Movies

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived."

"That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.' That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

Has one ever heard a Barbaric Yawp, perhaps, perhaps not. If I was not such an action/Sci fi fan this might be the number one movie of all time. How could this be? A movie about literature and poetry that spends more time quoting Frost and Keats than showing of the wall action scenes. A movie starring in my opinion the funniest comedian ever, Robin Williams.

Its just one of those things. This movie hit a nerve somewhere. Original, greatly acted, brilliantly written, and just overall a great movie.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, seize the day. Each one of us is going to grow cold and die. This is the central message in the movie. Its has been played to death but is still powerful. "make your lives extraordinary."

There is an unfortunate love story thrown in here. Its a total Yawner, but a mere bump in the road. I also don't know if this movie will age too well. It has some corny scenes. Time will tell. The Robert Leonard/ Ethan Hawke duo remains the true heart of this movie. Hawke plays a shy student. Leonard becomes his helper and friend, teaching him how to experience life. It is Hawke who vindicates Leonard at the movie's close. Only after his friend's death does he find his own inner strength. A great ending.

Christopher Walken VS Dennis Hopper

"True Romance"

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Take two classic actors, put them together in the same room with a script written by Quentin Tarantino and you get one of the greatest scenes in Hollywood

History. Hopper is being interrogated by Walken. He believes he is about to die. He makes one of the greatest, bravest speeches ever. Walken, who was not going to kill Hopper is so moved by that speech that he decides to kill Hopper saying he has never seen the need to kill a man before. Classic

Irony.

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Best Movie Ending

"The Sixth Sense"

M. Night Shyamalan's

truly original horror story. Best movie ending ever and the best child performance since Empire of the Sun.

Famous Scenes

"America History X"

If you have seen the movie, a classic movie in its own right, you know the scene i am talking about. I have never scene more members of a theatre look away from the screen at one given time.

"Deliverance"

Poor Ned Beatty. His claim to fame will always be his infamous scene in the woods.

"Rules of Attraction"

There is a 10 minute montage of a college student vacationing in Europe. This may have been the best piece of cinema I have seen all year. It is played out in fast forward documenting his trip. Worth seeing the movie for this one scene.

Movies are a form of art. Each person will have their favorites based on emotional impact, relevance at the time the movie was seen, and how well they grow to love the film. A person's favorite film will always be changing. There are great films that just do not age well as well as decent films that age into

classics, just like art.

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My love of film began

as a child. I remember being in the projection booth seeing an advanced screening of Empire Strikes Back. I remember closing my eyes during the final scenes of raiders of the lost ark

I saw ET 11 times in the theatres in the days before video. I remember seeing every Star Trek Film, every screening of Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Goonies, Aliens, Krull, Airplane, Fright Night, Tron, Last Starfighter, Cloak and dagger, Polterguist, Jaws, Beverly Hills Cop. Spielberg and Lucas were making movies for kids, classic movies were being pumped out by every studio. Even the B-movies such

as the Thing, Halloween, Big trouble Little China are all cult classics today. The big dumb action movie genre of the late 80's was still a few years off. The depressing 70's disaster/Godfather/ Ultra realistic emotional horror/bad disney movies was thankfully behind us.

I was young in the late 70's and was forced to watch many a bad Disney movie at the drive in as I fought to stay awake for Superman. I was fortunate to grow up during the golden age of cinema(Early to mid 80's). I was also fortunate that the director's tastes grew with me. Spielberg made more adult movies, sex and violence were commonplace, and ultra realistic action/violence was the norm. I could not imagine seeing Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan as a child. The comedies nowadays are funny, but they would not have been funny when I was younger. Luckily for children Disney/Pixar have been pumping out their best movies, but the true great cinema is unwatchable. Children are forced to be content with the new generation of bad Star Wars films and constant TV to movie failures. I was fortunate to be a child when I was.

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I made the mistake of taking a date to see Pulp Fiction. She was not impressed which I could not quite understand. Vincent Vega, "Punchy", the Gimp, Royalle with Cheese, Big Kanuna Burger, The Wolf, Chopper, "Butch", Foot Massage. I knew this movie was going to be a classic. Perhaps its a guy movie. Many of my favorite movies are "guy" movies I guess. I like movies that have catchy lines and great characters. I like great movie quotes that you can repeat over and over again. What happens when the whole movie is at such a level that almost every scene is a classic. What happens when you take some of the finest actors every assembled, put them in one movie, and are lucky enough that every single one of them have the performance of their careers. You get Pulp Fiction.

This movie opened slowly. Noone knew about it until word of mouth began to spread. Reservoir dogs had already taken shape as a cult classic, Pulp Fiction was a movie in a different league. Siskel and Ebert had to devote an entire episode to the movie to be able to say half of what they wanted to say about the significance of this film.

I have a tough time watching this movie in its entirety. It has too much going on, too many great scenes, and its pretty long. Christopher Walken shoots a five minute scene worthy of being one of the greatest scenes ever shot. Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta give absolutely commanding performances. I believe Samuel L Jackson won the academy award as did Uma Thurman. Bruce Willis has never been better. Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Amanda Plummer are all great.

Pulp Fiction's greatest scenes are not its action or drama. They are the simple conversations. This movie is about great characters, great writing, and great performances. Yes is "rips off" many classic movie scenes. I think it plays homage to them, making them better.

Star Wars is a permanent fixture in our culture. 100 years from now, when most every other movie has been forgotten, the Star Wars Trilogy will remain. I am only picking one movie per trilogy. The clear choice here is The Empire Strikes Back. When this movie came out in 1980 I already had more Star Wars merchandise than I care admit. Coloring books, action figures, lunch boxes, my artoo eraser and pretty much anything they had.

When I saw the movie I was left in awe. As other movies I loved as a child faded into distant memories, Empire remains the best.

I think people forget just how huge Yoda was at the time. He must have been the most instantly loved character to ever hit the movie screens, well until E.T. Everyone who was anyone had a Yoda shirt, or atleast a lunchbox. It still amazes me that Lucas dared put a "muppet" in a starring role. This was absolutely brilliant and daring. His swamp home was a filmmaking triumph. A swamp filmed indoors designed for a puppet. This was no small task.

This brings me to a reason why no modern movie will ever match empire's special effects. There were no cheesy computer graphics here. Every set was hand built, every spaceship a detailed model often costing 10's of thousands of dollars. The special effects crews were inventing technologies as they went, even inventing a new camera for shooting special effects.

It is very difficult to analyze Empire. Every character is a fixture of

our culture. Every phrase is atleast a rock band. Darth Vader is one of the greatest cinema heroes, as is Han Solo, Yoda, Lando. The whole Darth Vader-Luke father triangle is ingenious. The Luke-Lea kiss still makes me squirm and makes me doubt if Lucas had the story pre-written.

Empire is a true epic in sense of battles and beautiful sets. The pacing and changing of locations is perfect. I fell in love with movies partly because of this trilogy. The early to mid 80's was pure cinema magic for any child lucky enough to grow up during those times.

Die Hard as a top ten movie? This does seem a bit odd considering the wealth of great movies out there. I am also not the biggest fan of pure action movies. I love Arnold and Stallone as much as the next guy, but many of their movies do not hold up well. Take the time to sit down and watch Die Hard again. The movie is truly a classic. It is a classic in pacing, neverletting up, never a dull moment. It invented a new sub-genre of action movie. Gone was the action hero of the 80's. Willis set the standard for the new hero: vulnerable, witty, and more of a regular guy.

Rickman set the stage for the action bad guy. His character has been copied by countless other actors as the new breed of smart, witty and full of their own uniquely cool style villain.

The way this movie was shot, the way the music was scored was brilliant. Die Hard looks unique due to some excellent lens and color choices. It was head and shoulders above the movies of its time in pure presentation. It was not revolutionary like Jurassic Park, but for what it was it was very impressive. The sequels were also very high quality, making it one of four trilogies in my top ten. Sure modern movies have better choreography, better fight scenes, and have raised the bar action wise. That means nothing if the action is not believable, if the characters are not grounded in a sense of reality that we can care for.

I watched this movie every weekend for many months in college. This is the ultimate historical epic. The cast is amazing and too numerous to list. The character development is well done. The music

is moving and the action is perfect. This is the movie to match as far as

epic battles are concerned. The first two Lord of the Rings movies had epic battles, but not as good as Braveheart(Return of the King may change this). Epic battles are all about directing. The amount of work required to film these scenes must have been enormous. All too many times during a fight scene the camera is moving too quickly, or its too dark, or too fast. Gibson films both major battles perfectly.

The Bruce may be the best character in the movie. His relationship with Wallace is the heart of this film. Historically his betrayal of Braveheart is well documented. His lifelong guilt and eventual leadership of the Scottish people make him a very interesting historical figure. I like the way he is torn between survival and helping Wallace.

I loved the wedding scene early on between the young prince and the French princess(Sophie Marceau). There is no dialogue, just expressions. This is one of many greatly directed scenes. I also loved the flower scene early on, again a scene with no dialogue. The deerhunting incident, the final torture/death scene, the marriage of Wallace and his young love (Catherine McCormack) are all amazing scenes with no spoken word. Small scenes all have that extra small touch that puts

them over the top. The death of McCormack for instance. She knows she is about to die but you see her point of view as she looks over the horizon hoping Wallace will show. Gibson's death scene as well: He keeps looking at one child, a sweet innocent child in the midst of an enraged crowd.

There is humor here which does a good job breaking up the action. The exiled Irish king is portrayed as a madman, in a funny way. The young prince who favors young men, the father of Angus in all his humorous battle glory, and ofcourse the classic Scottish accents. "you dropped your rock."

What can I say? This movie is almost perfect. The three movies above it have the advantage of being trilogies. Braveheart is a stand alone classic. The "Ben Hur" or "Spartaus" of our generation, better than both, better than most.

First thing is first. The final shots of this movie were not really shot in Buxton Maine. I spent six years, 1 1/2 hours a day commuting to school there. Maine does not have that kind of red dirt which is common in California. That's ok, most of Steven King's books were not shot here.

The Shawshank redemption bombed at the box office, only to become one of the most popular rentals ever. Blame this on pulling the movie from theatres before word of mouth set in. The Internet movie database has Shawshank Redemption as the number two movie of all time. This is out of 100k people surveyed. Ofcourse they have the Godfather as the number one movie. Sorry Godfather lovers but boring does not mean good.

Perhaps the reason this was the most popular film of the 90's was the on screen Tim Robbins/Morgan Freeman duo. Perhaps it proved once and for all Steven King should not have devoted all his writings to horror, or perhaps it was the screenwriting.

Hollywood has made many good prison movies. This one truly stands out. Its all about character development and writing. We are transported back in time for two hours into that prison.

Times have changed, and that is not always a good thing. When this movie came out it was universally hailed as a masterpiece. A record 11 Oscars including Best Picture, and Best Actor (Heston). Today's critics often call it overblown and out-dated, and love to pan Heston's performance. I believe this is mostly due to Heston's political views and the tendency today to reject anything religious. I am moved by both the simplicity and power of this film. The performances are great, (Heston deserved his Oscar), the story is inspiring, and the chariot scene is still classic. I will always take real sets over computer animated sets.

This is a true epic in both scope and story. Perhaps the greatest epic ever made. The DVD sports many extras like a behind the scenes look at the 1920's version(they used real ships during the naval battle,

not models). Heston did learn how to ride his chariot.

Ben-Hur is the best of old Hollywood. Movies like Gladiator are great, and classic in their own right. The soon to be released Troy, Achilles, Alexander the Great, and Hannibal look to take the ancient world epic to the next level. They will all be compared to Ben-Hur. Not bad for a 45 year old film.

Brilliant - a romantic dramatic comedy that works. The plot is real. The characters are amazing. Nothing feels Hollywood here. Simple, yet extraordinary on so many levels. This film's greatest strength is in it's performances, most notably, Williams, who gives life to the best role of his career to date, a widower psychiatrist who must help a rebellious genius to come into grips with himself so he can learn to interact with others.

A great exploration of a misguided and wasted youth forced to discover himself by a gifted and deeply humane therapist. Another wonderful job by Robin Williams who makes everyone around him better for knowing him. This is not just William's movie. Obviously I loved him in this, But Damon is just as good. The two put together their best performances. Stellan Skarsgaard is also great. He finally gets to put his fine acting skills in a good movie. He has made many a bad B movie better with his presence.

The core of "good" Will Hunting is the conflict between mental genius and personal, unresolved childhood emotions that stand in the way of maturity & breaking the generational cycle of abuse.

Minnie Driver is annoying as the love interest in this movie. Unfortunately she does not realize this is a "guy" flick. The breakup scene was nicely done, but the "you're and idiot" line is a killer. She is a needed element in the story, I'm just not sold on the casting choice.

One final note: You know Damon wrote most of this. I can almost tell which scenes Affleck penned.

I attempted to read Lord of the Rings in elementary school, finally able to read the epic in Junior High, again in High School. I then read 20+ books on the history of Middle Earth, biographies on Tolkein, and eventually the twelve + histories published after Tolkien's death.

I had to come with grips with the fact that for all intent purposes The Fellowship of the Ring was turned into an action movie. For many the Lord of the Rings was the literary experience of their lives. This is the book they fell in love with. The true power of the written word is shown here. This book was responsible in shaping the entire fantasy genre. This is the book a father would give a son, the great literary experience he enjoyed as a young man. Lord of the Rings was huge in the 1960's and remained popular to this day.

Yes I do think these films were not meant to be action movies. That being said this is the exact reason why the transition from the page to the screen was such an accomplishment. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Phillipa Boyens are the true heroes here. They changed many scenes, changed characters, but managed to remain true to the characters.

With the exception of Pulp Fiction, this is the finest cast ever assembled. There are no bad acting jobs here. Ian Mckellen owns Gandalf. Iam Holmes is equally powerful as Bilbo. The two together are magnificent. Sean Bean also turns in one of the greatest performances of recent years as Borimer. You can see his internal pain and conflict.

The work put into these films is astonishing. First story boards, then animated with actors, then computerized in an attempt to find the best angle, then shot with models, and finally filmed. Every scene with the Hobbits is "faked". These are regular sized actors who have to look a third of the size of the rest of the cast. Many tricks were used such as having the actors sit away from each other and building two sets for every scene. One for the large cast member, one for the smaller cast member. I cannot remember a more difficult task ever tackled by Hollywood.

I have no doubt the Return of the King will win best picture this year. It may be the greatest book ever written.

Perhaps the closet thing to a perfect movie. Indiana Jones set the benchmark for every movie hero of the last 20 years, a Humphry Bogart Esque action hero, the hero scoundrel. Combine epic level storyline, special effects and action scenes that redefined moviemaking with the best director/producer combo ever in Spielberg and Lucas and you get a perfect movie. Take the time to watch this film again. It is a true epic and does not get nearly the credit it deserves. Too many action scenes will always strip a film of critical acclaim. The fact that these scenes take 20 times longer to shoot and plan than a regular scene is rarely ever considered. It is difficult to sit down and truly appreciate a film this good once the film has become a part of our culture. The energy this film possesses along with the originality may never be matched.

Saluting monkeys, Bad dates, and the best snake scene ever. Classic lines: "nazis, I hate these guys:" "Asps, very dangerous, you go."

Archeology turned into a heroic and exciting profession! Who ever thought the day would come. Listen to the sound effects whenever Indy punches the bad guy. Pure power, especially on surround sound speakers with the bass turned all the way up.

1980 was a great year for movies having two of my top three movies ever.