as good as Raging Bull but the scene with Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore, late at night at the dining room table, will be with me for the rest of my life.

The Dresser (1983) I loved this as a teen in acting school, dunno how it has held up.

Hold Back the Dawn (1941) SUCH a good movie. SUCH a good movie. SUCH a good movie. A melodrama. But SUCH ... okay, I'll stop. Olivia is great in it.

Imitation of Life (1934) See "Hold Back the Dawn." And Claudette gets the most amazing costumes ever.

Seventh Heaven (1927) Just saw this one and it's incredibly beautiful, and by the end Mr. C was a bit in love with Janet Gaynor. So was I. The O Sole Mio music is so repetitive you may want to mute the soundtrack at some point. And the print is in bad shape, if you watch the same one I did.

Nashville (1975) I, uh, haven't seen this one. So I will not twit you about Gone with the Wind (1939). I do think you should try for Rhett and Scarlett on the big screen, though, because it is so gorgeous, the definition of the kind of moviemaking CGI has probably killed forever. One of these days I may write up my argument for William Cameron Menzies as the true auteur of GWTW.

now I want to go over and look through the complete list of nominees and see what my percentage is like. Probably not that good after about 1980something.

How many of these do I get to see with you? Will it be too weird if I watch you watching? I'll feel like I'm in the presence of something momentous. (And if that can happen even with Doctor Dolittle playing on the TV, that's a miracle in itself.)

Nick: I'd have watched Doctor Dolittle while in my late-January post-surgery vicodin haze, but I saved it to watch with you. I'd love to watch some good ones with you too.

As for watching me watching: what we'll do is set up a webcam pointed at me while I watch the last ten films, and we'll make millions from the advertising revenue that will surely flow in.

I'd pay good money to see a smart critic watch Seventh Heaven for the first time. Amazing film; be sure to check out Kevin Lee's site when you've finished it.