Casablanca

What can I say? Casablanca was phenom. Before watching it I had no idea of the genre, plot, or characters. All I knew was that it was supposedly really good, it starred Humphrey Bogart, and that the line "here's lookin' at you, kid" was in there some place or another. Unfortunately hearing that line 43584782 times before kind of took away it's impact, but whatev. That's my own problem I guess.

As a girl, I'm always a sucker for a good romantic film, and seeing Ilsa's eyes swell up at the sight of Rick did me in right then and there. Coming away from Casablanca, the love story is what made it so brilliant to me. Although I lovedlovedLOVED the film personally, I can't really understand why it is considered one of the greatest films of all time. I mean, I would certainly consider it that, but I wouldn't quite think that generations of movie buffs would as well. Usually the "brilliant" films are ones that are either a) incredibly visually appealing/artistic or b) socially relevant. Casablanca wasn't really either of these, in my opinion. It was, however, a film with great acting, character developement, and an interesting plot. So, since when is that enough to make it one of the greatest films of all time? My vote is for Humphrey Bogart.

Unfortunately I haven't yet done the reading on historicity or whatever, but I'm kind of glad I didn't. It allowed me to view the film without searching for this-or-that, and I was able to really appreciate Casablanca for its greatness as whole.