When I was a very impressionable 15-year-old, I went to see a movie called “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” That movie blew me away just in terms of action and its larger-than-life hero. I wound up going to see it 11 times in the theater back in the summer of 1981. For a long time, that remained my favorite movie of all time. As I matured and as my interest in film and film history grew, I watched a lot of older films (and the AFI’s original “100 Years 100 Films” list provided a great starting point for this). Eventually I came across what I later realized was one of Spielberg’s main influences for a lot of his films, “Lawrence of Arabia.” The film is technically brilliant, magnificently shot (on 70mm film no less), well written, and beautifully acted. Peter O’Toole gives a truly great perfomance as Lawrence, and Alec Guiness, Omar Shariff, Anthony Quinn, and Claude Rains are all excellent. The biggest star of the picture is the desert, and it truly provides some of the most memorable shots in film history (i.e. the slow sunrise, the “mirage” first appearance of Omar Shariff’s character, the moving sand as Lawrence comtemplates trekking across the desert to attack Akaba). And to accompany all of the visual splendor is Maurice Jarre’s classic score. This was one four hour movie that I really didn’t want to end…