My 100 favorite movies- a big fat fucking list

I wrote this out of restlessness awhile ago, and I'm deciding to post it here. It's my 100 favorite movies, with extra reccommendations... essentially every movie I've ever really liked. Do I have too much free time? Probably. but writing this kinda reminds you how much you love movies, and it was really fun to do and show to people.

Anyway, here we go...


100. OCEAN’S ELEVEN (Steven Soderbergh)
There’s that effortless cool that permeates OCEAN’S ELEVEN from the top down, from each and every cast member. Everyone is in on the joke, and you get the feeling that all it would take is one actor totally oblivious to their own ridiculousness as a major star (see: Bruce Willis) to torpedo the whole thing (although Julia, usually serviceable, comes close). A lot of this comes from the playful direction of Steven Soderbergh and the very cool music from David Holmes. For all of his career accomplishments, I don’t think Soderbergh will ever top the fountain scene at the film’s close, as the “Clair de Lune” gracefully glides over the suddenly classy Las Vegas landscape while the rest of the cast wordlessly acknowledge each other’s accomplishments.



Also see: OCEAN’S TWELVE (Steven Soderbergh)
There’s definitely a few lowpoints to Soderbergh’s star-packed sequel. One section actually veers towards being the single most unwatchable segment of any Soderbergh film (see: Bruce Willis). Still, there’s some truly inspired meta bits in this globe-trotting installment in the crime caper series. I particularly adore the fact that the film uses a European stylistic DV aesthetic, which is never more winning as when the camera is on Catherine Zeta-Jones (never more gorgeous). My choice moment of the film is when Clooney and Pitt, after a fruitless brainstorming session in which it’s become clear that they’re staring death right in the face, remark that their “legit” professions suck. At that point, the film becomes a movie about a group of creative people contractually obligated to produce a film that shouldn’t have been sequelized in the first place, and how they are gonna have fun doing it anyway, despite the impossible. Bonus points for ultracool Vincent Cassell and another rockin’ David Holmes score.


99. OLDBOY (Chan Woo-Park)
After my inaugural viewing of Chan Woo-Park’s pistol of a revenge picture a few months ago, it’s landed squarely here with a bullet. This blisteringly ugly, violently exhilarating picture piles up mysterious element after mysterious element, guided by an altogether possessed, inhuman performance by Chow-Mink as a man in search of missing time and wildly animalistic retribution. And that ending... I can’t recall being so blindsided by a movie, to the point where it took me weeks to fully digest.



Also see: KILL BILL (Quentin Tarantino)
When I first saw VOLUME ONE, I walked out of the theater ready to dropkick eight hundred ninjas. Just the breathless, violent pace, the crazy fight choreography and the assured, steely Uma Thurman performance pretty much nearly led me to anoint Quentin Tarantino as some sort of demi-god. A few weeks passed, and I calmed down, before eventually looking around to find some of the inspirations for KILL BILL that were so widely noted by himself and others in what seemed to be an infinite number of articles and interviews. However, once I realized that the movie was essentially cut-and-paste and came to terms with the fact that it’s got too much distracting music and spotty dialogue (and when I was somewhat disappointed by the disjointed pace of VOLUME TWO), I soured a bit on the film, to the point where it became my least-favorite Tarantino picture. Still, it’s very much cut from the same mold as OLDBOY in it’s very modern and archetypal depiction of revenge, and it is still fairly kinetic in it’s direction and delightful in it’s gore. I cannot wait until THE WHOLE BLOODY SAGA streamlines a bit, eliminates others (the Larry Bishop scene, perhaps) and brings us that fight from the original teasers involving Bill and Spawn.


98. INSOMNIA (Erik Skjoldbjaerg)

Moreso than the feeble American remake, INSOMNIA is an effortless picture about a disillusioned cop dealing with his demons, and coming to terms with his own immorality. The atmosphere in this film is thick enough to represent the mindset of the lead, played by the great Stellan Skarsgaard. Skarsgaard portrays a very sleepy dangerousness and intoxicating distance that makes him impossible to not draw attention.


Also see: ONE HOUR PHOTO (Mark Romanek)
Robin Williams was one of the better elements of the American remake of INSOMNIA, but that was merely a footnote to his 2002, in which he appeared in a few darker, more askew films, shying away from his A-List status that he has yet to reclaim. However, no performance was better than in this disturbing character study about a photo developer with designs for a suburban family. Like INSOMNIA, this film observes the very disturbed psyche of someone who may have been damaged goods before we’ve met them. One of the most appealing elements of this film is how the supermarket interiors are filmed so menacingly; it’s almost as if the film takes place on a space station, and there’s a vicious alien around ever corner.


97. BAD BOYS 2 (Michael Bay)
I’ve been over this before with many who know me, but the reason I can sit on my ass and enjoy this film on whatever HBO it might be on is because I’m not a good person. Surely, while Michael Bay’s storytelling acumen is a piddling drop in the bucket, his technical capabilities are hard to argue with, and some of the things he gets across onscreen in this film are inexplicably jaw-dropping. The car chases alone are like nothing I’ve ever seen in a movie, but the amount of bullets produced through the course of this film has got to be in the many, many thousands. At heart, this is a film about two sociopathic cops with itchy triggers working for a police department with an unlimited budget, and it’s misogynist, racist and completely, gratuitously stupid. Then again, points for what may be the most violent movie ever made.

Also see: THE WILD BUNCH (Sam Peckinpah)
Most likely the former title-holder for most violent film ever made, Peckinpah’s ode to the dying west says far more about the human condition and the cult of masculinity than BAD BOYS 2 does, and it’s violence is far more graceful and coherent. But this isn’t a best list, this is a favorites list- in other words, don’t begrudge me for taking Pokey Reese when Derek Jeter is still on the board. I’ve heard many scholars and critics make claims that THE WILD BUNCH is the best American movie ever made, and there are few occasions that I’ve found to argue.

96. SCHIZOPOLIS (Steven Soderbergh)
Steven Soderbergh- batshit crazy? Perhaps, as evidenced by this totally bizarre oddity in a very unusual career. Soderbergh broke through with SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE and was immediately branded as the next big thing. However, he continued to toil away in relative obscurity with limited appeal films like the coming of age picture KING OF THE HILL and GRAY’S ANATOMY. This period reached it’s commercial nadir with this totally esoteric collection of nonsensical skits comparable to the best of Monty Python, in which Soderbergh lampoons himself, the filmmaking process, Scientology and bald men with ponytails. Somehow, he followed this up with OUT OF SIGHT.


Also see: FULL FRONTAL (Steven Soderbergh)
Soderbergh had been talking about SON OF SCHIZOPOLIS for a long time, although this may have been what the project evolved into. Not as off-the-wall as it should have been, and never as funny or insane as SCHIZOPOLIS, FULL FRONTAL remains an occasionally funny film and a nice companion piece to SCHIZOPOLIS, both being therapeutic films Soderbergh made at key points in his career (SCHIZOPOLIS when it seemed his career was over, FRONTAL at his commercial peak but creative low point). Most of the actors in the piece operate on limited levels of efficiency, but Nicky Katt steals the show as a Method actor playing Hitler in an Off-Broadway production.

95. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (William Friedkin)
Such a badass movie. Gene Hackman, one of my favorite actors, is really a force of nature in this movie. The film reminds me a great deal of my father, who was an NYPD officer in the seventies and used to cross paths with the real Popeye Doyle often (not to mention Frank Serpico and Donnie Brasco). According to pictural evidence, my father regularly rocked the lavender and cop hat that Hackman has in this flick. Rock on, pops.


Also see: NARC (Joe Carnahan)
NARC captures a lot of the immediacy of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, particularly in the fairly scary Ray Liotta performance, in which he is totally unrecognizable and unnerving. There’s a moment when the film stops to a halt for Liotta’s character to weave a harrowing story of how he beat a perp to within an inch of his life for pimping out a little girl. I saw this with my father, who also used to be a narcotics officer, and his eyes glazed over at this moment. Later, he revealed to me that the exact same thing happened to him, and that he took out a john for a ten year old prostituted by her mother and he and his partner beat his face in with a phone. Again, rock on, pops.

94. THE ITEM (Dan Clark)
I dunno where to start... this film is as bizarre a mishmash of genres as you’ll ever see. Dan Clark cut his teeth on the live action TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES television show, but nothing in the TMNT legacy could prepare you for this bloody crossbreed. Filmed on incredibly cheap DV, THE ITEM features a cagey group of criminals forced to protect and hold a package overnight for a mysterious financier, only to find that whatever it is inside is forcing them to turn against each other. Clark is a bit irritating in the lead, and the performances aren’t that great, but this is top choice bizarro cinema, with an ending you’ll have to see twice to honestly believe.


Also see: VERSUS (Ryuhei Kitamura)
VERSUS is significantly less fun than THE ITEM, but in being a genre mixup that never takes itself too seriously, it’s definitely worth seeing once. In it’s depiction of the world’s biggest battle in the Forest of Resurrection, VERSUS matches gangsters, vampires, zombies and escaped convicts against themselves, and the results are typically insane.


93. DON’T LOOK NOW (Nicolas Roeg)

Most people always talk about “the sex scene” but this really is an affecting, moody piece beyond any sort of titillation. I’m not sure, but I think I heard somewhere that Nicolas Roeg was some sort of art or nature photographer before he went into film, and seeing DON’T LOOK NOW, with it’s many red and white lenses, it’s particularly evident. Roeg’s films are all interesting in a million different ways, but DON’T LOOK NOW benefits from very textured performances by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as a couple that fears they may be seeing their dead daughter returning to life in various settings. And yes, the intimate, realistic sex between Sutherland and Julie Christie is pretty hot.


Also see: IRREVERSIBLE (Gaspar Noe)
IRREVERSIBLE is similar to DON’T LOOK NOW in many ways, as it too is an unconventional horror film about love and loss, lingering on retribution rather than mourning. While Roeg is a meticulous artist and each shot is carefully, artfully constructed, Noe’s camera roams recklessly, stopping on the most shocking of terrors and zipping through the rest of the suffocating worlds of the Rectum and the subways of Italy. Also similar is the emotionally naked performances from Vincent Cassell and Monica Bellucci, not to mention their physically naked tryst under the covers that’s both intimate and shattering. IRREVERSIBLE’s crowning touch is the hypnotic, nightmarish, Goblin-esque score from Daft Punk member Thomas Bangalter.

92. THE BEYOND (Lucio Fulci)

THE BEYOND may have been one of the most influential horror movies I’ve ever seen as far as it’s impact on my scripts (and, judging by how much over the years have been ripped off from this zombie classic, on other’s as well). It’s lack of plot rationalization, top notch gore, and wholly terrifying ending (an always-emulated classic that I’ve used as a small basis for an upcoming flick) elevate it above the status of another quickie zombie cash-in.


Also see: ZOMBIE (Lucio Fulci)

A zombie fights a shark. A zombie. Fights a shark. A. Zombie. Fights. A. Shark.

91. DUEL TO THE DEATH (Siu-Tung Ching)
I rented this for my birthday recently and, despite birthday night distractions, it blew my mind. I was originally intrigued by a blockbusting trailer on the DVD for RIKI-O, and immediately fascinated by a team of ninjas that could merge together Voltron-like and form one big Super Ninja. This film does not disappoint, with wicked swordfights, awesome kung-fu and assloads of ninja action. And kites.


Also see: NINJA APOCALYPSE (Tommy Lee)
On the other end of the spectrum, this is a terrible movie. It’s title is wholly misleading, for one: there are only a handful of ninjas in this film, and they largely operate in plainclothes- hardly material for an apocalypse. There’s a ninja-kite scenario, and a little bit of jumping over cars, but overall, it’s laughably bad, made even worse by the super-poor dubbing job. But it holds some sentimental value: in my freshman year in college, I got together a bunch of people I didn’t really know at the time and we ruthlessly MST3K’d it, eventually becoming very good friends. Then again, perhaps if there were swordfights or a big Super Ninja, I would have had more friends.

90. THEY LIVE (John Carpenter)
“I’ve come her to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I’m all out of bubblegum.” Hell, when you think about it, that doesn’t even make sense! Very little does in Carpenter’s attack on Reagan-era values, and yet it’s still an infectiously good time. Roddy Piper is goofily endearing as the lead, as he isn’t very good, even if he’s given lines like, “You look like you fell in the cheese dip back in 1967” (Again with the making sense thing). And of course, the brawl between Piper and the great Keith David, one of cinema’s all-time greatest moments. This movie wasn’t really one of my favorites until I stopped at a gas station one day. A car was parked next to me, with a younger lad in the driver’s seat and a man that was probably his father in the passenger’s seat, watching and scrutinizing his every move. As the kid took off his prescription glasses and began toying with them in heated conversation, I clearly heard the father, sans irony, yell, “Put on the glasses!”


Also see: JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING (John Carpenter)
Keith David, the voice of the Cartoon Network, truly did some great work with John Carpenter. In addition to his part in THEY LIVE as well as his uncredited performance in the title role of THE FOG, he was really awesome alongside infallible Kurt Russell in this gory horror classic. If there’s any movie more perfect for a theatrical re-release right now, it would be THE THING, because this is seriously one underloved movie by the general public.

89. BATMAN RETURNS (Tim Burton)
Yes, the Burton films deviated from the mythology of BATMAN greatly, and this sequel is very much responsible for starting a trend of making the Bat-films about the villains instead of the torment of Bruce Wayne. But who cares if the attention is on the villains if they’re this good? Michelle Pfieffer is extremely sexy and very game as the fetishistic weirdo Catwoman while Danny DeVito’s slimy rendition of the Penguin is tragic and unforgettable. Plus, Burton didn’t know story well (still doesn’t) but he knows iconography, and as a lifelong Batman fan, I still get chills during moments like Michael Keaton theatrically rising to the sight of the Bat-Signal, Batman spreading his cape in full display to glide away and the deliciously sinful lick/kiss between Catwoman and Batman. Oh, and the incomparable Christopher Walken, at one point acting alongside his character’s son (played by Andrew Bynarski of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake) who does an effortless Walken with the line, “Dad, go. Dadgo!”

Also see: CATWOMAN (Pitof)
Michelle Pfieffer can also be seen in this wholly unnecessary spinoff, a film that can only be recommended for lovers of the spectacularly bad. Her picture appears in a stack of photos to suggest that Halle Berry, as mild designer Patience Price, is not without precedence in being a Catwoman. There should have also been a picture of Adam West (or at least Lee Merriweather) to also suggest that she’s not without precedence as being a wholly tacky, campy creation. Nevertheless, Berry is cavalier in her obliviousness, which makes this wrongheaded vanity project even more stupefying. Directed with a violent hatred of coherence by single-named Pitof, CATWOMAN is with few peers in the annals of truly awful comic adaptations, and may just be required viewing for anyone who has a favorite second-tier character that they fear will be ruined by an upcoming movie adaptation.

And also see: EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (Tim Burton)
Perhaps the first film to ever make me cry, SCISSORHANDS is Burton at his playful, elegiac best. An urban fairy tale about a boy born/created without real hands, Johnny Depp hits the right mix of pathos and bewilderment in the title role, and Burton never hits a false note emotionally, even if the story’s denouement doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

88. THE STRAIGHT STORY (David Lynch)

I was not a big fan of David Lynch when this film came out, and I regarded it as some sort of uninteresting oddity, a for-hire gig from Disney for an edgy indie director. Of course, this was before I realized that Lynch is some rare, obscure breed of filmmaker, capable of crafting stories that captured the dark side of Americana and manufacture the threads which comprise our dreams. Upon first glance, THE STRAIGHT STORY (a film I rented because I liked Sissy Spacek, believe it or not), is not like his other films. The true story of an elderly man who headed across an entire state on a lawnmower to see his ailing brother, upon first glance, comes across as a G-rated departure for a man well-versed in the realm of the macabre and the twisted. However, THE STRAIGHT STORY exposes the underbelly of the Midwest as well as his other films, far more subtle and grounded in reality but no less disturbing. Alvin Straight is a fascinating man, afraid to face what he’s done to himself and to others around him, and his stubbornness is all that he has left. His life has been a horror story, and he simply wants to erase his wrongdoings, even though the end of the film suggests that perhaps he’ll never succeed. It’s a beautiful film that strikes me with it’s horror and unerring moral values at the same time, every time.


Also see: BLUE VELVET (David Lynch)
Of course, the more conventional Lynch, his fourth film BLUE VELVET portrays the seedy crime underbelly of a small Midwestern town, as he dissects corruption from the inside out, in a film that’s not exactly a dream, but never entirely real. His ethereal handle for the absurd and the frightening really shape this film as the type of picture that you second guess differently in each and every shot.

87. SWIMMING WITH SHARKS (George Hwang)
There was a period in my life when I became Kevin Spacey’s biggest cheerleader, and to me he was Hollywood’s top actor. THE USUAL SUSPECTS started it, and many other films solidified it, but this one cemented it, at least until he won that second Oscar and went insane. In a wide-ranging filmography, this is my hands-down favorite Spacey performance, and it hurts to watch today knowing that he’s off filming some useless feel-good studio film and blowing his talent on a piss-poor script. I understand that this movie, written and directed by former temp George Hwang, got Hwang blacklisted by every agency in town, and he hasn’t made a movie since (it’s been eleven years). And while a lot of that has to do with a razor sharp script, most of it probably is because of Spacey’s vicious Buddy Ackerman, the nastiest agent you’ll ever meet, who tortures lackey Frank Whaley until he snaps. While there are some truly comedic highlights in Spacey’s performance (pouring water slowly when Whaley’s character has to pee, demanding which women to fetch from the lobby to seduce), my favorite is a blistering monologue about the differences between Sweet-and-Low and Equal, one that I am always reminded of whenever anyone drinks coffee.


Also see: THE REF (Ted Demme)
Spacey was really at the top of his game eleven years ago, wasn’t he? This is another typically acid-tongue performance, in which he and hateful spouse Judy Davis (who matches him barb for barb) are taken hostage during the holiday season by a thief on the run who eventually becomes exasperated with the constant bickering. Denis Leary is quite funny as the lead, although watching RESCUE ME now, it’s amazing to see how much he’s grown as an actor over the years.

86. THE BROOD (David Cronenberg)

Man, oh man, there are few things that terrify me more than disfigured little people. And they don’t appear often in THE BROOD, but when they do, it’s borderline terrifying. These little suckers are manifestations of the hurt and anger brought upon by divorce, and they wield a number of nasty weapons, their very attack accompanied by an otherworldly shriek. I remember tracking this down for a blind-buy after seeing the little creatures in screencaps, but then when I took the DVD home and watched the movie’s trailer in preparation, I had to stop, get up, and go have a drink. A hard drink.


Also see: SPIDER (David Cronenberg)
Watching Cronenberg evolve has been nothing short of fascinating, as he’s currently at the top of his game since his last picture SPIDER. It’s a really evocative, powerful film, dealing with a schizophrenic trying to reason with the mysteries from within his own tangled mind, and how the troubled relationship between his parents (Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson- the latter in a dual role) greatly contributed to his condition. The film is buoyed by an assured, fascinating performance by Ralph Fiennes, and it never hits a false note. It’s psychologically dense, artfully directed, and beautifully restrained.

Because people don't care about my blog.

People might not care for this either, but it's movie-related, and it's here...

I dunno Devin, if you think it's annoying, maybe I won't post the rest. I don't see a reason why I shouldn't, but apparently you do.

I'll wait for your word.

Well, because Devin wishes I'd stop wasting the site's bandwidth by posting a list on a "Drafts and Lists" board, then I have no problem stopping. Consider this thread dead.

Well, at least it's nice to know Devin reads my blog. That's a pleasant, unimpactful surprise.

Aw, what the hell, I'm just gonna finish this...


85. RULES OF ATTRACTION (Roger Avary)

More college memories. I still remember opening weekend, as my friends and I were the only ones in the theater. This was a weekend that greeted the opening of no fewer than eleven wide releases (including THE TRANSPORTER, SWEPT AWAY, TUCK EVERLASTING and KNOCKAROUND GUYS), so this was no surprise. What was a surprise was how well I thought this film captured the feel of college. Sure it was a mite exaggerated, but seeing this today feels even more like college; the death, the depression, the sexual lust, the drugs, the debauched attitudes, and the lack of connection. James Van Der Beek’s performance is tragically hilarious, and I can’t imagine him as anything other than a sex-crazed rich boy, no matter how heavy DAWSON’S CREEK is in syndication.

Also see: AMERICAN PSYCHO (Mary Harron)
Yet another Bret Easton Ellis adaptation, this one has considerable bite, and while I cannot relate to it on a personal level (it’s really been awhile since I’ve killed some people), it remains vital, funny and dementedly sharp. The debate raged on until recently when director Mary Harron claimed that in the movie she wanted it to seem as if they killings had really happened, and that Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale, never better or sexier) was really a sick murderer. But she claims she failed, and true to Ellis’ comments that it’s an eye of the beholder situation, the movie does seem to leave both doors open, either possibility being delicious for many reasons.

And also see: LESS THAN ZERO (Mareck Kanievska)
While the other two Bret Easton Ellis adaptations can be considered a part of the same universe (although RULES OF ATTRACTION has both the 80's soundtrack and styles as well as broadban internet), LESS THAN ZERO is probably the most direct translation of his soggy, devilish prose. Another loose-limbed tale of young, good looking rich kids and their vices, LESS THAN ZERO features a fantastic, seemingly prescient performance by Robert Downey Jr., as an addict who won't allow his friends to pull him out of his downward spiral. Seeing this movie now, Downey's performance is given added weight by his recent transgressions.


84. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-Wai)
Wong Kar-Wai’s intoxicating romance is impossible to resist, and I clearly remember the first time seeing it, feeling it was some form of fairy tale. Indeed, there is a bit of serendipity on display as these lovers complicate an illicit tango with their refusal to consummate, to compromise their ethics. It’s the kind of romantic ethics that we all wish we could be strong enough to have, but we know never will. Nevermind the fact that the two leads, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, are impeccably gorgeous here.


Also see: COLD MOUNTAIN (Anthony Minghella)
It’s only a companion piece to IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE because I’m a sucker for romance. But, shortcomings be damned, COLD MOUNTAIN works for me. As a retelling of THE ODYSSEY, it also comes across as total romantic fantasy: it makes sense that Nicole Kidman would never, ever fuss up her hair during the hardship of a number of poor-weather years by herself, therefore making Jude Law realize that she’s worth walking through a number of states to see her. And while Kidman is pretty good, Law is fantastic, and he brings many quirks to a character with very little to say. One of my favorite elements to COLD MOUNTAIN has to be the gorgeous score, from Gabriel Yared, that is completely superior to the bluegrass-inflected music T-Bone Burnett conceived for large portions of the film. An odd recommendation, but if you can ever find the score Gabriel Yared did for TROY that executives rejected, before being cut completely out of the film, jump on it.


83. SUICIDE CIRCLE/SUICIDE CLUB (Sino Sion)
The first time I saw this was by a recommendation from a fairly astute friend who wanted help deciphering it. He had previously rented it from Blockbuster, and was not sure whether he had rented the unrated version or the R-release (I, of course, had rented the former, as I would never offer my patronage to Blockbuster). At about five minutes into the film, when the gore starts to seriously spill, his words slowly spilled out, “Oh, that’s new, this must be the unrated version... oh, that part- yeah this is definitely the unrated version... and that’s new, and... holy- holy fuck. Did you just see that?” It’s that kind of movie, but it’s a lot more, a treatise on modern multimedia influence, societal unhappiness in modern Japan and a really nasty little black comedy. Also, Ryo Ishibashi, my favorite current Japanese actor, is really great in this.

Also see: BATTLE ROYALE (Kinji Fukasaku)
Many people prefer BATTLE ROYALE to SUICIDE CLUB (not I), and I can see why. ROYALE is a kibosh of different genres and ideas, and it moves forward with a sadistic glee and a steely sense of justification. I do feel that the action set pieces in the second half are uninspired and too conventional, and I’m still trying to work my way through some elements of the ending (and I haven’t caught the sequel). Still, BATTLE ROYALE, with it’s themes of the association between the youth of Japan and violence, has some great laughs, a killer first half, and some genuinely taboo-breaking moments, not to mention the great Takeshi Kitano.

And also see: DEMONLOVER (Oliver Assayas)
DEMONLOVER is one of the most fascinating movies I’ve seen in recent years. It fits in here with the theme of media manipulation, but in a different and very global manner. It’s the story of a woman who schemes and plots her way to the top of a corporation in the middle of a massive merger with a shady anime/hentai company that secretly produces a torture website. The fact that no one has scruples in dealing with something as creepy as the film’s Hellfire Club site speaks a lot of the dehumanization of every involved person, and the departure of any real “thrills” from this “corporate thriller” definitely suggest a blase attitude towards the daily devouring and destruction of each other through casual “transaction.” There’s tons of stuff I can bring up about this mercurial film to dissect and discuss, but I really don’t want to spoil anyone. Thematically, this is an extremely adventurous film that operates on many levels at once.


82. CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (George Clooney)
The first of a few Charlie Kaufman scripts in this list, it’s very much like the other Kaufman films in that it’s really difficult to decide which is the best one. This one is the least Kaufman-y, though, and really operates stylistically through the surprisingly efficient and artful direction of first-timer George Clooney. Kaufman has only worked with Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze previously, and it appears that he strongly influenced how those films were made, whereas on CONFESSIONS, Clooney seems to have taken the script as a springboard into a number of crazy visual concepts. So much of this movie is brilliant:

-Sam Rockwell is funny, tragic and fascinatingly self-loathing as Chuck Barris, the game show producer who claims to have doubled as a CIA agent throughout his career (a dubious claim that the movie takes as seriously as possible).

-The music is a perfect marriage of period and necessity, and the few times the Who is heard actually works in a dramatic sense.

-The script is filled with many funny anecdotes that are, in actuality, taken nearly verbatim from the Barris-penned autobiography this stems from (which is a great read).

-The supporting cast, including Clooney, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and the awesome Dust Devil Robert John Burke, is superb, but none are better than Rutger Hauer, who’s really eccentric, funny and moving in his bit work.

Also see: SOLARIS (Steven Soderbergh)
2002 was a pretty killer year for Clooney the artist as opposed to Clooney the actor. Both coming off their biggest hit with OCEAN’S ELEVEN (with a stop in between for FULL FRONTAL), Soderbergh and Clooney teamed up for this curious, radically different remake of the excellent sci-fi film SOLARIS. While the original Russian film dwells greatly on the science aspect of the story, this film, about an hour and a half shorter, details the romantic love and loss scientist Chris Kelvim (Clooney) goes through when his dead wife manifests herself on a space station orbiting Solaris. When he starts to lose reason that her current manifestation is either her or his own crooked manifestations of what she represented to him (which he acknowledges are not at all reliable), Clooney’s own suffering and confusion are dramatic fertile ground, and he turns in a very quiet, powerful performance.

81. THE CRAZIES (George A. Romero)
Although mostly known for his furthering of the lore of modern zombies, George Romero was a fairly inventive filmmaker throughout his years. Romero was able to explore some very interesting topics through the lens of the horror genre. One of his most savage attacks on the right, however, was in this low-key chiller, about a mysterious, unexplained symptom that ravages a small town and causes it’s inhabitants to violently tear themselves apart, only for the military to quarantine the town’s residents with the intention of obliterating them. The military’s bright jumpsuits might be the movie’s most famous recurring image, although it’s the rage of the town’s most feral victims that unsettles me greatly.

Also see: 28 DAYS LATER (Danny Boyle)
Obviously, all that stuff in the paragraph of THE CRAZIES sounded extremely familiar, and it’s most likely because it’s been stolen and pillaged time and time again. 28 DAYS LATER, however, is a pretty solid example of a film that remains entertaining and exciting despite it’s wealth of stolen source material. The victims that have been infected with “rage” in Danny Boyle’s nightmarish vision of a London torn apart by a zombie infection is not unlike the rage displayed in THE CRAZIES, and the third act arrival (and intentions) of the military fits in cleanly with Romero’s very pessimistic world view concerning the government. While the film maintains a solid amount of tension and is carried from some pretty good performances (Brendan Gleeson especially), it would be nicer if Danny Boyle didn’t distance himself from his obvious inspirations in interviews (something I find pretty insulting).

And also see: MARTIN (George A. Romero)
Since we’re talking about Romero, here’s another really great non-zombie movie from the master. This one concentrates of the myth of vampires instead, a tale about a confused youth who’s sexual awakening has resulted in his own belief that he’s a member of the undead. MARTIN is really creepy, and it’s got an ending that’s fairly intriguing and worthy of multiple conversations.

80. THE FOG (John Carpenter)
THE FOG is far from John Carpenter’s best: Carpenter himself doesn’t think highly of it either, and considers it a misstep. Then again, he was against adding some blood and a few scare shots mandated by the studio, but those actually make the movie a lot better. Essentially, THE FOG is a ghost story about fiendish pirate spirits who descend upon a small West Coast town during it’s one hundredth anniversary and begin to wreak havoc, taking the form of an eerie cloud of fog and swallowing all those that get in the way. It’s fairly chintzy, but it’s fun and very well-directed, with many nice local shots and good bits from Carpenter faves Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins and Donald Plesance, not to mention the supersexy Adrienne Barbeau.

Also see: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (Gore Verbinski)
This was really the only other movie I could think of that had anything close to ghost pirates. As it, this was a lot more exciting than I imagined, a fun little adventure that’s very overlong and features two very boring central performances, but has one of Johnny Depp’s strangest mainstream characterizations and, again, some pretty gnarly pirate zombies, including the ultracool zombie monkey.

79. TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE

TRANSFORMERS was a bit before my time, and I never really got a chance to join the fanbase for the robots in disguise. As a young lad, I watched the show, but at the time I was far too young for the labrynthe continuity and multiple characters. I had a few toys from the lineup, but it always seemed fairly distant to me: at my young age, I had trouble discerning it from both Voltron and the Gobots. Nevertheless, the first time I sat down and watched this, with a true Transformers enthusiast, I couldn’t help but immediately be drawn into the mythology, the characters, and the absurdly awesome robot-on-robot violence. Once Optimus Prime kicks the bucket in the first fifteen minutes... well, that’s a pretty strong moment. That‘s the death of an icon. Maybe it was just an attempt to introduce new characters and, therefore, new toys, but it still hits pretty hard, and works strong thanks to a pretty nifty and very dated hair metal score from Vince Dicola. Recently, I’ve rewatched this a couple of times, as I’ve always felt that the movie was a pure crystallization of all that is awesome.

Also see: BATMAN BEYOND: RETURN OF THE JOKER
I was a massive fan of Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s animated BATMAN series from the early nineties, but I never got into the show once it moved to the WB, and I was hard-pressed to jump onto BATMAN BEYOND, so I never did (and JUSTICE LEAGUE, for that matter- would different timeslots kill you, Cartoon Network?). I eventually caught a few episodes of BATMAN BEYOND and was impressed by the voicework and some of the animation, although I felt it was really overly violent and too fast-paced. Still, I was mostly pleased with this attempt to bridge the gap between the older and newer BATMAN show. As far as this movie, again, the violence was very harsh (and I had seen the edited version), and the story’s main conceit is wholly, completely ridiculous. Still, for a DTV attempt to clear up what happened between the series’, this works well enough to recommend to Bat-fans.

78. WILD ZERO (Tetsuo Takeuchi)

This one’s another zombie movie, this time from Japan and augmented to the eight millionth power. WILD ZERO, which may or may not be adapted from a manga, features the fearsome real life Japanese punk group Guitar Wolf, who are called in to help number one fan Ace from a town overwhelmed by a zombie invasion by way of UFOs. For hardcore zombie-ists (zombits?) this is a plethora of pleasures, from the chunky gore effects, to a rock’n’roll hating record exec in hotpants, to topless women with guns, and finally, to the hardcore rock of the Jet Generation! Pure punk, with a nice, gory twist.

Also see: HARDWARE (Robert Stanley)
This is a very different rock/punk-inspired horror film, one that seems to have been relegated to the cheapie bin at any video rental store, which I had figured it deserved until I finally sat down and saw it. With music from a number of industrial artists (including a Gwar cameo), and a voiceover by Iggy Pop, HARDWARE would already seem to be a cool movie worth seeing for anyone into that music scene, but the rest of it kicks significant ass as well. HARDWARE takes place in a desert future, where humans find that the government is using killer robots made of scrap heap for sinister population control purposes. While Richard Stanley operates on a tiny budget, his future world is tinted in red, nightmarish tones, and he maintains a claustrophobic atmosphere in this sci-fi thriller that wouldn’t be out of place during a TERMINATOR movie marathon.

77. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki)
The day I caught SPIRITED AWAY was pretty busy. I woke early, in order to participate in a field trip with the local anime society. I was considering joining, but, of course, they turned out to be a bunch of unhappy jerks. They wore shirts with increasingly esoteric references, and they did nothing but talk all day about “fandubs” and “OVA’s” at one moment breaking to discuss “Firefly” for about a minute and a half. It was pretty damn lame. Later that night, after returning home, I went to a party and saved two guys from a group beating, only to have my jaw broken for the effort. My face was shattered in three different places and I ended up not being able to eat solid food for eight weeks. For the record, I never, ever fell down, nor did I run.

That being said, it was such a gorgeous film. I enjoyed that rather mercurial, complex way of illustrating the growth of a young girl, as there’s never a direct line to the education of maturity. It was emotional not in any particular specific way, but as soon as Haku takes flight, tears cascaded down my cheeks, and I was incredibly moved beyond words. I’ve seen a few Miyazaki films, but this is the one that felt the most magical. Of course, at the time, my enthusiasm was damped by the fact that the anime fanboys around me had already seen the movie on their laptops a hundred times, and therefore were duly (and a tad rudely) unimpressed. I hope they enjoy their constant sessions of OVA’s of “You’re Under Arrest” while remaining dateless for life.

Also see: PETER PAN (PJ Hogan)
PJ Hogan had previously done MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING, and I honestly would have never imagined he’d have something like this in him. This should be the definitive onscreen adaptation of PETER PAN, as it captures the emotional roller-coaster of the source material, crystallizing the themes succinctly but never completely tying anything up in a bow. The sexual awakening of Peter and Wendy is subtly handled, as is the thorny issue of Wendy being attracted to Captain Hook, played by the same actor that plays her father (the fantastic Jason Isaacs).

76. RAGING BULL (Martin Scorsese)
Robert DeNiro’s crowning achievement? If we’re talking about RAGING BULL, and that’s a question that doesn’t have an automatic answer, well, shoot, that’s a career that deserves the highest respect, through any number of HIDE AND SEEK’s and ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE’s. As pugilist Jake LaMotta, DeNiro is a tragic monster in the most Greek sense, a behemoth of pain who can’t discern between the caring love of his brother (Joe Pesci- so great) and the painful fists of his opposition. Scorsese completely demystifies and deconstructs LaMotta, and in the process adds poetry and beauty to the sweet science. Each time I watch RAGING BULL it’s the first time all over again.

Also see: THE GREAT WHITE HYPE (Reginald Hudlin)
At first I wanted to mention ROCKY, but c’mon, everyone’s seen that. This one is significantly lesser than ROCKY, but it’s definitely superior to a couple of the sequels. While it’s very much a product of it’s time (including the cast), it’s still relevant to today’s boxing world, as it’s a biting satire on the modern world of boxing and promotion, revealing it to be a ridiculous dog and pony show driven by dubious racial politics. Samuel L. Jackson usually only gets to do comedy in terrible films, so it’s a pity this film, in which he plays the mischievous Don King-like promoter the Sultan, was seen by so few people. The highlight of this film, showcasing out of shape champion Jim “The Grim Reaper” Roper (Damon Wayans, quite good) being forced to take on inexperienced, media-manufactured white contender Terry “Irish” Conklin, is Peter Berg. As Conklin, he is a boastful, preening moron, completely oblivious to the system that’s falsely building him up. A moment where Berg improvises Conklin’s acoustic rock anthems is hilarious and unpredictable.


75. DO THE RIGHT THING (Spike Lee)
I feel good placing this on a favorites list, because it’s not just a good movie that I enjoy- it’s a vital film. Tackling race relations head-on, Spike Lee’s utter, knee-shattering masterpiece features a neighborhood being broken down by racial violence on the summer’s hottest day, where everyone reveals themselves to be pigheaded opportunists. DO THE RIGHT THING is the type of brave, incendiary cinema that mature adults need to watch, tackling race relations in a way crap like THE INTERPRETER can only do by making up fake countries and weak, contrived Hollywood scenarios.

Also see: THE BEST MAN (Malcolm Lee)
Spike’s nephew, Malcolm, is not nearly the racial firebrand he is, but he still has a lot of promise. His first film was this BIG CHILL-esque dramedy about a group of college friends reuniting for a wedding, only to find that one of them (Taye Diggs), wrote a tell-all book about them that’s due to hit shelves. THE BEST MAN is funny and sexy, and features a number of very solid performances (particularly smoky-voiced Terrence Howard). However, the best element is that it acts fairly matter-of-factly about every character being black. No one acknowledges anything, no one mentions anything about the “black experience” in America, and there’s very little, if any, rap music. Small matters, true, but how many Hollywood films these days feature all black casts and don’t focus on drugs, crime or violence?

74. DAY OF THE DEAD (George A. Romero)

The third in Romero’s DEAD series is decidedly bleaker in tone than the first two, with hope a distant memory. Humanity has been relegated to the underground, as solutions to the zombie situation have mutated into delusional acceptance. Romero got a lot of flack for such a dark turn in the series, but while it may not be as good as the previous two films, it’s nihilistic, darkly humorous tone come across as focused anger and justified hate, less interested in a narrative than portraying the death of the very essence of man in times of despair. Also features a disembowelment that is truly one for the ages.

Also see: LAND OF THE DEAD (George A. Romero)
Romero’s fourth installment was long in the making, and while it may not be up to snuff with the previous three films, it’s admirable how it’s a logical extension from the first three films. Now that we have combat the zombie problem by moving above ground, there remains the eternal discrepancy between the rich and the rest. We have come full-circle in the smart and assured LAND, where the humans and zombies have respectively evolved and devolved to essentially become the same things.

73. ONG BAK: MUY THAI WARRIOR (Prachya Pinkaew)

Another fairly recent viewing, this is a film that nonetheless earned it’s way on the list due to it’s future replay value. I screened this on a slow week back in Feburary at a DC critics’ screening. I decided to bring a ladyfriend’s boyfriend, and the two of us spent some guy time together away from the missus(es). Little did I know how unbelievable the experience would be. Tony Jaa is a miracle in this film, some sort of walking special effect, and I recall my jaw spending much time on the ground as he would kick people out of windows, onto and off of cars, and even take flight with feet aflame. At the halfway point of the film, I was thinking, “Hey, this is as good as KICKBOXER!” Near the film’s close, I thought, “Man, fuck KICKBOXER.” It was at the point where a professional critic actually jumped up and screamed at the screen, “This is the greatest fucking movie I’ve ever seen!” Afterwards, as I was peeling my kicked ass from the seats, a man walked out from the theater’s entrance and said, “If you’ll all stay seated, Tony Jaa is here to perform for you.” I shit myself. I just totally shit myself.

Now, of course, the movie had been promoted as being done “without wires!” and with “No stunt doubles!” and “no CGI!” Of course, during the movie, certain things happen that I imagine, “Oh, that must have been a slanted angle, or some sort of trick photography.” Well, Tony Jaa proceeded to make his way to the center of the theater and, with about six or seven stuntmen, totally performed every ridiculous feat seen in the film right in front of me. Everything aside from the whole legs-on-fire thing was done mere feet from my face. Afterwards, my friend and I both called our respective girlfriends and totally shoved it in their face that they had missed it. It was a total guy moment.

Also see: RIKI-O: THE STORY OF RIKI (Lan Nai Kai)
The sheer bonkers activity on display in ONG BAK cannot be compared to anything like DRUNKEN MASTER 2 or FIST OF LEGEND. The only relative to this film, considering the sheer unbelievability of Tony Jaa, is the cartoonish gorefest RIKI-O. I don’t really remember the plot to RIKI-O that much; I think it had something to do with a wrongfully imprisoned guy fighting jail corruption. Whatever the case, it’s an excuse for artery-severing, neck-shattering fighting, where you will believe that men can crush each other’s bodies with only their bare hands. If America ever decides to remake this, a bounty will go out on the balls of the executive who greenlights it, so that they may be fed to mutant bears.

72. JACOB’S LADDER (Adrian Lyne)
It’s only been the last two years or so when I remembered how devastating this film was, and that’s for a very unique reason. JACOB’S LADDER actually represented a repressed memory for me. At a young age, I had rented this, and was so greatly traumatized that I merely forgot it existed. I had continued following the careers of Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Ving Rhames and director Adrian Lyne, and yet somehow, for a number of years, this movie didn’t exist. And then, one Sunday afternoon, I found it on television. JACOB’S LADDER is one of those R-rated horror films that, when it comes time to edit for television, censors have no idea what to cut out, because the imagery is so unconventionally frightening. And therefore, upon only one glimpse of this Sunday afternoon matinee, the memories of this came flooding back. And I mean flooding.

The story, as is, revolves around a Vietnam vet who has returned home shell-shocked, attempting to segue into a nice home life as a postal worker with his beautiful wife (Pena). However, he begins to hallucinate, witnessing images that accelerate in frequency and malice as he starts to piece together a conspiracy theory involving the military performing unauthorized testing on soldiers. Worth noting for an early performance by Macauly Culkin, who plays one of the few cinematic characters to actually have my name.

Also see: DEATHDREAM (Bob Clark)
Of course, everyone is aware of the two sides to Bob Clark’s filmography, and while most people talk about BLACK CHRISTMAS or CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS, DEATHDREAM is the one that is considered to be the most socially relevant. Taking place during the Vietnam war, DEATHDREAM still works today, a haunting parable of a soldier returning home as a mindless, flesh-eating zombie. I was really looking forward to the once-mooted Eli Roth remake which would have moved the setting to modern day while most likely exploring the blackly comic aspects of the idea, but chances are they wouldn’t have been able to replicate the ghostly and seriously unhinged lead performance by Richard Backus.

And also see: COMMUNION (Phillipe Mora)
While not at all pertaining to Vietnam, COMMUNION seems to have a fairly similar tone. Featuring Christopher Walken in one of his most fiendishly bizarre performances, this science fiction story is meant as a deadly serious account of one man’s encounter with extraterrestrials, and his attempts to reconcile with the truth about why they visited. COMMUNION is only occasionally creepy, but it’s worth watching for that nagging feeling that, with every new clue, the truth moves farther away from the bewildered protagonist.

71. ADAPTATION (Spike Jonze)

There’s so much love in ADAPTATION that it’s positively overwhelming. Even if this film was deeply, structurally flawed (it’s not), the love Charlie Kaufman has for his work, the love Donald has for his brother, the love Susan Orlean wants to have, the love John LaRoche has for rare orchids... these are not hobbies or obsessions. They’ve blossomed into pure expressions of love, total exposures of the daily despair of humanity. Charlie Kaufman continues to surprise, and by adapting THE ORCHID THIEF to film while also chronicling it’s own adaptation, commenting on what belongs to us and what we make of what life gives us, he’s provided a wholly surprising and very human comedy of passion and errors. It’s like technology... versus horse.

Also see: NAKED LUNCH (David Cronenberg)
Perhaps the most logical pairing with ADAPTATION, Cronenberg’s sideways look at William Burroughs’ cult novel is total bizarro world. Peter Weller plays the beleaguered author, drifting into the Interzone to report upon his findings within a manuscript that eventually becomes NAKED LUNCH. Despite the fact that there are two things wrong with the title, NAKED LUNCH perhaps is most enjoyable for Weller’s spacey performance in the lead. While he remains a character very much confused by what’s going on around him, he never seems anything less than prepared, and his distance from the role allows the audience an uneasy trust with the unreliable protagonist. Weller needs to get some better roles.

70. WHAT ABOUT BOB? (Frank Oz)
Bill Murray’s been getting a lot of love lately for his more dramatic work, but I’ll always remember him as the sarcastic clown that owned the SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE stage. There was a point where any Murray movie could guarantee a million laughs, no matter what he did in them. WHAT ABOUT BOB was near that phase, a time when I thought it may have been the funniest movie ever made. Today, it still holds up well, with both Murray and Richard Dreyfuss doing some truly inspired work. What makes this comedy work is the total commitment and development of character between the two leads, to the point when things truly escalate in a cartoonish and chaotic manner, it’s always organic. Murray adds a tinge of lonely helplessness to his character of social nightmare Bob Wiley, an arrested development headcase with a series of phobias that causes him to worship at the altar of famous, uptight psychotherapist Leo Marvin (har, har!). But when Marvin goes on vacation, Wiley can’t help but follow, and he soon gets in the good graces of the family, much to the chagrin of the slowly-going insane Marvin.

Also see: GROUNDHOG DAY (Harold Ramis)
Of course, Murray’s most famous comedic turn, this one finds him at the center of a nightmarish cycle in which he’s forced to repeat the same day over and over again in order to learn how to be a better person. I was never a massive fan of this, because I never really believe Murray’s growth throughout the film, and I feel Andie Macdowell’s wet blanket sex appeal really drags her scenes down a bit. Still, Murray’s quite funny in it (as is Stephen Tobolowsky’s unforgettable Ned Ryerson), and the many smaller gags in the film work wonderfully with the main conceit.

And also see: WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM (Art Linzon)
An earlier film in Murray’s catalogue, this oddity finds him playing famous gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson during the 1972 presidential campaign. While not as manic as Johnny Depp’s Raoul Duke in FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, Murray’s Thompson has many small quirks, and his performance as the late journalist legend is always interesting and occasionally just the right mix of strange and grounded. Peter Boyle is also fairly good as his lawyer, Carl Lazlo.

69. THE INSIDER (Michael Mann)
For all intensive purposes, this should not be an exciting movie. Eric Roth’s script detailed the unraveling life of a tobacco whistle blower after he revealed very dangerous information to the program 60 MINUTES, earning the wrath of a multi-billion dollar industry as well as a devious television network conglomerate. However, Michael Mann somehow was able to turn this into a breathless, claustrophobic thriller, distinctive and unforgettably beautiful. Mann’s taut direction keeps the story paced extremely well, and it’s dark blue hues and often haunting cinematography provide the film with a surprisingly evocative visual palette, augmented by Mann’s usual eclectic soundtrack selections. The best part of the film, however, is the immediacy of the performances, including a stirring turn by Al Pacino as truth-seeker Lowell Bergman and a career-best performance as Jeffery Wigand by Russell Crowe, who completely disappears into his frumpy, overweight, shy character. My favorite performance in the film, however, is Christopher Plummer’s oily representation of 60 MINUTES anchor Mike Wallace: growing up as a child, I used to be forced to stay at home with my dad and watch 60 MINUTES, and so Mike Wallace was a face that was familiar to me. And to see Plummer perfectly capture the many quirks of Wallace’s body language while portraying Wallace, off-air, as a total douchebag (in a wholly organic manner) was something that probably tainted 60 MINUTES for me forever.

Also see: THE HURRICANE (Norman Jewison)
THE INSIDER came out during the extremely exciting filmmaking year of 1999. And while many consider the wealth of cinematic riches from that year, notices should also be given to the number of really great performances as well. While THE HURRICANE isn’t very good a movie, Denzel Washington’s performance was one of the all-time greats. THE HURRICANE tells the story of heavyweight contender Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a fiery boxer who took the rap for a mass murder that he supposedly was not present for. The film itself takes ridiculous measures in implicating everyone in Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s life except for him, an excellent boxer but also a career criminal, and the Canadian protesters that campaign for his freedom are blank-faced idealists. Still, Denzel’s resolute, powerful work, as he plays Carter from a very young age into his elderly years, is definitely worth marveling over.

68. EASY RIDER (Dennis Hopper)

I’ve written many a paper on EASY RIDER (ok, two), and I think anyone who appreciates history knows why. The moment that EASY RIDER ushered in was a historical powder keg, both for social and political upheaval but also for the art of cinema. EASY RIDER brought the counterculture to the forefront, at the dawn of the Vietnam era, introducing much of middle America to the cult of drugs and the world of the young generation. What’s most intriguing is that it doesn’t at all celebrate the achievements of the generation, noting it has none and viewing them as doomed from the start. It’s made by the counterculture, made for the counterculture, and ultimately against the counterculture. And because history’s so cyclical, EASY RIDER has maintained a timeless quality, to the point where Wyatt (Peter Fonda) says, “We blew it,” you feel as if he’s talking about you, and not just the free-loving hippies of the 1960's.

Plus, the archetypal analysis. Wyatt is referred to as Captain America, and Billy (again, named after Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid, another point of iconography) can easily be considered the overeager sidekick Bucky. At the start of World War II, Steve Rogers felt useless, as the army had rejected him and he could not contribute to the world. But with the Super Soldier Serum, his horizons were broadened, and new possibilities were open to him. Wyatt is the same: his generation discarded by their elders, himself considered worthless to the world (and, meta-like, considered not up to par as an actor with his legendary father), he was offered a drug that, like the Super Soldier Serum, broadened his horizons. But now that his mind was expanding, he merely reacted selfishly, going off on drug-fueled bouts of debauchery, selling his stash and getting high off his own supply. It’s worth noting that at the close of World War II, Cap ended up frozen in ice in a form of crude suspended animation, while the final image of Wyatt is burning in flames.

Also see: THE BIG LEBOWSKI (Joel Coen)
Switching gears a bit, the hippie counter-culture is heavily riffed upon in THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The Coens’ sprawling Raymond Chandler-like adventure finds the slacker Jeff Lebowski being caught up in a situation of mistaken identities involving a missing trophy wife, nihilists and a really nice rug. Like the protagonists of EASY RIDER, the drug-addled Lebowski thinks he’s living the high life, when, in fact, his own time has passed him by. This all comes across through Jeff Bridges’ hilarious characterization, as well as John Goodman’s superlative work as strung-up Vietnam vet Walter Sobchak.

67. THE SANDLOT (David Mickey Evans)
I rented this movie for a birthday party when I was little, one of the very good birthdays, maybe the only good one. I was something like seven when I devised the idea, turning my large living room into something of a screening room. The invitations were in the form of large, red movie tickets with the words ADMIT ONE in big letters. I had a very diverse collection of guests who grew up to be assholes that day, not to mention the three girls that I was forced to invite (because they were, y’know, icky), one of which ending up as the girl I’d go on my first date with. There was much pizza, soda and many, many messes to clean up afterwards. There may be a terrible memory from that day that I cannot remember (there usually is with my birthdays), but at the moment I can’t remember it. Which is nice.

Anyway, I’ve grown to love the movie even more now than I did when I originally saw it. I really wasn’t a fan of any sports as a young kid, and I remember my father forcing me to play baseball in the new town we moved into even though I found it to be boring and was never any good. So I could relate to the witless character at the center of THE SANDLOT, forced to mingle with a bunch of baseball lovers. When you’re young and you start to do something you know nothing about, really, everyone seems like an expert, and the movie really nails that helplessness.

The end of the film resonates deeply with me as well, particularly how everything comes together. When they trade the Babe Ruth-signed ball for the one inked by the 1927 Yanks and return it to the boy’s dad, played by slow-burning Denis Leary, he takes a good week to forgive in spite of the gift being worth far more than the original ball. There’s that implication that it was a particularly nasty week, and with Denis Leary as your dad, I imagine the boy had some bruises to show for it as well. And of course, the final scene, where Benny the Jet has grown a nice, bushy mustache and now plays for the major leagues suggests that perhaps Benny went on to have an unremarkable career, maybe as a utility bench guy who’d pinch-run every other game or so. It’s little details like that, little moments that really elevate this film from a casual enjoyment to a really fun movie.

Also see: LITTLE BIG LEAGUE (Andrew Sheinman)
Another kids’ film about baseball, this is one that I seriously adore in a million different ways. The film is carried by such a ridiculous conceit: middle schooler (high schooler?) Billy Heywood (Luke Edwards- whatever happened to him?) inherits the hapless Minnesota Twins from his dead grandfather, and proceeds to manage them to respectability. Still, it never feels fake: a lot of credit has to be given to an unheralded ensemble cast that really gives heavy believability to the story. And it’s never a smooth ride, either: the new manager, not even legally permitted to drive, has to fight for the players’ respect, and he never entirely gets it, either. Lack of sleep and the stress of the job actually get him to become fairly, and realistically, surly: one moment that sticks with me is when he reminds a lazy starting pitcher on the team that he’ll be a free agent, and he hints that he’ll torpedo his market value once he starts entertaining offers. Also, I think we’ve all ordered NIGHT NURSES FROM JERSEY from the hotel cable system nineteen times in one night.

And also see: THE CUTTING EDGE (Paul Michael Glaser)
Sticking with kitschy early 90's sports films, this was something that I really hadn’t heard of that my sister dragged me to. The one person that really took me to movies was my sister, and while I was forced to sit through her video collection of the likes of Kevin Costner and Julia Roberts, she’s also the one that introduced me to DIE HARD and COMING TO AMERICA. Sadly, it would be quite awhile before I actually grasped the concept of movies made before 1982. Anyway, I knew it was a romance, and figure skating was involved, and I felt like I’d be fairly miserable during the entire runtime.

And then I was introduced to the invincible D.B. Sweeney.

To this day, I feel Sweeney has an unremarkable career, but he gets cred because he was in THE CUTTING EDGE. The movie begins with him as a hotshot, bed-hopping hockey player who has an on-ice incident in which his vision becomes permanently damaged and he’s forced to retire. Now down on his luck and having drinking problems, he’s somehow recruited to team with a hoity-toity up-and-coming figure skater (Moira Kelly, never hotter) in order to compete in the Olympics doubles competition. Unbelievably, at such a young age, THE CUTTING EDGE might have been my first ever exposure to the Olympics. I was a stupid kid.

Nevertheless, they fall in love and fight and fight and fight, all through the tutelage of their Russian instructor. Again, these improbable scenarios fall apart with actors who don’t commit to the potential realism of them. Still, Sweeney is an idiot oaf, and Kelly is a total ice bitch, a scary demon whore whose wrath you never want to encounter. It’s a good time.

66. CHARADE (Stanley Donen)

Oh, what a fun movie! I saw this when I was very young, in a really beautiful park by the river, projected on a big screen. I was completely enthralled by Cary Grant’s wonderfully funny performance, by Audrey Hepburn’s total adorability, and Walter Matthau’s odd, arhythmic acting beats. I made enemies with Johnathan Demme over this as well. I was at a screening he hosted for an Indian film named THE RUNNER (which blew me away, although I can’t find anything on this movie even existing- anyone have info? And it’s not THE FAST RUNNER, I think it might be from 1997). I confronted Demme with a friend of mine, and with all the things I could have asked him, the one thing that came flying out of my mouth was, “So, I hear you’re remaking CHARADE.”
“... Yeah...”
“...”
“...I’m remaking CHARADE.”
“Well... why?”
“Why am I remaking CHARADE?”
“Yeah! It’s a perfect movie!”
“Well, um... it’s really fun and different, I think you’ll like it.”
“But... it’s a perfect movie.”
“...”
“Why are you remaking CHARADE?”
“Well, I always wanted to make a film in Europe.”
“You’re... you’re remaking CHARADE, though.”
“I... I have to speak to someone, thanks. Good night.”
To this day, I still haven’t seen THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE.

Also see: NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Alfred Hitchcock)
My favorite Hitchcock, and my fave performance by Cary Grant. It’s such a duplicitous movie, really, funny at points, scary at others, mysterious and exciting at different times. What’s most interesting is that, after all the lies Grant’s character tells in the film’s first twenty minutes, it’s impossible for the viewer to trust him too. I’m stunned at how well this has aged, and while it may not be Hitch’s best, it’s the one I can always re-watch.

65. GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI (Jim Jarmusch)
Ghost Dog, we kill kill, fo’ sho’ sho’! Jim Jarmusch is always a fascinating filmmaker, and this was such a radical departure that it was hard to keep a straight face during the film. And I suppose that’s the intention. I find the dichotomy interesting between Ghost Dog and his code of honor, both his virtues and the world that surrounds him. He is a walking anachronism, an overweight, homeless black man working as a samurai hitman for the modern mob, an institution that’s decidedly less bound by honor. It’s not unlike any martial arts film, in that it deals with tradition, the death of older customs and the growing distrust and hypocrisy in any power system.

Also see: DEAD MAN (Jim Jarmusch)
Another great Jarmusch picture, this one veers towards the very odd, which is why it should be recommended to anyone who’s only recently become a Depp completist for it’s sheer absurdity. While it does have strongly comic moments, DEAD MAN resonates for me as a dissection of Dante’s Inferno, the travels one makes upon death’s doorstep to get where his soul must be. Along the way, protagonist William Blake (Depp, perhaps Blake-perhaps not) meets a campfire powwow with Iggy Pop and Billy Bob Thornton, sees the final performance by Robert Mitchum, and encounters a hush-speaking Crispin Glover, all while digesting B.S. advice from oblivious Native American Gary Farmer.

64. ROMA (Federico Fellini)

The film really isn’t any sort of story whatsoever. It’s merely a travelogue of Rome as provided by Federico Fellini. And still, it’s gorgeous, going from city streets, town celebrations, brothels, underground and on rooftops. There are no characters per se, but we do follow certain people into their houses and see how their regular life is. It’s a fairly loving portrayal of such a vaunted, overwhelming place, and never do you actually feel any sort of absence of story, simply being caught up in the flickering images and glorious sounds of Rome.

Also see: PLAYTIME (Jacques Tati)
Okay, I admit stopping at several points during PLAYTIME and thinking, “This doesn’t touch ROMA.” While it’s true, PLAYTIME is no less of a wonderful experience. Like ROMA, it’s a travelogue of sorts. However, while ROMA is spontaneous and unpredictable, PLAYTIME is meticulously plotted and set up, even if it’s merely a collection of wacky and strange set pieces centered around Italy. The colors are vibrant, the slapstick paced well enough to establish maximum payoff, and the music is particularly lively, but why isn’t this on DVD yet?

63. HAPPINESS (Todd Solondz)
HAPPINESS is both grotesque and beautiful at the same time. Connecting disparate lives through disturbing, uncomfortable circumstances has been done before and since, but none have accomplished half of what HAPPINESS’ blackly comic viewpoint does. While the performers in Solondz’ low-fi cinematic universe are diverse and multi-faceted, none resonate more than Philip Seymour Hoffman’s lonely phone pervert and, in one of the most shocking performances I’ve ever seen, Dylan Baker’s pedophilic suburban father.

Also see: LOVE LIZA (Todd Louiso)
Another great Philip Seymour Hoffman performance in a film that veers towards blackly comic at many moments. He plays a man so wrecked by his wife’s death that he cannot bring himself to read her suicide note. Instead, he sets out on an odyssey of self-loathing, motor planes, gas-huffing and out and out depression. It’s a devastating performance, one that sticks with you long after you realize the movie was only about a few days in the life of one sad bastard.

62. THE WAY OF THE GUN (Christopher McQuarrie)
Dunno why this doesn’t get a lot of love. It’s definitely an homage to the nihilistic, macho posturing and gunplay of some of Sam Peckinpah’s work, and while primitive in nature, the narrative makes space for a number of tricky alliances, twists and subplots. Ryan Phillipe (surprisingly good) and Benicio Del Toro (unsurprisingly brilliant) play two lifelong losers who decide to kidnap a pregnant woman (terminally unattractive Juliette Lewis) and hold her for ransom. However, it turns out she’s only carrying the baby for a rich couple who, in turn, send two ruthless bodyguards (Taye Diggs, Nicky Katt) after him, with a mysterious benefactor (James Caan) in tow. There’s so much testosterone on display here it’s a wonder the DVD doesn’t grow a penis halfway through (although it asks for a beer when Ryan Phillipe busts Sarah Silverman’s lips for saying he “fucks baby heads.”). A fantastic score graces the film, as it builds up to a shootout that has to already be considered a classic.

Also see: THE MISSION (Johnny To)
Christopher McQuarrie seems to have vanished after writing and directing THE WAY OF THE GUN. The Oscar-winner has since been linked to a number of projects. While one of them was a big screen Simon West-directed adaptation of the BBC series THE PRISONER, another was a remake of THE MISSION. The original THE MISSION centered around five bodyguards for a crime boss who found that one of them was sleeping with the boss’ mistress. Allegiances get tangled as their brotherhood is severely tested in a series of tense confrontations that escalate wildly. While it’s a pretty good movie, the best moments come before the main conflict is established, as the camaraderie is formed between the men, in particular a wonderful moment when the men silently play a lazy game of soccer with a crumpled up piece of paper while watching for danger.

61. SPIDER-MAN (Sam Raimi)

May 3rd, 2002, was a pretty wonderful day. I remember heading out as soon as I could to catch my opening day viewing of a movie I had waited my entire life for, based on a character I had lived my life around. Indeed, “with great power comes great responsibility” has to be the best lesson I’ve ever learned, the one that still resonates from my childhood after all this time. It was a huge thrill seeing the character onscreen for the first time, and the genial virtues of the hero intact from the comics. Afterwards, my band, who accompanied me to the screening and were equally big SPIDER-MAN fans, went out and we all performed our very first concert.

Whatever the case, while the band was a big hit that night, the movie stuck with me as a perfect crystallization of why I read the comic in the first place. It was silly, funny, aw-shucks great, with a definite love for the characters and mythology of the long running comic series. While I have some critical issues with the film (after a couple of apologist years, I can no longer watch any Green Goblin scenes, as the robot suit and unmoving mouth are wholly unnecessary when the far more affordable option of a direct translation was present), it captures the spirit of not only what makes the character so great, but what makes him home, New York City, so special.

Also see: HULK (Ang Lee)
Now that FANTASTIC FOUR has hit for Marvel, we can separately evaluate the universe they have established onscreen through their respective characters. While the SPIDER-MAN movies and F4 leaned a bit towards the popcorn side, the X-MEN features have skewed more seriously, while DAREDEVIL was the most downbeat of a collection of films that also spotlighted three horror-themed BLADE adventures as well as the fairly stupid, theoretically gritty PUNISHER film. So where does that leave HULK?

By hiring Ang Lee and giving him a preposterous $150 million budget, Universal put their faith in the belief that he could take a character of such pop culture relevance and fuse his psychologic aspects with a highly involving adventure story. What they got was one odd duck of a film. With his screenwriting collaborator James Schamus, Lee took a Jekyll-and-Hide story and turned it into a metaphysical metaphor for the terrible things fathers do to their sons. While it’s a peculiar marriage of ideas, HULK’s greatest asset is that every moment, every frame of film is nothing short of fascinating. There’s stuff in this movie that will never appear onscreen again, from the shot of Josh Lucas flying in circles to his death, to the Hulk being shot into the sky, to Nick Nolte totally devouring that cable and then becoming a massive jellyfish. I’ve said many times that in ten years, HULK will be one of the great stoner movies of our time, once the constant talk about cost, profits and expectations melt away over the years like so much containment foam.

60. THE IRON GIANT (Brad Bird)
Although THE INCREDIBLES helped Brad Bird achieve such a massive profile recently, this is the original (and better) film that put him on the map. Based on a Ted Hughes book, this Cold War-era story features a young boy who befriends a massive robot who may or may not be a weapon. While it makes trenchant observations of the paranoia of the period through the eyes of a youngster, THE IRON GIANT works best as a simplified tale of friendship between a boy and his pet robot, a story that I’m sure anybody who’s ever been a young boy can relate to.

Also see: THE INCREDIBLES (Brad Bird)
Lest we forget, THE INCREDIBLES also rocks. Focusing on the retired Mr. Incredible and his desire to get back into the game, juxtaposed with the rise of the fiendish supervillain Syndrome, THE INCREDIBLES can be viewed as an all-ages version of the superb graphic novel WATCHMEN, with it’s anti-vigilante law, it’s golden age inspirations and it’s central plot involving the murder of older heroes. Still, what I like best about THE INCREDIBLES are the issues it attempts to address in it’s narrative. It’s something of a celebration of success, magnified against the current administration’s self-neutering education laws that place more restrictions on the gifted in order to benefit the whole. In the character of Syndrome, it also is a pure celebration of the concept of the virtuous hero and a dissection of it’s distorted, edgy mirror image- the anti-social, immoral antihero who operates with a faulty moral compass.

59. PLEASANTVILLE (Gary Ross)

Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon are really wonderful in this, and while it’s not either of their best performances, it’s such a high spirited film that, heavy handed Americana aside (par for the course for Ross) it works. While the plot hangs by a thread, balancing itself on the idea that Don Knotts would come to your house with a magic remote control that could zap you into your favorite show, the follow-through is delightful, anchored by a melancholy Randy Newman score that laments a time long gone. The movie’s trump card is the blending of black and white and color, a special effect that produces a number of moving, beautiful images. My particular favorite is the moment when Tobey and his new lady love drive through the meadow, and pink flowers cascade from the black and white trees as Etta James sings “At Last”, a moment that crystallizes what this movie’s striving to achieve.

Also see: STAY TUNED (Peter Hyams)
I don’t recall much of this John Ritter comedy. I do remember it being pretty damn lame and goofy when I first saw it. Still, the story of a husband and wife who re-affirm their marriage when they are zapped into a television and forced to participate in a number of mind-numbingly stupid programs provides it’s share of laughs. I do remember that the best gag in this film’s go-for-broke style was something involving a sitcom about Hannibal Lecter: my memory is foggy on that, but I recall laughing pretty hard. I know, this is a faint recommendation, but hey, as far as movies about people being zapped into TV’s, um... well, John Ritter’s pretty good in it.

58. RUN, LOLA, RUN (Tom Tykwer)
Every time I see RUN LOLA RUN, I’ve got to watch while hanging from the edge of my chair. I never get more excited than I do watching Lola strive to shatter space and time in an effort to save her boyfriend Manni from certain death. When I was younger I was a pretty hardcore runner (and I still do take running fairly seriously) and I used to think there was an exciting element, that someone might see me running down the street and wonder what kind of adventure I was on, who’s life I was going to go save. To this day, I have a lateness problem, when I take longer than usual to get somewhere just so I can run, and people can remark on how dramatic things are in my life that I have to sprint somewhere. So of course, seeing Lola forced to exert maximum speed, her striking red hair matted against the concrete surfaces she’s passing... well, it makes me want to run, too. I’m also quite fond of the bright colors, particularly the small interstitials with Lola and Manni in bed that give off a confessional, sexy tone.

Also see: THE BOURNE IDENTITY (Doug Liman)
I was going to put the show ALIAS here, particularly because the first episode, with Sydney in a red wig for a large portion of time, was clearly meant to be a visual homage to RUN LOLA RUN. But I think ALIAS bites (but I like 24- what do I know?) So I’m going with effervescent LOLA star Franka Potente’s first bigscreen English role. The BOURNE movies are pretty damn cool, and while I like the second film better than the first, IDENTITY did a good job of establishing a shady government, colorful supporting characters and a bewildered hero completely prepared for any sort of combat. Potente’s quite sexy here, as a frustrated graduate student who’s forced to accompany Bourne on his odyssey of asskicking, and the moment when he’s drying off her hair is sexy as hell. Still, unlike the superior sequel, this one is missing a moment where Bourne beats a guy with a rolled-up magazine.

57. MAJOR LEAGUE (David S. Ward)

It’s disappointing that today, a lot of MAJOR LEAGUE isn’t very funny. The idea of a cash-strapped team forced to sell off the squad’s spare parts and lose to save money in front of only a handful of fans is something we see all over major league baseball every year, now more than ever as expansion has bloated the majors to a needless thirty teams. But I have fond memories of watching these guys become some of my favorite characters as they predictably formed a ballteam of winners. Charlie Sheen’s such an underrated comic actor, and he was at his bay-boy peak as Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn, a smoke-throwing reliever who ends up actually becoming one of cinema’s first ever onscreen closers. Vain Roger Dorn (Corbin Bersen, who’s comeuppance is delicious), aging Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger, who comes across as a very believable ballplayer) and Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert, so overly loopy) complete the roster, but one man steals the show: Wesley Snipes. Over a series of increasingly stupid action films, most people have forgotten that Snipes can act, and his versatility as a comic performer also presents itself in the form of the showstopping Willie “Mays” Hayes, a tiptoing base-stealer who seems to fancy himself as Rickey Henderson, only without any of the actual talent.

Also see: MAJOR LEAGUE 2 (David S. Ward)
Success eventually begets suckcess, unfortunately, so while the sequel deals with the newly rich and famous ballplayers in the wake of their courageous season in the first film, this time around is fairly labored and unaware of what made the first film so immensely watchable (and the PG-rating doesn’t help, as the first one was a very confident R). Still, if you like the characters enough, you’ll follow them anywhere, even if Willie “Mays” Hayes is now played by the square root of Wesley Snipes, tiny Omar Epps (who nonetheless provides the film’s best gag, “White Lightning, Black Thunder”- worth seeing for this alone). Still, there are a number of great gags, and the second half of the film gets an infusion of spirit by insane Japanese import player Taka Tanaka. Plus, the sequel takes a chance in actually putting more real baseball in this time, imagining these players in a real world setting.

It's in there. The salary discussion, the cutting costs... it's rampant every once in awhile when teams save revenue.

56. X2: X-MEN UNITED (Bryan Singer)
I grew up a Marvel child, through and through. My days were spent with constant two page spreads of Cyclops shooting optic beams at Sentinels, Carnage wrapping victims up in his crimson symbiote and characters like Moon Knight and Darkhawk jumping from rooftop to rooftop in the superhero crowded Marvel U. And of course, the X-Men were always my favorite. Hated and fear by a world they were sworn to protect, the X-Men were ultimate outsiders, totally cool, totally prosecuted by a fearful society. They wore costumes because they were rebels, because they were different. The X-Men also had the flashiest powers of the Marvel Universe, each one more spectacular than the last.

When the movie was released in 2000, I was left expecting more. More mutants, more action, more Metallica (as in the score Wolverine-loving Lars Ulrich promised) more of an embrace of the often silly grave seriousness that accompanied the X-Men’s ridiculously complicated mythology. I didn’t need the Shi’ar or anything, merely a longer, more epic runtime, time given to character development and more wacky mutant shenanigans. Fortunately, X2 came to the rescue.

While I always hated the fairly asinine title, the fact is they could have called it DELORES FULLER’S FISH FACTORY and I still would have practically shot my wad when I heard an onscreen BAMF. I still would have freaked when Piotor became the invincible Collossus, smashing hapless guards through a wall. And I still would have thrust my fist in the air when, after a full movie and a half, Wolverine finally impaled a villain with his adamantium. X2 has maximum mutancy (hell, I had to look up Artie, while Pyro’s vicious character arc actually improved upon what was ever on the page), classic stakes (the nearing war between mutants and humans led by a calculating general with plausible aims) and the wonderful interplay and camaraderie that made the comics’ many spinoffs worth reading (Professor X and Magneto still have weekly meetings). The added homosexuality subtext certainly beefs up the material, as Bryan Singer’s adaptation ably brings new material to the source in a way that involved me both as an X-fan as well as a casual moviegoer. God forbid the sheer potential ridiculousness had someone like Brett Ratner been at the helm of this movie... d’oh!

Also see: SWORDFISH (Dominic Sena)
I’m not gonna lie: I’m a straight male that’s fairly comfortable in my sexuality. Still, I have a tremendous mancrush on Hugh Jackman. I feel that I haven’t gotten much of a chance to see him fully act, as the X-MEN films tend to favor the ensemble and his other projects haven’t really favored him in those areas (though I shouldn’t speak until I’ve seen VAN HELSING). Yet there’s something about being able to personify Wolverine, maybe the fictional character who I was most familiar with growing up (the lack of a mask had something to do with it), that slays me. Plus, he comes across as a genuinely nice guy who’s agreeable, foreign and can sing and dance. I’d watch him in whatever film he decides to do.

And I watched him closely in SWORDFISH. As a straight male, I can say that he’s the hottest he’ll ever be in this movie, even with the totally lame earrings. As the world’s best hacker, he makes a one-dimensional film cliche into a sweaty, nervy character worth rooting for, an innocent man stuck between a megalomaniacal nutcase with terrible hair (John Travolta, gleefully lame) and a law enforcement agent (Don Cheadle, slumming) while fighting the affections of two small, pricey boobs belonging to a mysterious female operative (Halle Berry).

The action setpieces are extremely ridiculous and the pyrotechnics are at times overwhelming (the highlight being a helicopter carrying a bus full of innocents over Los Angeles), but the film’s best bit is probably the opening. After John Travolta sits at a darkened coffee table explaining why most movies these days are terrible (highly ironic, given this Joel Silver production), the camera pans out of a short, crisp monologue to reveal a hostage standoff that ends in the explosion of a human victim done in an extravagant, lengthy bullet-time shot. It’s a real adrenaline-pumping opening that sets the stage for a far better film.

55. LEON, THE PROFESSIONAL (Luc Besson)
When I was younger, I feel like a rule that I picked up, suitably before the internet, that a movie that did poorly at the box office was something indefinetly worth watching. Which is why the one commercial (with the critical quote “Makes ‘Speed’ look like a ride to grandma’s house” catching my attention) and subsequent disappearance of THE PROFESSIONAL that caught my attention. It would only be until video when I finally saw Luc Besson’s masterpiece, marveling at how so many audiences had not even seen this moving, shattering tale of an assassin (Jean Reno, building up a lifetime of goodwill simply for his role here) that learns to love through the affections of a young girl (Nataie Portman, ditto). I remember developing a massive crush on Portman’s Mathilda, made comfortable by the fact that we were the same age when I first saw the movie. At the movie’s end, when she kneels while wearing a skirt, her legs pressed together, and I remember, at such a young age thinking that I was actually watching pornography, and that it was the very first onscreen underage vagina I’d ever see. Fortunately, I never caught that again. Fortunately.

Also see: UNLEASHED/DANNY THE DOG (Louis Lettrier)
Soon to be on DVD, this truly awesome asskicking fest is probably the best thing Luc Besson’s been involved with since LEON. Jet Li really proves his chops as the uneducated Danny, a back alley brawler controlled by his master (a burly, fantastic Bob Hoskins). Once Danny learns of the real world by falling in with a blind piano repairman and his precocious daughter, he learns that his past is something that he can never escape. Jet Li’s martial arts skills are sublimated her for the story, as his normally acrobatic, showmanship is eschewed in favor of some truly grungy, violent close-quarters fight moves, and the fisticuffs are solidly violent and graceless. The best bit of the movie is the comic book aesthetic: the characters rarely change clothes, and while Jet Li’s fighter is the best brawler in Europe, Bob Hoskins is somehow wholly indestructible, and his always-clean white suit is in itself a better visual representation of classic Marvel villain Kingpin than Mark Steven Johnson could have ever replicated.

54. TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese)

There’s something universal about Travis Bickle that has made the character wholly iconic, enough to become the lasting image when people are reminded of Martin Scorsese’s magnificent filmography. That desire to wipe the streets clean of all the filth that may have been snuffed from the post-Guliani NY regime but is inherent in this increasingly-godless society is strong in any idealist who’s the right age for TAXI DRIVER. It resonates strongly enough to the point where, feeding the asinine desire for a sequel, you really are dying to know what happens to Travis after the movie ends, despite the fact that you know whatever happens in your head will be better than anything that studio executives can put on the screen.

Also see: THE KING OF COMEDY (Martin Scorsese)
Another, totally different Scorsese-DeNiro collaboration, this fairly hilarious and mostly unsettling story of failed comedian Rupert Pupkin feels like something that may have really happened in some other galaxy of late night stars. Jerry Lewis lampoons his image savagely as a frazzled talk show host taken hostage by the unhinged Pupkin, who has the one desire to perform a bit of standup on his show. DeNiro has never been funnier while the film’s take on instant celebrity is both clever and timeless. The best bit involves Lewis’ tied-up host forced to speak to police with cue cards provided by the inept Pupkin, most of which feature grammatical errors and many of which are upside down.

53. VIDEODROME (David Cronenberg)
Long live the new flesh! There’s a lot about VIDEODROME that still puzzles me to this day, and while the answers are fairly apparent upon close discussion with any number of fellow Cronenberg acolytes, the mystery and mayhem is too delicious to ignore. James Woods is totally oily in this, as a cable TV boss who’s fascination with a hidden frequency delivering brutal S&M-flavored broadcasts leads him into an underworld of twisted sexual gratification, the proliferation of mass media and, finally, our continuing evolution of the man-machine marriage. And thanks to Debbie Harry’s red hot performance in this, I can never listen to Blondie without popping a hard-on again.


Also see: eXistenZ (David Cronenberg)
Although not as fascinating or bizarre as VIDEODROME, Cronenberg’s 1999 exploration of the furthering chain strengthening man-machine relations still features a number of cool moments. Jennifer Jason Leigh is videogame designer Allegra Gellar, who has designed “eXistenZ”, a new interactive video game in which players plug the game into an artificially-designed port placed in their bodies. However, there may be a glitch in the game allowing players to supercede the game, leading Allegra and a lowly security guard (Jude Law) to fight for themselves in a world that may be real or not, but still intensely dangerous. Jennifer Jason Leigh is really sexy in this, and the story will probably appeal even greater to today’s video game players, of which I am not one.

52. KNIFE IN THE WATER (Roman Polanski)

There’s so much to love about this deceptively simple film. As a filmmaker, I can totally see how one simple setup (here, a young man sets sail with a troubled couple) can lead to so many different conflicts, ideas and motifs. While the war between the lovers is not entirely clear and psychologically troubling, the one-upmanship between the man and his younger charge are instantly familiar and comically juvenile. And, of course, the woman: the stunning Jolanta Umecka may be one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen onscreen. I usually spend the entire movie laughing as well, because the young lead character really reminds me of my best friend.

Also see: DEAD CALM (Philip Noyce)
I haven’t seen this in awhile, so I’m not sure how much debt it really owes to KNIFE IN THE WATER, but Polanski’s first feature has to at least have been something Philip Noyce has seen that inspired his filmography. The brainy Noyce’s first film, like Polanski’s, is set on a boat, with three central characters playing a sexual game of cat and mouse. The difference here is that the games, involving a homicidal young drifter picked up at sea (Billy Zane) by a happy New Zealand couple (Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill), are decidedly more vicious. DEAD CALM carries a Hitchcockian sense of dread and claustrophobia, compounded by the sexually menacing turns by then-neophyte Kidman and the intimidating Zane.

51. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michel Gondry)
Everytime I see this Charlie Kaufman masterpiece, I need to divorce myself from reality for a few days. There was a girl in my life that produced the same type of headaches and spontaneous confusion Clementine brings in this film, and I remember reacting exactly the same way as Joel when they happened. I’m sure a lot of people say that (hence the appeal), so it never surprises me to see people raving about this film, which is so sweet, intimate and heartbreaking, with Jim Carrey never better as the defeated, jilted lover who decides to reverse a memory-erasing operation at the midpoint when he understands the beauty of those moments together with his lover. The moment that shatters me everytime isn’t the end, isn’t any moment near the middle, but merely one of my favorite cuts of all time. The movie begins abruptly, with Joel and Clementine (Kate Winslet, a joy) meeting cute, having the most romantic night anyone can hope for, and then her deciding to come over to his place the next day. Once she opts to head over to his place, the movie cuts to a scene of Joel, alone, driving down the road and crying uncontrollably as the opening bars of Beck’s “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime” playing in his car, and the opening credits begin to roll, twenty minutes into the film. Before the fiulm, I knew everything about it, and had even read the script, and this still felt like it was a gutwrenching sucker punch from left field.

Also see: EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY (Julien Temple)
On a different end of the Jim Carrey romantic comedy spectrum, I remember watching this on late night cable television almost weekly. A totally dated artifact from the eighties, this MTV-style musical comedy concerns a single housewife (Geena Davis) who has to deal with a spaceship that’s crash-landed in her pool, holding three multicolored, furry aliens. When her buddy Julie Brown, who wrote the film (yes THE Julie Brown) gives them a makeover, they emerge as “hunks” played by Carrey, Damon Wayans and (supposedly the hunkiest) Jeff Goldbulm. What stands out after all these years is how high-spirited and colorful this lightweight story about horny aliens is, and how good Carrey, Wayans and Goldblum are at playing bizarro extraterrestrials. It’s really quite fun, and nowhere near as terrible as it sounds on paper.

50. BATMAN (Tim Burton)
As noted before, Burton knows iconography, and it’s fairly strong in this, the first in what would become a pretty controversial series quality-wise. A lot of it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and making the Joker into the killer of Bruce Wayne’s parents is somewhat disrespectful to the character’s origins, but there’s a lot to love regardless. Michael Keaton plays Batman not as some sort of hero but, accurately, as a man who occasionally “gets a little nuts.” And Jack Nicholson’s Joker, while now morphed into some sort of lame crime boss, is still a notably sadistic and frightening killer, his often bombastic moments of crime and wrongdoing punctuated by a sick, bloody punchline. Moments like Nicholson’s Joker reaching for the mirror and Batman dismantling a group of Joker’s goons are unforgettable for any Bat-fan, and help ignore facts like the inconceivable notion that prince does the ENTIRE soundtrack. Consider this- for as good as Batman’s many 1980's comic incarnations (particularly THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS), without Burton’s first film the general public’s perception of Batman would still be that ludicrous 1960's television series.

Also see: SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (Richard Donner)
Maybe the perfect crystallization of the superhero film, SUPERMAN really stands up after all these years, particularly if you ignore the completely flawed notion of flying around the earth to stop time (which has dramatic purposes in, say, a PRIME movie, but not here). Otherwise, there’s so much respect to the source material, and Christopher Reeve is so good as the still-green Last Son of Krypton. Reeve’s death stuck with me, as I was always watching the SUPERMAN films on weekend afternoons when I was young, and Reeve’s iconic portrayal of the Man of Steel resonated before I ever really learned what the definition of the word “hero” was. Also, it has perhaps my favorite movie theme of all time.

49. THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS (John Carpenter)
I think that Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS may be his scariest movie. It’s a testament to his excellent storytelling skills that the fairly ridiculous notion at the heart of the film, God and Satan being quasi-aliens, still creates a workable movie. It’s macabre enough to suggest an unstoppable apocalypse, but lighthearted enough to feature Alice Cooper in a wordless cameo as a leader of a gang of zombies. What resonates the deepest, however, is the concept of traycheon transmissions. In the film, characters have dreams that are actually video messages from the future, taken during what appears to be the final reckoning, with Satan finally taking over the world. The transmissions come across as home video footage, and it’s always the same shot: a muffled voice talking over a handheld camera moving past some sort of abandoned temple (church?), shaking as, in the doorway, you can see an image of Satan, clothed in shadows, prepared to attack. Seriously, that’s one of the scariest onscreen images I’ve ever seen.

Also see: SIGNS (M. Night Shaymalan)
SIGNS isn’t a very good movie. In fact, I think it’s fairly terrible, sloppy, clunky and poorly written. M. Night Shaymalan so far is one of my least favorite filmmakers, as he keeps making films in which nothing happens for a humorless two hours before there’s some sort of twist or re-evaluation of the core premise, and while the resolution is usually b-movie material, the film carries on as if it’s some sort of prestige picture in love with it’s message. But there’s one utterly classic moment in SIGNS: the scene where Joaquin Phoenix is watching television, and they are reporting home video footage of the aliens crashing a birthday party. The video is so realistically shaky and believable that it definitely has to be inspired by PRINCE OF DARKNESS’s traycheon transmissions.

And also see: HALLOWEEN (John Carpenter)
Being that there’s so much Carpenter on this list, I’d be remiss to not mention his most famous film. Thing is, take HALLOWEEN out and Carpenter’s filmography is still pretty awesome. As is, HALLOWEEN is still scary as hell after all these years, the silent killer Michael Myers representing a maniac that plausibly could exist. While the sequels revealed the sibling element and the whole Druid fiasco (and don’t get me started on Busta Rhymes), the first one is such a solid, streamlined example of the bare essentials of horror filmmaking, the kind of film that should be studied by anyone interested in getting people scared.

48. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (George Roy Hill)

I think the original rumor was that the leads of this were to be Marlon Brando and Tony Curtis... what an obnoxious duo that would have been. This film came during such a prosperous time for American filmmaking, and while it’s nicely shot and cleverly written, the really wonderful stars in the lead can’t help but give off an infectious “oh, yeah, we’re making a movie” vibe. The fun in BUTCH CASSIDY is timeless, infectious, the camaraderie between Paul Newman and Robert Redford being an element that it’s doubtful Hollywood will ever produce again.

Also see: NOTHING TO LOSE (Steve Oedekerk)
Yeah, it’s really pushing it placing these two together: let’s face it, in the realm of buddy comedies, there’s been very few movies that have matched it’s lofty standard. NOTHING TO LOSE isn’t one of the contenders, really; it’s not really well-written or consistently funny. But as a guilty pleasure it works in fits and starts, and it fully incriminates me as someone who finds Martin Lawrence amusing in the right role (which, for the record, is not in any other movie featuring him that’s not on this list). What makes this work is not Lawrence’s dwarfish mannerisms but his inexplicable chemistry with daffy co-star Tim Robbins (daffy being my mother’s word, my mother being one of this film’s biggest fans). Robbins’ rather large frame is best put to use here juxtaposed against the truly minuscule Lawrence, who’s beetle-headed actions lead angered businessman Robbins into a world of trouble. As for my mother, this film is a big favorite of her’s and my father’s, who really enjoys the work of former highway cop Giancarlo Espisito in this, a guy he used to hang out with.

47. GOZU (Takashi Miike)
Takashi Miike probably needs to be put away somewhere. The images and ideas he comes across onscreen are some of the most twisted and disturbed I’ll ever see on the big screen. His dedication towards filming a script as quickly and cheaply as possible leads to some unforgettable films, and indeed that’s his intention: he’s gone on record saying that he cares little of the quality of his films, only that they become unforgettable to his audience. I’d say he succeeded with GOZU.

GOZU maps it’s intentions out in the very first scene, as a character on television holds up a cue card saying, in English, “Boys, be ambitious,” moments before a man swings a dog by the leash over his head and kills the tiny canine. The narrative tells the story of Minami, a stressed-out mobster who loses his yakuza brother’s dead body in a strange town with people lying about skin defects, people milking their breasts to supply the town’s milk and a man with a cow’s head on his shoulders. There’s so much mind-boggling weird stuff in this movie that it’s really impossible to describe it all. Needless to say, it’s ending is absolutely bewildering, strange and hilarious.

Also see: UZUMAKI (Higuchinsky)
In the vein of not-quite-J-horror, this strange manga-inspired horror picture is impossible to really understand. Apparently, a small town slowly loses their collective minds as they become hypnotically obsessed with seeing spirals. I can’t make heads or tails of UZUMAKI, but it’s pretty funny, kinda gross, a bit scary and super strange. In other words, tailor-made for the alternative-cinema crowd.

46. BAMBOOZLED (Spike Lee)

BAMBOOZLED is not one of Spike Lee’s best films, nor is it his worst. It’s not entirely focused, gets a bit maudlin in the third act, and features an altogether confusing lead performance. Still, it’s savagely funny, until it simply becomes grotesquely savage, to the point where you get the full force of Spike Lee’s anger towards the black community in the entertainment industry. The film follows an educated black television writer named Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans, sporting a confounding accent) who attempts to get fired from his stereotype-loving network job by pitching the most offensive program he can think of. Soon, he realizes he must board this ship when it doesn’t sink, and it’s not long before he’s executive producing “The Mantan New Millennium Minstrel Show”, a variety program about two “Alabama porch monkeys” and their “wacky adventures.”

BAMBOOZLED is an eye-opener as it seems very much concerned with the roots of black entertainers in America, and some of the images that close the film in an incendiary montage are a revealing peek at an industry in which the term “second citizen” would have once been a compliment to blacks. The film spends it’s runtime tracing these roots through a myriad of ways that Delacroix’s dream is derailed into a crass attempt to exploit his kind to make money. While getting a number of jabs at the industry, BAMBOOZLED is really just pure, unfiltered hate, Lee firing at an industry that’s never given him a fair shake despite his widespread success and fame.


Also see: BULWORTH (Warren Beatty)
Another fantastic film about the black experience in modern America, BULWORTH is as limber and freewheeling a movie as any filmmaker Beatty’s age has made ever. Something of a twisted version of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Beatty’s Jay Bulworth figures he has no shot at the presidency, so he orders a hitman to take him out within a week. In the process, he goes about committing career suicide by speaking the truth about many of his beliefs and the racist notions of the American government. However, when his approval ratings soar in response to his candid honesty and his black vote increases tenfold, he decides that telling the truth has also made him into a better person. BULWORTH never really gets entirely too simple, however, as it remains fairly dark and downbeat, but Beatty’s loose-limbed, improvisational direction and inspired performance really keep the movie thoroughly interesting.

45. RAVENOUS (Antonia Bird)
The goodies in Antonia Bird’s cannibal horror comedy are so plentiful. You can celebrate the fascinating performances, from Guy Pearce as a cowardly soldier to Robert Carlyle as a savage flesh-eater to Jeffery Jones, criminally funny as an army general with dubious desires (and Neal McDonough, David Arquette and Jeremy Davies are no slouches either). You can note the fairly clever Manifest Destiny allegory at the heart of this mysticism involving the Wendigo legend. Or you can note the twangy, unforgettable score from Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, at once anachronistic and utterly fitting. Either way, it’s a funny, gory good time, with a truly grotesque ending sure to satiate any bloodhound.

Also see: CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL! (Trey Parker)
And since we’re on the subject of cannibals, why not plug this hilarious musical comedy? CANNIBAL is something of a warmup for SOUTH PARK, in that the same gags from the show are on display (particularly the Braniff riff that plays at the end of every SP episode, as it’s from the showstopper “Shpadoinkle”). A loose retelling of the tale of Alfred Packer, the lone survivor of the ill-fated Donner Party, CANNIBAL combines plenty of gross-out gags with some truly inspired songs.

And also see: WENDIGO (Larry Fessenden)
The wendigo legend is tackled in a more serious manner in Larry Fessenden’s typically somber, introspective horror film. Jake Weber and the ultra-hot Patricia Clarkson are a couple bringing their quiet son into the mountains, where they encounter some nasty locals as well as the legend of the flesh-eating mystical creature. WENDIGO is a serious analysis of the importance of history and folklore, but it also packs a few surreal scares.

44. MULHOLLAND DRIVE (David Lynch)
Okay, lesbian love scene aside, David Lynch’s ode to the power and suggestion of dreams is intensely sexy and playful. Darkly comic and slinky where the interesting LOST HIGHWAY was somewhat somber and clunky, MULHOLLAND DRIVE is an intensely fascinating puzzle in which the elements change upon each viewing. While the truth about Diane and Betty is the crux of the story, the most interesting elements are the events on the fringes, such as Billy Ray Cyrus as an amorous poolboy and a sloppy assassin who ineptly carries out his missions.

Also see: 21 GRAMS (Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu)
Continuing the thread of Naomi Watts and fractured narratives, this is a fairly gripping drama about loss and regret, one that seemingly got loss in the glut of feel-bad cinema in 2003. Watts and Sean Penn, as the disparate souls who find solace in each other, are fairly strong enough to overcome an essentially gimmicky narrative device, and the glossy, evocative cinematography is visually captivating. But the real showcase is Benicio Del Toro’s powerful turn as a man stricken by faith and the affliction of past transgressions he can never escape.

43. AIRPLANE! (David Zucker)

There are countless quotes and moments from this groundbreaking spoof that people quote incessantly and I would be hard-pressed to not come up with a number of great gags when someone mentions this classic. But for me, as a young lad, I think AIRPLANE provided my very first completely huge guffaw. I think it was at the point where one passenger on the doomed airplane begins to freak out and Leslie Nielsen steps up to shake and then slap her, a classic representation of the only-acceptable onscreen violence towards women at the time. It’s at this point where another passenger steps up to smack her and hope she comes to her senses. This is followed by yet another passenger following suit, until the pullback reveals a pan over a lineup of passengers ready to shake some sense into her, including a nun clutching a rod of wood featuring jutting nails.

Also see: THE NAKED GUN: FROM THE FILES OF THE POLICE SQUAD/TOP SECRET/HOT SHOTS!
It’s a surprise that no one credits these films are being the product of some sort of cottage industry of funny that were responsible for some of the biggest laughs in movie history. THE NAKED GUN features many of the same jokes from the underrated and quickly canceled POLICE SQUAD, but Leslie Nielsen’s deadpan is actually far more refined in the transition to the bigscreen, and his line delivery really carries the film in a way that, with anyone else as Lieutenant Frank Drebin, it would have totally fallen apart. Val Kilmer doesn’t necessarily match him in the inspired, occasionally esoteric spy spoof TOP SECRET, but his lead turn is surprisingly limber and self-aware. And of course, military spoof HOT SHOTS benefits from a colorful supporting cast, but is highlighted by Charlie Sheen’s deft, versatile comic work.

42. THE KILLER (John Woo)
I was late enough to John Woo that my initial exposure was his American works, which varied from vanilla to terrible. It wasn’t until a friend loaned me a beat-up letterboxed VHS of THE KILLER that I realized that if you put a gun in John Woo’s hand, he’s Superman. Directing his Mifune/DeNiro in the ultra-slick Chow Yun-Fat, THE KILLER is both powerfully over-the-top melodramatic, but also emotionally affecting. The story of a killer seeking redemption for a beautiful woman who’s lost her eyesight through his actions, THE KILLER takes notes not only from the kung-fu choreography of classic Hong Kong fight ballets but also traditional cartoon violence.

Also see: HARD BOILED (John Woo)
Another teamup between Chow Yun Fat and John Woo, this film lacks the melodramatic angel of THE KILLER, and at points the human element as well. Still, this shootout-carried spectacle may have the record for onscreen discharged bullets, particularly in an ending shootout in a hospital that will stun any action film fan. Whenever someone asks me what I think the greatest action film ever made is, I say THE KILLER, but I try to also mention HARD BOILED as a viable alternative.

41. GANGS OF NEW YORK (Martin Scorsese)
Squint if you must, but realize this: GANGS OF NEW YORK is the coolest cross-historical pollination of X-MEN and THE WARRIORS you'll ever see. Having as much to do with those sources most likely, as it does with real history (Bill the Butcher lived nowhere near the Five Points, apparently), GANGS OF NEW YORK is occasionally messy, highly uneven and doesn’t necessarily connect the narrative dots all that well. After a number of viewings, I still wonder where the Draft Riots become pivotal to the story.

Still, I love the total embrace of the pulpy nature of the story. This is a tale of larger-than-life characters, complete with gangs, costumes and fighting styles all their own. There is nothing more exciting than those gangbusters opening minutes, as the Irish whistle music plays to the sounds of the Dead Rabbits preparing for battle, spotlighted by the proud Priest Vallon, hulking ronin Monk and the completely insane Hellcat Maggie. As they come to the Five Points, a foot kicks a door open and we see the wintery landscape, vast, intimidating, quiet, as the soundtrack vanishes instantly. The Dead Rabbits pour out onto the small village, massive in numbers, eager for battle. It is a few silent moments before they are greeted by the specter of the Natives, headed by American Eagle-eyed Bill the Butcher, spilling out onto the street in about ten times the expected number, armed to the teeth with weaponry and bloodlust. It’s an opening for the ages.

Also, I like to joke with friends that Bill the Butcher is a Bizarro-world version of Bill O’Reilly. The “that’s a kill” moment in the butcher shop, the trouble reading, the terrifying image of waking to find him hovering above you while wrapped in an American flag and the completely intimidating way he taps his prosthetic eye with a razor blade as it goes “clink, clink.” No Spin Zone, brothers.

Also see: AFTER HOURS (Martin Scorsese)
On the other end of the spectrum, here’s another Scorsese film about New York, his favorite subject. While GANGS OF NEW YORK is steeped in folklore and history, attempting to make points about how violence in inherent in Americans, AFTER HOURS is merely a funhouse of sights and sounds of the nights of pre-Guliani New York. Griffin Dunne plays the everyman to perfection, a man simply trying to get home who finds himself getting involved with a series of eccentric criminals and oddballs during a night that absolutely won’t end. It’s funny, it’s colorful, it’s a tad menacing, and it’s completely lightweight, supposedly the product of a student in a screenwriting class who endeared himself to Scorsese enough to make this his first produced script. Hey, it could happen to you!

40. FANDO Y LIS (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

There’s such gorgeousness, such beauty in Jodorowsky’s first existing film (he claims to have made a first film that has never been found) that it’s stunning that it’s one of those shoestring budgets that only filmed on weekends over the course of a number of years. Jodo began his career as a shock theater performer, with a troupe that performed such stunts as bathing in chicken blood onstage and engaging in sexual acts involving holy garb and paraphernalia. Such acts got him run out of many theaters, but it was unquestionable that Jodorowsky had the vision to repel as well as to intrigue.

This film, the loose tale of a tentative brother and sister who embark on a long, ritualistic journey to a city that probably doesn’t exist is apparently based on a play that Jodorowsky once performed, though he claims he only did the show once years ago and, upon filming, couldn’t remember any discernible details about it. The result is a nightmarish black and white masterpiece, disjointed, grotesque, and altogether unforgettable, as you will be alternately mesmerized and repulsed by Jodo’s primitive vision. I HIGHLY recommend Fantoma’s DVD release of this, as the picture and sound are really top notch for a previously “lost” film, and the entire package comes with LA CONSTELLACION JODOROWSKY, one of the most astounding DVD documentaries you’ll ever sit though.

Also see: LOST HIGHWAY (David Lynch)
I’m mixed on LOST HIGHWAY’s impact: whatever the case is, it certainly merits another viewing, however. LOST HIGHWAY is dark, opaque and frustrating, and works asa companion piece to MULHOLLAND DRIVE as far as it’s themes of identity and the dreamstate. It’s aesthetic is fairly low-fi, mysterious and disturbing, and there’s constantly the feeling that, like FANDO Y LIS, there’s far more sinister goings-on within the plot. I definitely think the film is hurt by the casting of inert Bill Pullman and the boring Balthazar Getty, but it’s really something that spirals into it’s own self-conscious circle of bizarro as it reaches it’s Lynch-ian conclusion.

39. AUDITION (Takashi Miike)
If there’s anything I admire in a filmmaker, it’s the balls to completely turn a story on it’s ear, regardless of logic or meaning, with the intention of leaving an indelible mark on the viewer. While many of Miike’s films delightfully teeter on the brink of insanity before jumping off with utterly inhuman glee, AUDITION’s swift right turn is one that actually operates within the loose parameters of the story. AUDITION comes across, early on, as a sweet, muted romantic comedy about a widower who, egged on by his teenaged son, holds open auditions for a new girlfriend, only to meet the woman of his dreams. Soon, however, he finds that he’s decided to wine and dine with the woman of his and every other man’s COMPLETE NIGHTMARE. AUDITION carries some subtext about the punishing treatment of women in modern Japanese society, but for an American viewer, it works perfectly well as an example of what can go horribly wrong on the dating scene.

Also see: SOCIETY (Brian Yuzna)
After seeing SOCIETY, I was stunned that Miike did not make it. A subtly subversive take on sun-drenched youth and deluded boomers of high society, SOCIETY keeps pulling back layers to reveal something truly disturbing. It’s at the troubling time of high school when a young boy finds that his family may not be human after all, and it’s not long before they’re recruiting him for freakishly sexual group activities amongst high society. But oh, that ending... jeebus christo, how gross can it get? Seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a guy’s head come out of his own ass.

38. CABIN FEVER (Eli Roth)
Eli Roth is me.

Eli Roth loves blood, and Eli Roth loves boobs. He loves talking (as evidenced by the five commentary tracks he participated in for the DVD of CABIN FEVER), and he intensely loves himself. Eli Roth never saw a Takashi Miike film before CABIN FEVER, but afterwards he went out, saw them all, and is making his next film, HOSTEL, so much of a Miike homage that he cast the man himself. Eli Roth wants to remake THE BAD SEED and DEATHDREAM.

CABIN FEVER spoke to me on every level possible. Faults and all, it’s the type of first film I would have made. A bloody, streamlined tale of four less-than-likable teens stranded in a log cabin in a strange town afflicted with a gruesome, lethal disease, it’s got enough moments of inanity, comedy, and straight-up gore to keep me giggling the entire way through. And it made me start saying, “Face!” to everyone.

True story: I once took a film class with a professor that was constantly wrong about facts. It wasn’t good enough to be getting perfect 100's and A’s in everything; I had to also show the professor up when she was wrong (i.e. stuff like mentioning the director of ROCKY being Sylvester Stallone instead of John Avildsen). Although I usually held my tongue, there were a few instances when I couldn’t resist. Then, one class on Orson Welles, she spent fifty minutes discussing his life before closing on this empty remark: “I believe he died in 1984 or 1985.”

I instantly rose my hand and, in a voice a bit more arrogant than I intended, said, “If Orson Welles died in 1985, he would not have been able to complete his final film role, doing a voice in TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE.” After a quick beat, the class suddenly went, “Ooooooh!” to which I could only produce a delayed reaction, turning back to the professor, passing my palm over myself and stating, “Face!”

I ended up with a B in that class.

Also see: EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN (Sam Raimi)
Whenever anyone’s talking cinematic cabin horror, the EVIL DEAD movies are what merits the first mention, and deservedly so. The second film in the series is arguably the most fun, featuring the most colorful gore, the most outlandish gags, and the first appearance of the one-armed Ash. There’s a lot of hilarious slapstick bits in this sequel, so much so that often you forget the film’s ability to outright shock. Bruce Campbell’s work in this, the definitive Campbell experience, is raw, violent and really an example of a collaboration between two like-minded artists (Campbell and Raimi) who are at their creative zenith.

37. WONDER BOYS (Curtis Hanson)
I remember this film as part of an advantageous double feature: left to my own devices on a winter night, an empty house with no one around, I rented both DANCER IN THE DARK and WONDER BOYS. After the sledgehammer depression of the otherwise brilliant DANCER IN THE DARK, I needed WONDER BOYS. Bouncy and cocksure, WONDER BOYS proved to be the best possible chaser I could encounter at the moment.

Really, there are a lot of haters that this one could silence. People who claim Michael Douglas has only one performance should watch this, as he’s really having a great time as the beleaguered, pot-smoking, procrastinating professor sitting on thousands of unpublished pages as he learns that he’s impregnated the dean’s wife (Frances McDormand, typically great). Those who think Tobey Maguire is boring can take in his Dustin Hoffman-like livewire turn here as the promising writer with a labrynthe death wish. And of course, Katie Holmes, shortchanged in the arc department here, still gets a number of affecting moments as the whipsmart, panties-clad crush.

Also see: DECONSTRUCTING HARRY (Woody Allen)
Another film about doomed writers, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY really isn’t one of the best Woody Allen pictures. But it’s still fairly different and clever than some of his works, as Allen essentially plays himself, a man who begins walking through his own personal hell as his characters start coming to life and the lines separating reality and fiction blur. It’s funny, but mostly very meanspirited, biting Allen, one of the best of his later films.

36. DEATH RACE 2000 (Paul Bartel)
Hell yes. Remake this? Perish. DEATH RACE 2000 still kicks an unholy amount of ass. See!- badass David Carradine as the masked Dr. Frankenstein! See!- a young Sylvester Stallone steal ever scene he’s in! See!- a futuristic sport that awards participants for running over totally innocent pedestrians! See!- retro ultra-violence, as only producer Roger Corman can provide! See!- Tits! It’s more than just a good time... it’s a religion.

Also see: SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS (Daniel Minahan)
For more casual murders of everyday people, see this inspired comedy. Told as overlapping episodes of a hit show called THE CONTENDERS during a marathon, SERIES 7 follows the adventures of the pregnant Dawn, as she fights to retire from THE CONTENDERS program, a show that forces contestants to kill or be killed. The sight of everyday people being given firearms and being forced to kill isn’t nearly as surprising as the ease in which they do it, argues this sick black comedy, which nails every reality show landmark with expert ease (particularly considering it as made before the current “reality” craze). One of the best aspects of the reality format (the film is shot on video) is that the actors’ performances are so immediate and so real that I was immensely disappointed to see one of them, the old lady, appear in a commercial recently, therefore shattering my reality (and gasp!- she was playing a “real person” giving a testimonial to a medical product!). In that vein, the movie loses a bit now that I recognize the final reel performance of the great Will Arnett of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.

35. MEAN STREETS (Martin Scorsese)
I had thought highly of Scorsese’s gritty street opera when I had first saw it, but it wasn’t until I caught it on a bill with RAGING BULL and TAXI DRIVER when I realized how personal it was. MEAN STREETS isn’t just young Italians in New York City. MEAN STREETS are your streets, my streets. They are the places where our friends are, even if we don’t want to admit it. They are the areas you’ve been to but don’t want to visit, yet accidently end up at again. The sense of community in MEAN STREETS is something that has never made New York City seem so small and intimate.

Also see: DRUNKEN ANGEL (Akira Kurosawa)
It’s appropriate that Scorsese wants to remake this Kurosawa film, as it has the same affection for it’s surroundings. It’s urban crime atmosphere paints a portrait of a landscape that’s as much of a character as any other. DRUNKEN ANGEL is a heartfelt story of an alcoholic doctor and the reckless gangster he’s forced to rehabilitate, and like MEAN STREETS, the moral ambiguity on display makes you forget exactly who’s redeeming whom. Now why isn’t this on DVD?

And also see: HUSTLE AND FLOW (Craig Brewer)
“You know it’s haaaard out here for a pimp!!” Morally, I find much of HUSTLE AND FLOW objectionable. I did the first time I caught it, after a couple of days ruminating and re-evaluating the “good time” I had watching it. Yet, even with these reservations of the questionable ethics and misogyny of filmmaker Craig Brewer, I sat down again and caught it and remained wrapped up again in the steely desperation of uneducated, overmatched DJay and his desire to make more of himself than a woman-abusing pimp. Particularly enthralling is how the camera never turns it’s eye away from the creative process at points, crafting some exciting sequences out of the construction of an otherwise pedestrian crunk anthem.

34. ALL THE REAL GIRLS (David Gordon Green)

ALL THE REAL GIRLS means a lot to me. It’s one of those films that strikes a chord in me emotionally, to the point where I miss watching it like I would miss a former lover whom I’ve lost contact with. As a still-blossoming angel, Zooey Deschanel is luminous, and it’s easy to see why lothario Paul Schneider instantly falls head over heels in love with her, for his very first time. At moments, David Gordon Green’s prose concerning the uneducated Midwest is a bit too poetic, but the beauty on display in the intimate love affair between the leads and the landscape is heartbreaking. Also, there’s a character named after Strong Bad.

Also see: Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (Alfonso Cuaron)
From romantic intimacy to purely sexual longing. Alfonso Cuaron’s endlessly intoxicating fable of two young boys who are forced to come of age during a sloppy dual courtship of a rebellious older woman packs the heat through a series of sweaty sexual encounters that fuel the film. The handheld camera during the film’s many sexually stimulating scenes reflects the bumbling awkwardness of the two leads as well as the frustration of their female partners, which adds a very intimate layer to an already smoldering film about being gloriously young and sexually untamed despite the reckless emotions of others.

33. GHOST WORLD (Terry Zwigoff)
I saw GHOST WORLD at the right time: during high school, when I was soon to be scuttled off into the outside world without a plan. It immediately struck a chord to me: without ever reading the source material, what the phrase “ghost world” means to me is a place between leaving high school and entering the real world, a place in which many souls find themselves in limbo. The film begins at the start of the deterioration of the friendship of the protagonists, and it soon spirals out of control very realistically, until one loses their way amid a sea of unrealistic expectations and listless esoterica. It’s a grand tragedy, one with an ending that frustrates me highly; I feel robbed of closure, feeling that I must selfishly know what happens, even if I know it won’t make the film better. Whenever you’re rooting for more about the characters at the expense of the film they inhabit... well, that’s true love.

Also see: THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (Judd Apatow)
I just saw this film during the making of this list, so it wasn’t really eligible, but surely it’s been earmarked for a later top forty position. Like GHOST WORLD, it’s the story of a man who loses himself in his own world: he’s not just a virgin to sex, but to social interactions. Like GHOST WORLD, it’s not a melodramatically theatrical tragedy, but rather a portrait of people we see everyday, who merely fall between the cracks, feeding themselves with their lack of self-awareness. In the hands of another actor, Andy Stitzer would have been a punchline, a socially inept retard, but Steve Carrel plunges unforseen depths in crafting a very real and utterly loveable, standup protagonist.

Also see: AMERICAN SPLENDOR (Sheri Springer, Robert Pucini)
In the vein of GHOST WORLD, also based on a non-superhero comic book, this fairly ordinary tale of an ordinary guy going through an ordinary life is a unique portrait of Americana, made wholly real through not only a great Paul Giamatti performance as Harvey Pekar but also a moving turn by Hope Davis as his sweetheart. As the multifaceted four-color world of comic books enliven Pekar’s life and blur the separation of real life and fiction, so too, does the film, which features both Giamatti and Pekar as well as a moment that features a stage play of AMERICAN SPLENDOR.

32. OUT OF SIGHT (Stephen Soderbergh)
I didn’t know Steven Soderbergh. I figured George Clooney was a two bit TV actor (and a terrible Batman, for the record). Jennifer Lopez was Selena. Elmore Leonard was just another best-selling author. I was not prepared for OUT OF SIGHT, which I imagined was another half-baked PULP FICTION ripoff. I was not prepared for such a deft, often hilarious and crazily sexy film, one that I would like far more than Tarantino’s genre-crossing Best Picture nominee. To this day, I can’t bear Jennifer Lopez in anything, but somehow, I can still love watching her cagey federal marshal Karen Sisco (although I missed Carla Gugino’s work as the character in the short-lived show- thanks a lot, ABC-Disney) engage in a sexual tete-a-tete with Clooney’s suave Jack Foley (who’s hot enough here to totally gayify me if I were forced to watch this one hundred times in a row, something I’m not sure I’d hate). Nevermind the colorful supporting cast, including sly work from Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, Don Cheadle, Dennis Farina, Isaiah Washington, Catherine Keener, Michael Keaton, the immortal Luis Guzman and an unrecognizable Albert Brooks.

Also see: GET SHORTY (Barry Sonnenfeld)
Although I could have mentioned JACKIE BROWN, using Michael Keaton’s Ray Kinsella and his appearance linking the films (despite them being from two different studios- very cool), I figured everyone knows that’s a pretty good movie, and the presence of Tarantino as director elevates that film to something that will ever be forgotten. So I went with this ten year old film, which, from what I can ascertain, has been slightly tainted by a remarkably poor reception for it’s recent sequel, BE COOL (which I have yet to see). Really, John Travolta is one of the most overrated screen presences in Hollywood history, and I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a really great performance by him, but he usually has an uncanny ability to develop chemistry with loaded ensembles, and that’s never been on better display than it was here. Like OUT OF SIGHT, the film is helped by a wildly colorful supporting cast, including the ferocious Dennis Farina, the sexy Rene Russo, the always-amusing Danny DeVito, the badass Delroy Lindo, and a very funny performance from Gene Hackman. One reason to hate BE COOL without having seen it? Harvey Keitel, who cameos in GET SHORTY, appears in BE COOL as a different, unrelated character, rendering Michael Keaton’s hard work meaningless. Thanks a lot, Harv.

31. YOU CAN COUNT ON ME (Kenneth Lonergan)

I hadn’t seen this, and I probably wasn’t ever going to. It seemed like a tiny film about small events that I really could care less about, one that I would like if I saw, but was no rush to catch it. And then my sister recommended it, my sister with decent taste, but one that never went out of her way to catch a small movie. She said it reminded her of me, and that I should see it as well. When I started watching it at her behest, I suddenly realized that wasn’t the best thing.

Mark Ruffalo, who I remembered from Ton Fontana’s short-lived but neat UPN show THE BEAT, is essentially a screw-up, reduced to living from paycheck to paycheck to support a druggie girlfriend that he barely knows. When he comes to town to meet up with his professional sister, she is extremely upset to see his life in a mess, and pissed to know he did some drug time without telling her. It’s a messy revelation, and the way he recoils and the manner in which she chews him out felt like so many moments with my sister, to the point where it’s stunning that Ruffalo and sister Laura Linney aren’t related. The film lives up to it’s title as Ruffalo finds himself needing the support of his sister, and she finds a reservoir of love within his embrace as she begins a self-destructive sexual relationship with her boss (Matthew Broderick). It’s an emotionally gorgeous film, one that drives me to tears every time and makes me realize the importance of my sister in my life, the most important family member to me.

Also see: IGBY GOES DOWN (Burt Steers)
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME features some great performances, one of them from Rory Culkin, yet another talented Culkin brood. Which brings me to the best of the Culkin-as-lead films (although THE GOOD SON kicks ass, and I never saw MEAN CREEK). IGBY GOES DOWN features Kieran Culkin as the classic rich ne’er-do-well brat floating from one private school to another and burning his parents’ money. Kinda like me, without the rich thing, or the private element of school. But mostly like CATCHER IN THE RYE, which is to also say it’s fairly universal. Also an excellent exhibit on how it seems the new millennium has ushered in nothing if not a new, perpetually stoned Bill Pullman.

And also see: TWO GIRLS AND A GUY (James Toback)
Again on the personal tip: I caught TWO GIRLS AND A GUY on IFC with a friend one late night, and we were immediately sucked in. First it was the noticeably improvisational nature of the film, the performances and the hotness of Heather Graham and Natasha Gregson Wagner. And then, it became something entirely different, because there was a point where Downey Jr.’s character became full of a certain type of bullshit, and it started to dawn on me: I was watching myself. Seeing Downey Jr. tapdance around lie after lie poorly enough, stuttering and stammering as each line of BS intertwined with another even though it was essentially fruitless and the two women (who he had cheated on with each other) knew it... well, my friend saw it too, and to this day it’s a point of derisive laughter between us. A week after I saw it, an ex-fling IMed me on Instant Messenger, saying, “OMG, I saw a movie the other day and TOTALLY thought about you!” It wasn’t a surprise when she told me what it was.

Yeah, I was gonna get to that. I looked it up after the class, and felt even worse.

Scratch-moded!

30. HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Takashi Miike)

Most neophytes consider Takashi Miike’s films as being full of twisted, grotesque, juvenile violence involving psychosexual behavior between twisted protagonists. Well, what accounts for the sweetness within this lightly R-rated family comedy? HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS is a joyful gagfest about an extended family that decides to use their house as an inn for passing drivers, only to have their coincidental deaths become a continuing theme as they end up burying body after body through a series of hilarious song and dance routines. KATAKURIS has a go-for-broke insanity that brings a lot of energy to the table, to the point where the story becomes secondary to the intentional, energetic camp level on display.

Also see: SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER AND UNCUT (Trey Parker and Matt Stone)
Among subversive but still genuine musical comedies in recent history, the SOUTH PARK also stands out as a truly great movie that actually improves by leaps and bounds over an already groundbreaking television show. We all knew Trey Parker and Matt Stone were gifted satirists with a love of song, but who knew they had this, the greatest animated musical Disney wishes they had the balls to make, in them? The story, featuring a Terence and Philip movie so offensive and inappropriate to children that it triggers a war between Canada and America, uses a number of wonderfully colorful supporting characters (including educator Mr. Mackey, the irrepressible Isaac Hayes-voiced Chef and, Satan) to illuminate salient points about the culture of blame instilled in the current generation of parents as well as the control our media has over what should and shouldn’t be censored. And yes, George Clooney voiced the doctor who replaces Kenny’s heart with a baked potato.

29. MEMENTO (Christopher Nolan)
It’s not very often when I realize I want to see a movie again right after I’ve first seen it, but once the opening riff on David Bowie’s “Something In The Air” introduced the credits on Chris Nolan’s second film, I wanted to stay seated for the very next screening. I wanted to see how many times Teddy had actually duped Leonard, and vice versa. I wanted to piece together the notion that perhaps Leonard Shelby wasn’t Leonard Shelby at all. I wanted to find out how long Natalie had been pulling strings. And I wanted to acknowledge the potential that there was more than one reading to the whole damn thing (something that the DVD and website have already debunked- booo!). More than anything else, I wanted to savor the really great work from Guy Pearce as the loner vigilante at the heart of the film, afflicted with memories he doesn’t want and the failure to replace them. One of the elements I found interesting about the performance is that if you listen to Pearce’s speech patterns, they are purposely didactic in a way that suggests him running down a list of things to say, possibly because of the repetition developed from such a disease, and possibly because of an adherence to routine. It’s just a small element of a film that I love, the best in Chris Nolan’s filmography dedicated to loner heroes with shady ethics.

Also see: THE PLEDGE (Sean Penn)
I had a great college roommate once, a guy who I really got along with. He was a nice fella, and had great taste in music and movies. However, one thing rankled me: he constantly mentioned THE PLEDGE as the worst film ever made. He acknowledged that what he said was hyperbole, but also that he never hated a film so much. How this is possible I could never understand. Take away Jack Nicholson’s beautifully obsessive lead portrayal, and you’ve still got a chilly, elliptical filmmaking style from Sean Penn, who seems to be peeling each scene away from the next, as well as absorbing cameos from the likes of Benicio Del Toro and Mickey Rourke, and a chilling ending that frustrates seekers of closure but makes more than perfect sense within the context of the story.

28. MEET THE FEEBLES (Peter Jackson)
I am not a puppet movie connoisseur, but it’s fairly easy to acknowledge my favorite. Peter Jackson’s piss-take on the Muppets is a wickedly funny and truly grotesque romp featuring an all-star revue called the Feebles preparing for a bigtime television special as they battle against STD’s, porn producers, drug addictions, Vietnam hallucinations and ultimately, one truly pissed hippo. MEET THE FEEBLES features puppets puking, fucking, shooting up and taking dumps, but the best bit is a DEER HUNTER-inspired flashback to Vietnam involving puppets in modern warfare. Also points for the show-stopping "Sodomy" number that brings the house down, foolishly ensuring me Peter Jackson would never mention this movie in public after his huge LOTR success (and yet he did during his Oscar speech!).

Also see: TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (Trey Parker and Matt Stone)
I confess to spending the majority of TEAM AMERICA’s runtime thinking, “This isn’t as good as MEET THE FEEBLES.” Then again, that’s silly, because I don’t sit through stuff and go, “If only this were more like ONG BAK.” And before it hits the one hour mark and you realize you’ve been sitting through one long joke, TEAM AMERICA is funny at points and uproarious in others. Maybe it’s the musical numbers, which are spotty but mostly successful. Maybe it’s the puking scene, which is a stunner. Maybe it’s the graphic puppet sex scene, which is oddly more erotic than anything found in the films TEAM AMERICA lampoons. Whatever it is, TEAM AMERICA may be a bit behind CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL and SOUTH PARK in terms of hilarity, but it’s still more often than not hilarious.

And also see: STRINGS (Anders Ronnow-Klarlund)

Okay, I actually haven’t seen this, but it felt like it was something I’d have to plug here. It just came out on DVD and supposedly it’s a very dark Danish fantasy told with puppets. And at this point, I feel like I’m not a stranger to that. From what I've heard, it involves magical kingdoms and HAMLET-type royal tragedies. In other words, a movie Craig Schwartz would have made.

27. SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sam Raimi)
I’ve learned a lot of powerful lessons from unlikely sources growing up. Perhaps the greatest lesson I’ve ever picked up, however, are Stan Lee’s bold words for the beleaguered Peter Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Parker learns this in the first SPIDER-MAN film, of course, but I feel that this is the film that cements it. Let’s face it, for all it’s indulgences, SPIDER-MAN 2 features many small, tender (if occasionally obvious) moments that establish the world of a harried youth, trying to find his way despite a cluttered schedule where he screws up at work, misses the Lizard’s class and struggles to hide his affections for the pretty redhead (Kirsten Dunst- still miscast, but Raimi makes it work). Oh, yeah, and that saving the world bit. Raimi conveys this theme with a universal sense of disappointment: we know Peter can never begin to lead a happy life because of the responsibilities he’s chose to serve.

Alfred Molina’s work as Doctor Octopus is alternately threatening and heartfelt, while JK Simmons’ J. Jonah Jameson remains the most perfect representation of a comic character in the films so far. Still, there are little bursts of unabashed emotion that work the best. Peter’s revelation to Mary Jane that he can see her now that he’s given up Spider-Man, the Ditkovich girl coming over for a slice of cake and especially the very powerful and somewhat surprisingly scene in which Aunt May walks away from Peter after he’s confessed about being responsible for Uncle Ben’s death.... it’s appropriate Dashboard Confessional is on the soundtrack, because SPIDER-MAN 2 is probably the greatest, most epic emo song ever, put on film.

Also see: THE ROCKETEER (Joe Johnston)
Lost in the discussion of great superhero pictures is this ultrafun throwback to an earlier time, a Disney picture that sadly didn’t get the attention it deserved (very similar in many ways to SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW- see that one too). Bill Campbell is stunt flyer Cliff Secord, who finds his life drastically altered when he finds a secret government prototype for a propulsive jet device that enables the wearer to take flight. When he finds it’s the work of the Nazis (led by Timothy Dalton), he has to save his beautiful girlfriend Bettie (intentional shades of Bettie Page, courtesy of Jennifer Connelly) by suiting up and wearing one of the coolest movie helmets in film history (which protects his head from rough landings, although it’s never discussed what saves his legs from being burnt off by the giant flames shooting from his rocketpack). The flying moments are exhilarating, bound to capture the imagination of anyone who’s legitimately desired the ability to fly in real life. As far as performances, the standout is a wonderfully warm Alan Arkin as the inventor Peavy.

26. THIS IS SPINAL TAP! (Rob Reiner)
The first time I showed this to my father, I knew he’d recognize the actors fleetingly, but I explained the concept to him anyway, stating, “It’s all fake, it’s all a joke, but it’s meant to be real. Yes, they’re really playing their instruments, and these are real songs, but they’re a fake band.” Fifteen minutes into the movie, his hatred of rock music took over, and after not laughing once, he simply stated, “This is just about a stupid band!” Usually his one sentence proclamation sum it up quite well (SUPER TROOPERS- “This isn’t a movie, this is a bunch of assholes screwing around”- see that one too, btw).

It’s far more than being about a stupid band, pops. For one, what stands out to me every time I watch this is the utter abandon and dedication to these characters the actors possess. These performances are big fat jokes, but they’re genuine, sincere ones. Michael McKean’s David St. Hubbins’ artistic delusions are megalomaniacal and brilliant, while Christopher Guest’s cheerfully oblivious Nigel Tufnel is a renaissance man who must pump his stereos to ELEVEN. All are haunted by the extreme need to rock and roll and satisfy fans of bone crunching guitar homoeroticism. The DVD commentary also might be the reason the medium exists, as it’s so funny and utterly brilliant that it serves as something of a sequel.

Also see: A MIGHTY WIND (Christopher Guest)
In a different vein, A MIGHTY WIND features the same dedication from the actors in a number of hilarious moments. However, what stands out are the heart-tugging moments that surprisingly come off better than anything in your usual Oscar bait. Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s “Kiss And The End Of The Rainbow” is especially moving, and as Mitch and Mickey, they are the film’s heart, at the center of a charming mockumentary about an old-time folk concert.

And also see: THE GREAT DICTATOR (Charlie Chaplin)
Since we’re on the topic of impostors and I couldn’t squeeze this anywhere, here it is, my favorite Charlie Chaplin film. In it, Chaplin is a mild-mannered barber with a striking resemblance to Hitler who eventually ends up standing in place for him, leading to a number of inspired comic moments in which he’s oblivious to having the entire world in his hands. The metatextual element of this film, that Hitler modeled his mustache after his favorite comedian, Chaplin, makes this film even more entertaining.

25. BOOGIE NIGHTS (Paul Thomas Anderson)

The surrogate family at the heart of BOOGIE NIGHTS is the film’s strongest point, much more than the period details, the eclectic music and Burt Reynolds’ powerful work. PT Anderson knows how to work with an ensemble and not one character gets the short shrift here, as we see each of them reflect to the rise and fall of the pornographic film industry due to the videocassette (a similar revolution, one might argue, to the current trend of DVD’s putting the theater industry out of business).

Also, it’s worth noting that when Marky Mark’s character, Dirk Diggler, takes a break from pornography and goes into the music industry, the rock song that he’s seen singing and recording in the studio is none other than Stan Bush’s “The Touch”, a song from the soundtrack to TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE. Being that in the film the songs Diggler works on are supposedly written by Michael Penn’s producer character, could it be that Penn’s character uses Stan Bush as a non de plume? And could it be that before appearing in TRANSFORMERS, “The Touch” Stan Bush was sending his songs out to unemployed pornstars? Or, being that the film doesn’t go deep into the eighties, are we led to believe that Dirk Diggler is BOOGIE NIGHTS’ version of Stan Bush? WHO IS STAN BUSH?

Also see: GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese)
The rise and fall stuff in BOOGIE NIGHTS definitely comes across as similar to Scorsese’s modern mobster masterpiece. Based on Nicolas Pileggi’s novel, GOODFELLAS, two decades after THE GODFATHER, came across as a look at the future of mafioso, domesticated and suburbanized but no less dangerous. Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill character is some of the best work he’s ever done, and De Niro and Pesci are perfectly rationed out, and never overshadow Henry Hill’s story. Somehow, Academy voters found DANCES WITH WOLVES to be a better film that year. The fact that Martin Scorsese continues to go Oscar-less is one of the biggest reasons I have for no longer watching that ridiculous ceremony.

And also see: TOKYO GODFATHERS (Satochi Kon)
Going heavy with the recommendations here, gonna feature another tale of surrogate families in hard times. Loosely based on the Western THREE GODFATHERS, TOKYO GODFATHERS is the story of three homeless vagrants staying together on the streets of Japan: an alcoholic who let his family down, a young runaway and a transsexual with severe maternal desires. When all three of them find a baby on the streets, they find it’s their responsibility to get it back to it’s rightful owners, but they find themselves growing more fond of the child in the process. It’s a wonderfully sweet film, tragic and moving and, like the previous two films, somehow ignored by the Academy Awards despite being eligible for Best Animated Feature. What’s up with those guys anyway?

And also see: MASH (Robert Altman)

Going back to PT Anderson’s influences, Altman serves as the primary one, as Anderson is the filmmaker Altman would have become had he listened to his most indulgent filmmaking desires. Many don’t watch Altman films, as they tend to be esoteric character pieces, but there are a handful that are readily accessible to the mainstream viewer, and the hilarious MASH is one of them. Quite obviously referencing Vietnam, this Korean War-set comedy finds an anti-establishment riff and plays it throughout the course of the entire, episodic film. Both Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould are criminally funny as the leads, and to be honest, the philistine I am having never watched the spinoff show, I can’t imagine anyone else filling their shoes.

24. ROBOCOP (Paul Verhoven)
This one rates a “Hell Yes” from me. One of the great sci-fi action hybrids of the eighties (maybe the best?), this sharply satirical futurefest finds the criminally underrated Peter Weller (and seriously, Peter Weller is awesome beyond words- why am I the only one to think this?) as Lieutenant Murphy, a cop shot down in the futuristic scumhole of Detroit who is brought back through a new procedure. Using his brain, a crime-fighting cyborg is created to bring justice to the crime-ridden streets, eight bullets at a time. It’s when he realizes that he’s a puppet for another agenda when Murphy starts to fight back against his circuitry and liberate his silicon soul (wink).

ROBOCOP is probably what made me such a bloody gorehound when it comes to movies. When you are traumatized at such a young age, nothing seems as scary or gruesome anymore. When I was younger, I remember sitting in front of the television screen and marveling at the torture scene, where Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith- I still cringe when THAT 70'S SHOW is on) and his goons blast Murphy to pieces. At that time, it was edited for TV, but there’s really no way you can edit that for television and make it less disturbing without completely removing the scene, and for me, simply hearing and imagining limbs falling to the ground was enough to mess with me. After that, everything else was a cakewalk.

Also see: ROBOCOP 2 (Irwin Kershner)
The sequel is considerably less sharp and clever than the first, but it is more misanthropic and violent, to the point where fans of the nihilism in the first film should get a kick out of this. The farfetched plot involves some sort of cybernetic villain (aided by a number of goons, including the most despicable child in cinema history) and the final slugfest between Robocop and the baddie is truly, surprisingly over the top. What sticks with me is a scene in which the villains capture Robocop and dismantle him. Do they kill him? No, they leave his writhing body parts on the side of the street, confused, reprogrammed and lost, as the public looks on shocked. At this point, Robocop’s torso is the only thing that’s whole, and Murphy’s face is exposed, as Peter Weller’s spastic, lost movements reflect an autistic child lost in public. Again, disturbing.

And also see: STARSHIP TROOPERS (Paul Verhoven)
If you’re a guy and you like action films, and giant bugs, and hot bodies, there’s no excuse to have not seen this. What’s taking you so long? Based on Robert Heinlein’s novel, STARSHIP TROOPERS reflects an uneasy protagonist, the humans, who, in the end, are of questionable rooting interest, making STARSHIP TROOPERS’ satirical gray viewpoint of the Klendathu-Earth conflict that much more weighty in today’s world (i.e. they fish the bugs out of caves and then triumphantly remark, “They’re scared!”). Also, c’mon, the bugs: the special effects are miraculous, particularly as this film nears the ten year old mark: when a swarm of these giant creatures come over a hill, it’s both believable and fantastical, the perfect special effect: one that causes you to wrestle with the question, “Could that really exist?” even though you’ve always known it never can. It’s one of those situations where, if Paul Verhoven owned a sandy desert somewhere in the Mojave, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these giant fuckers roaming around.

23. BETTER OFF DEAD (Savage Steve Holland)
My big sister was the first person to really introduce movies to me, through a steady stream of late eighties schlock. I found myself sitting glass-eyed in front of the television as she subjected me to any succession of MYSTIC PIZZA’s and PRETTY IN PINK’s, with the occasional ROCKY III thrown in. Little did I know what I was in store for when she slapped on BETTER OFF DEAD. Inspired, hilarious and unpredictably off-the-wall, BETTER OFF DEAD ended up standing out from the others in it’s go-for-broke comic aesthetic. John Cusack starred as a teen so distraught over the end of a relationship with the beautiful Beth that he tries at every turn to kill himself, only to fail every time. This sort of black humor involving teens probably couldn’t be done post-Columbine, with Cusack attempting to hang himself in the garage only to change his mind, before being pushed off the stairs by his mother (who shoves the door in order to reach a difficult area while vacuuming) as my favorite bit. The film is littered with tons of absurdist comic touches, from the singing hamburger to the Japanese brothers who learned to speak English from the Wide World of Sports, to the dreaded Paper Boy, always emerging from nowhere on his bike of doom, chanting, “Two dollars! Two dollars!” Thanks, sis.

Also see: SAY ANYTHING (Cameron Crowe)

The film of choice for many young Cusack buffs (I obviously prefer the prior film), SAY ANYTHING is a sweet, gently-tinged romance between the ne’er-do-well Lloyd Dobler and the pretty valedictorian, who he somehow ends up dating through the majesty of his own willpower. This film was like a calling card for anyone who believed that they could score the hot chick, simply by trying hard enough. Perhaps no line has summed up frustrated young love better than, “I gave her my heart... she gave me a pen.”

Oh, and the boom box thing: guys, sorry- it doesn’t work.

And also see: HEATHERS (Daniel Waters)
On the topic of blackly comic teen death, HEATHERS is a film that could absolutely NEVER be made today in a post-Columbine atmosphere. And that’s too bad, because the specter of that bloody assault and the ensuing media coverage granted to “tortured” teens makes this film more relevant by leaps and bounds. Winona Ryder is a girl eager to fit in the most popular clique of teen girls in the school, dubbed “Heathers” (by virtue of all being named Heather), but when she meets rejection, she finds solace in the arms of anachronistic loner Christian Slater. Together they embark on a killing spree of the most popular kids in school and achieve notoriety through their own bloody carnage. Don’t feel bad for laughing.

22. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (Robert Rodriguez)

The genesis of En SAP. One afternoon, my three friends, Nick, Larry and I, got together at the video store to rent something. We were all just beginning to sharpen our genre love at the time, although they were admittedly farther ahead, having already caught DAWN OF THE DEAD. We scoured the store until we found a VHS of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, a film that, somehow, none of us had seen yet.

Cue awesomeness.

Robert Rodriguez can make eight more SIN CITY’s- this will always be my favorite Rodriguez film. This film has it all- a tense hostage situation, a slick-as-hell George Clooney performance (going from TV nancyboy to badass, a title he would relinquish upon graduating to full blown current King of Cool), bloodsucking vampires, a Salma Hayek striptease, Trejo, Savini, Williamson and a pissed Harvey Keitel, not to mention some neat explosions, three roles played by Cheech Marin (one as the greatest carnival barker of all time), and a scene in which Los Lobos play guitars made from still bleeding corpses. And it was the day in which I joined the ranks of En SAP, the greatest industrial experimental punk noise rock band of all time (and performers of the hit singles “Daifuku”, “Luis Guzman (He Was In ‘Traffic’)”, “Clown Homicide” and “Clubbing Baby Seals”) when Larry and Nick invited me into the fold and a duo became a band.

Also see: LOST BOYS (Joel Schumacher)
On the vampire tip, another badass bloodsucking classic favorite has to be this Joel Schumacher film, which hasn’t aged very well (Damn eighties fashion! And half-naked sax player Tim Cappello!) but remains on heavy replay. Jason Patric is the loner who falls in with a California gang invading the carnival area nightly, led by a charismatic and dangerous Kiefer Sutherland, while pursuing the only-in-the-eighties babe Jamie Gertz. The film has the distinction of featuring BOTH Coreys, as Haim and Feldman canoodle amidst a fiery bloodbath, possibly appearing through some sort of green screen effect. Still my favorite Schumacher film, although one could stand a cool remake (Tim Cappello? Really?)

And also see: NOSFERATU (F.W. Murnau)
And of course, when talking vampire films, you cannot be considered an afficionado of any type unless you’ve seen the original gangsta, Max Schreck, at work. Nearly eighty years later, this thing is still scary, and should be required viewing for any horror fan. The use of shadows trumps all here, as F.W. Murneau really does an excellent job accentuating the otherworldly threat posed by Schreck’s slumped-over vamp.

21. THE HARDER THEY COME (Perry Henzell)

Really, the last word on cinematic cool, Perry Henzell’s reggae classic is a film that could have fallen between the cracks. Hailing from Jamaica, it placed the tiny country on the cinematic map and pretty much influenced every crime movie coming afterwards. Jimmy Cliff stars as a singer trying to make his way upwards in the music industry through a succession of bloodied bodies left in his wake, as he crashes Jamaica’s criminal trade in an effort to become top dog on the streets, earning enough cred for his records to be played on local stations. This really has one of the best soundtracks of all time, as not only does it feature the best and brightest of reggae of that era, but it contains music sung by the lead and used in the film as a crucial plot device to move the narrative forward. Every idiot on the street mindlessly quoting SCARFACE, thinking that they’re hot shit, needs to see this.

Also see: THE GENERAL (John Boorman)
Another crime story set amidst the backdrop of quietly poor neighborhoods, THE GENERAL is the true story of Martin Cahill, an Irish thief who remained a point of contention in Ireland as he became a mob figure right under the nose of the oblivious local police. Brendan Gleeson, a large, charming and gracious man in real life, is excellent as the charismatic Cahill, a performance that James Gandolfini HAS to have watched before he started on THE SOPRANOS, and Jon Voight is quite good in a supporting role as a skeptical police chief. This story was also told in ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL, starring Kevin Spacey, Linda Fiorentino and Colin Farrell, but that went straight to video during Spacey’s K-PAX days, so I’m not in a rush to see it.

And also see: CITY OF GOD (Fernando Merielles)
Another film I saw during the making of this list, and one that I would be ready to add soon. The story of youths rampaging through the lawless streets of Rio de Janeiro is even more shocking when you learn it’s a true story. While the image of kids with guns never seems comfortable, CITY OF GOD is nevertheless a galvanizing film, cocksure in it’s ability to shock and entertain, but not absent of the moral consequences on display. Cinema was created for CITY OF GOD, with it’s hopeful protagonist, zig zagging through a story not of his life but of a place that’s shaped him greatly and how he changed who he was supposed to become.

20. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

Worship at the altar of JODO. Made for the biggest budget he’s ever worked with, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN was a pet project of John Lennon and his agent Allen Klein, who helped bankroll this followup to Lennon’s favorite movie, EL TOPO. It’s disappointing that Klein eventually ended up fighting with Jodorowsky so vigorously to the point where he declared he wouldn’t allow the North American release of EL TOPO or THE HOLY MOUNTAIN until Jodorowsky (who, through healthy living and spirituality, claims to be ready to live until he’s 150) died. Well, Jodo’s still living, this film still hasn’t been released in America, and it’s still up to you to do the detective work in order to find it.

And it’s detective work that you should find well worth it, because THE HOLY MOUNTAIN is a staggering film that you’ll never forget. Detailing the opaque story of a vagrant seeking a Timothy Leary-like figure for enlightenment, the film becomes the journey of a number of souls from different Earths seeking for a deeper meaning through a long, meandering quest up the Holy Mountain. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN gets some good jabs at the hippie culture, but it’s trump card are some of the most amazing visuals you’ll ever seen, ornately designed, meticulous, busy shots that make Terry Gilliam look like a visual underachiever.

Also see: I HEART HUCKABEE'S (David O'Russell)
Well, I couldn’t really think of anything else that both embraces spirituality and is a pisstake as well, so I’m going to go with this existentialist farce that’s far more than a slapstick mishmash it intially comes across as. The all-star cast is particularly game for anything, as Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin are having a great time as the existentialist detectives trying to figure out Albert’s (Jason Schwartzman) spiritual conundrum as he feuds with narcissistic Huckabee’s suit Brad Stand (Jude Law) over the direction of the slowly commercializing Open Spaces coalition. Lost in the morass of existentialist hubbub is equally confused firefighter Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg- never funnier), Brad’s spokeswoman wife (Naomi Watts) and nihilist educator Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert). HUCKABEE’S is strange, playful and likeably goofy, able to be enjoyed as an extremely well-acted slapstick farce but also as a lesson on how important discovering yourself can be, and how easy it is to overthink the entire process.

19. JURASSIC PARK (Steven Spielberg)
JURASSIC PARK was probably the first time I ever was shitting my pants in anticipation for a film. I read the book, picked up the trading cards, and caught any interviews I could find with the cast before the damn thing ever came out. I rushed out of the peewee baseball game I was playing and changed in the car en route to the tiny, broken down theater my father had chosen. I recall the awe that I felt being the same that I get now whenever I watch the film: I can’t help but imagine that the dinosaurs on display are anything but real. As a dinosaur-crazy lad, seeing Sam Neill collapse after seeing a Brachiasaurus stand on it’s hind legs to devour the leaves from a massive tree was a moment of sheer bliss- I had seen it in the commercials already, but to catch it on the big screen, as John Williams’ wondrous score glides along the film’s tempo, was something to make my knees shake as well. JURASSIC PARK started my love affair with films, and for that, I am eternally grateful. I can watch a million Kiarostami films, and none of them will have the impact of Spielberg’s massive dinos.

Also see: TAMMY AND THE T-REX (Stewart Rafill)
There really aren’t a lot of great dinosaur films, but there ARE a lot of terrible ones. Still, dinosaurs are dinosaurs, which is why I own JURASSIC PARK III (trivia- co-written by SIDEWAYS and ABOUT SCHMIDT scribes Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor). And there were a lot of places I could have gone for this recommendation- I could have used WE’RE BACK, the DTV horror series CARNOSAUR or maybe even the recent A SOUND OF THUNDER, with it’s terribly animated allosaurus. All would have been affectionately bad choices. Instead, I’m going with this schlocky feature, one which you may have caught originally during USA’s bad movie marathons that have disappeared simply because basic cable’s standards have risen to the area of ‘not fun.’ A young Denise Richards plays a lovelorn girl who finds out her boyfriend’s brain was accidently placed in the body of a reanimated Tyrannosaurus Rex. Instead of eating her, however, the Rex finds his human side, as Richards’ eponymous Tammy learns to love the reptilian flesh-eater. If you don’t mind me spoiling it, the finale features Tammy, having salvaged her boyfriend in a glass jar, doing a striptease for a disembodied brain.

18. BADLANDS (Terrence Malick)
BADLANDS is a mixture of horror and beauty. Lifted by an iconic score, Terry Malick’s sparse, meditative love story, centered around outlaws Martin Sheen (channeling James Dean) and Sissy Spacek (very young and beautiful) who were powered by their love to run away from it all, into a life of gun-toting crime. The film served as Quentin Tarantino’s chief inspiration while writing TRUE ROMANCE that, in addition to many plot points lifted, director Tony Scott took his suggestion to use BADLANDS’ score. Like each Malick film, the cinematography is often breathtaking, a gorgeous travelogue of the Midwest caked in blood.

Also see: BONNIE AND CLYDE (Arthur Penn)
Of course, the vantage point comparison: many think that this film is better than BADLANDS. I disagree heartily, but it’s certainly a shot in the pants of a film. It’s New Wave-influenced naturalism and shooting style used by director Arthur Penn helped bring a new style of filmmaking to American cinema, one that helped craft the seventies as the most creatively prosperous decade for stateside moviemaking. BONNIE AND CLYDE is nothing if not exciting, set in the twenties but so clearly a product of the outrage of it’s time, lifted by a disarming turn by Warren Beatty and a sexually intoxicating performance by Faye Dunaway. BONNIE AND CLYDE is sexy and glamourous, and doesn’t really achieve the kind of pathos BADLANDS succeeds with, but it’s electric cinema anyway.