You played it for her, you can play it for me

Rating: 10/10 (12 June 2006)

At this point, Casablanca is so universally beloved that it's almost not worth giving it a positive review. But how can I not? Not only is it brilliant on almost every level (except the feminist one-"You'll have to do the thinking for both of us"), but it was the film that first made me into a movie geek. At the end, when Bogie gives up Bergman for the sake of the war, I was just completely stunned. Movies were allowed to end that way? I suddenly realized how much potential there was in the art of the moving picture. It also started my great love affair with Humphrey Bogart. Not conventionally handsome, still he can induce swoons with one heartbroken look.