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The most impressive part of Beauty and the Beast is its visuals. For a French film made a year after World War II ended and filmed without color, it is stunning. Today the effects still work. It's almost more impressive watching it today to think about how easily the visuals would be to achieve via special effects today. The castle really does look magical. You can tell the care Cocteau put into this film. All this before even mentioning how effective the costume design is for the beast.

The ending of the film is odd, and those familiar with the Disney novel will find it fun to compare and contrast plot elements between the two beloved films.

Ran is the greatest of Kurasawa's later works. While it doesn't reach the heights of his undeniably great films (High & Low, Rashomon, and Seven Samurai). I'd place Ran in the ranks of his very, very good films along with Throne of Blood, The Red Beard, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo (I personally don't care for Ikiru). Ran is a brutal film and visually grand. Kurosawa plays on Shakespeare's King Lear in a very fun and distinctly Japanese way. This is a must watch for any cinephile or any fan of samurai film. Still, it is missing something to take it from the very good, to great level. But not every film can be immortal.

I have long loved It's a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington so it seems only natural that I long ago would have flocked to this Capra classic. For some reason I waited, perhaps out of a fear that if I watch this movie there will be one less great movie out there for me to experience for the first time. Eventually, one would think, you will get through all the truly great movies and there will be nothing left but the good and the mediocre, or rewatching the greats. With that aside, I was confident Mr. Deeds Goes to Town would succeed and it does.

Gary Cooper plays the small-town good guy with a bit of a temper (remind you of Jimmy Stewart in Capra's best films?). I don't think this film hits quite as hard of an emotional chord as the two films I mentioned earlier but the feel, the heart, and the quality are all shared. There is something about Capra's films that wonderfully blend sentimentality and positivity into films that both entertain and leave the viewer feeling good.

Roger Ebert wrote in his review of It's a Wonderful Life in his Great Films book that Capra's work declined sharply after his most enduring film because what America went through in WWII and Capra's idealistic narratives stopped resonating with viewers. It might be the case, but if viewers fail to resonate with the work he produced it says more about us than it does about him.