Jaws (1975)

“Jaws” is the “Godfather” of beach movies. There is nothing better or scarier, even with all the sequels (3-D!) and rip-offs and homages (“Piranha” and even “Alien”). All the “Gidget”-like fun flicks from before? “Jaws” killed ’em. New to BluRay, “Jaws” is better than ever in crisp, glorious widescreen with sound racketed up so every thump of John Williams’ score booms inside your gut. The picture is so clean one can see the horizon miles past the shaken trio of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as they battle a killer shark in the waters of New England. I need not discuss plot, right? Everyone knows it. And no wonder: Steven Spielberg, in his mid-20s, out of his league, and working with physical special effects that barely functioned, pulled out a masterpiece that can never be duplicated. Not with all the CGI in the world. The panic and confusion off screen spills onscreen where anything can happen. The shark doesn’t appear for an hour, but by then Spielberg has pulled us in with brilliantly drawn characters and intense trickery. Shaw rules as the doomed shark hunter and has the best intro ever in a movie. A+

GoodFellas (1990) and Heat (1995)

Watching Robert De Niro burn his unparalleled talents in shit such as “Little Fockers” or “Righteous Kill,” it’s unbelievable that just 20 years ago he had two of the best films in his storied career and of the decade under his belt. “GoodFellas” – directed by Martin Scorsese – and “Heat” – directed by Michael Mann – are crime genre classics, eternally re-watchable and endlessly fascinating. The man is a monster in both films, of cinematic talent, and of men’s character. 

“GoodFellas” opens with this line, spoken by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a Bronx-born hood who was mobbed up by age 14: “Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Wow. This is Hill’s story, from rise to vast rule to ketchup and egg noodles in the Midwest. De Niro is his mid-level mob boss. Joe Pesci costars in an infamously profane and violent performance so shocking, it’s bewildering to know the man he plays was far more dangerous. The film is flawless, so amazing good and detailed (the food alone!), it’s a thrill to behold for a 15^th viewing. My words do not do it justice. 

In “Heat,” De Niro is a master criminal of a high-end gang (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore co-headline his crew) being chased by an obsessive detective (Al Pacino, also scraping bottom in “Righteous” and “88 Minutes”) in Los Angeles. We also follow the cop’s home life as Mann’s three-hour epic film spreads far and wide, almost too wide – an icky serial killer plot thread goes nowhere. The actions scenes are you-are-there-real and spectacular, including a long finale outside the Los Angeles airport that boomed in a theater.

De Niro is the star of both, the ballast holding each film together, keeping the madness, violence, crazy details, and other actors (Pacino goes “PACINO” a few times) cemented and whole, but let it be known these worlds are the creation of, respectively, Scorsese and Mann, both in unmatched top form. Know this: “GoodFellas” was based on a true story, but “Heat” inspired a criminal duo to pull off a daring bank robbery that eerily mimicked the mid-section scene here.

GoodFellas: A+ Heat: A

The Muppets (2011)

My childhood has a pop culture Holy Trinity: “Star Wars,” Superman, and “The Muppets.” So, a new film – after a long silence following the 1999 dud “Muppets from Space” -- is massive in my life. Ask my wife. (No. Don’t.) So, is this rebooted comedy-musical farce, with Jason Segal and Amy Adams as the human leads, all it can be? No. Devout to classic Muppet spirit? No. But it is a start. The plot concerns the old gang -- Kermit, Miss Piggy, Scooter, Fozzie, Gonzo, etc. – reuniting to save not just the rundown Muppet Theatre, but their felt bodies and ping-ball-eye selves, and souls, too. And these things have souls. Better than CGI. It is daft, and spends far too much time on its human stars and has too many fart-shoes jokes that seen unwise, but it’s a blast. As with the TV show and original films, guest stars abound. Jack Black leads the pack. Heaps of hip comics. But no Steve Martin, who knows his Muppets. I wanted that. But I loved seeing Scooter again, and hearing “The Rainbow Connection.” Just wow. I can’t wait for more. RIP Jim Henson. Oh, Chris Cooper raps. Hilariously awkward. B+

Hellboy (2004)

Guillermo del Toro’s “Hellboy” is among the best comic book adaptations out there. And why not? The Spanish master of cinema (he had “The Devil’s Backbone” behind him, and “Pan’s Labyrinth” before him) has a massive bright-red-skinned, sawed-off demon-horned, cat-loving superhero as his star, one who smokes – PC alert! – cigars.

Del Toro doesn’t shy away from the comic book tone, as so many others do to be as audience-pleasing as possible, he embraces it. He even has “Hellboy” comic books be part of the early plot as a young novice FBI agent (Rupert Evans) is assigned as a baby sitter to the prime agent of a top-secret super-natural subdivision of the fed. That’s the tough hero Hellboy, played by Ron Perlman, a character so bizarre to look at onscreen, one marvels still this film ever got made. Or produced a sequel. Perlman, by the way, gives a star-making performance, and clearly is having a blast as the center of attention. He’s the Hulk meets Dirty Harry meets Lucifer, as a misunderstood good guy, and the color of a red Crayola. John Hut, always good and just oozing majesty is Hellboy’s adaptive father, a scientist in love with the strange and unusual.

Part comedy, part horror and action, and all World War II Spielberg Nazis as bad guys opera, this film is a delight from frame one to frame last, because of del Toro’s love for the bizarre, and fantastical sci-fi nonsense. The main villain is none other than Rasputin (Karel Roden), or at least the comic book version of infamous Russian madman, over the top evil and yet grounded as one would expect from the guy who made “Cronos.” (Perlman starred in that gem and “Blade II,” too.) Del Toro’s onscreen pranks include “anything goes” sights in New York to an assassin with sand for blood, and a box full of kittens in need of rescue. (A box full of kittens!)

This is how you take a film from ink-stained comic book pages to the big screen, just go for it. Excellent special effects, makeup and art direction throughout, it’s clearly been inspired by the similar “Men in Black.” Great popcorn fun. A

The Long Good Friday (1980)

“The Long Good Friday” is an absolute pinnacle classic gangster film in the U.K., place of my birth. Here in the States, not so much. It may not have glory and prestige of “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas,” but it belongs in the same esteemed crime family. This is a hard-scrapple bitchin’ bloody mafia flick about a common London mafia thug who has risen to the level of Godfather, and now he wants to go legit.

It’s 1979, and in several years’ time, the city is expected to play host to the Olympics. (It’s fictional, youz guys.) Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) wants to buy up London’s real estate abutting the Thames River for development, with promised riches beyond compare to come. His investors? The American Mob. Guy ain’t going legit, just thinks he is, or tells us he is. Oh, but the IRA is bugging about, as one of his men has double-crossed them, and ended up knifed in a gay bathhouse.

The title is on purpose. It’s a long and bloody Easter weekend when Shant’s mob life goes to a violent hell, with bombings, murders, and threats galore, and one man will end up nailed Jesus-style to a floor. Hopkins has never been better or scarier, or more volatile, you can smell the brimstone coming off the guy through the TV set. When he rips a man’s throat apart with a broken whiskey bottle, it’s still a shocker, even on a 10th viewing. (I love this film.)

Helen Mirren is just amazing as Shants’ girlfriend-slash-brutal brains of the mob operation; every equal smarts to Hopkins’ brutality. She has to be one of the greatest actresses ever, period, end of story. Royally good. I will not stoop to a “Queen” joke, err, damn. Sorry.

The film starts off a puzzle box, with seemingly random scenes of dealings and bar hook ups and body dumps, all coming together at the end, in a wordless climax that should have won Hopkins an Oscar and can stand aside any scene in the more well-known films made by Coppola or Scorsese. Scotsman John Mackenzie is the director. He never made a better film and he died without merely a blip in the news this past June. Criminal indeed. (I cannot say I have seen his other work.)

Oh, and bonus points for “Remington Steele” and James Bond fans, this is Piece Brosnan’s first film rule, and he plays a wordless assassin who goes from man-on-man bathhouse shower action, I mean the kind that would send GOP voters into shock, to killer in a flash. But, hey, he uses a gun, so GOP voters will dig that, eh? Seriously, if you dig crime film, watch this, then put it in your collection. A+

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Donald Sutherland plays John Baxter, an academic and artist/restorer, obsessing to the point of tedium over the exact size and shade of colored squares for bas relief sculptures on his latest facelift project, a centuries old church in a dreary, wintry Venice. The work is good, it keeps him distracted from thinking about the soul-crushing drowning death of his young daughter back home in England, the brokenness pooling inside his wife, Laura (Julie Christie), and the fact that he foresaw the girl’s death moments before it occurred.

When a small gesture – the closing of a restaurant window – brings Baxter and his wife into contact with two sisters (Clelia Matania and Hilary Mason), one of whom is blind and psychic, lives will unravel. For the blind woman can see the dead daughter, and the girl has a message for daddy: Flee Venice or die.

That is the premise of Nicolas Roeg’s justifiably famous psychological horror/thriller “Don’t Look Now.” There is a serial killer here, yes, but the suspect is off to the side, a secondary plot tangent, whereas the real onscreen horror is about a couple desperately trying to come to terms with unfathomable loss and guilt, and further losing their paths – mentally and physically – along the way to recovery. The latter part is literal, as the streets and alleys of Venice can be an endless puzzle box, where light often is absent and unreachable. Even during daylight.

I have been there, to Venice, and I have never seen its dark side – and it has a dark side, no lie – put to better use than here. This is a city where walking around a corner can bring you to the safety of a market square or a pitch black dead end. Dread follows this couple.

Roeg’s story, loosely based on a short story, and his editing and camera work, and the refusal to use subtitles for spoken Italian, constantly keep the viewer off balance. Some scenes play out mysteriously and suddenly, and it is not until the end credits roll that one realizes their significance. A second viewing is a must. Also our heroes are not so lovable: They abandon their surviving child to a boarding school back in England after he watched his sister drown. Who does that? One pauses at their parenting skills, and ponders the meaning of such a send-off.

Absolutely among the most terrifyingly real films I’ve ever seen, and winced through twice in a row. Sutherland I don’t think has ever been better, or Christie more lovely and hurt, and as the blind woman with a special sense all her own, Mason nearly steals the film in the final freakish minutes.

Not for all tastes that’s for sure, it contains one of the most notorious sex films ever put in a film. The drowning of the child, at the opening of the film, is also startling, leaving one cold and uneasy. Emotions throughout the film, including the climax, cling to you. Or they dd to me, even writing this blog piece days after viewing the film.

Incidentally, or not, “Now” has one of the most layered depictions of a Catholic priest I have ever seen. The bishop (Massimo Serato) overseeing the renovations dismisses the detailed work by Baxter. Having suffered his own tragedies, he shrugs off stucco choices and the shapes of gargoyles, and all the brick and mortar worry. Baxter foams and protests, “This is important!” It’s just a building, the priest says, looking with grave concern at his troubled and grieving employee and friend, “God has more important priorities.” A+

The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” is the perfect romantic comedy-drama. The set-up: Jack Lemmon – never better, even in “Some Like it Hot” -- is C.C. Baxter, a cog in a massive insurance company machine. He’s a low-level drone, but a wicked tool to the big guys upstairs. The tool’s tool: His apartment is a fuck pad for the big bosses to bring their on-the-side girls. One of the girls is elevator operator Fran, played by the mesmerizing Shirley MacLaine, and poor sad sack C.C., well, he digs her. But Fred McMurray – Mr. Clean Cut Disney Film Man – is the prick cheating on his wife with Fran, and any another gal who comes his way. When Fran attempts suicide, it’s C.C. who saves her. The rest of the story is manna. Lemmon’s C.C. is a treat of a man, a nice guy who wants to move ahead, willing to cut corners, but still goofy enough to use a tennis racquet as spaghetti strainer. MacLaine is divine as a woman who can’t see herself ever truly falling in love, her smarts ignored by piggish men. Acting, script, every gag set-up, every line delivery is perfect. I love this film. A+

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

In the opening seconds of Sonny Wortzik’s daring daylight robbery of a Brooklyn bank, it all goes wrong. Sonny – played by Al Pacino, when his legend was unbeatable – can’t even get his rifle out of a flower box correctly. He fumbles. Then one of his two accomplices flees, and then Sonny finds out the truck already picked up the money. Dude is left looking at less than $1,500. This is the start of Sidney Lumet’s classic drama-thriller “Dog Day Afternoon,” a film about a damned lost soul, so desperate to change, for a chance, that he destroys the thin string he hangs by. Based on an incredible true story, “Dog” is Pacino’s acting showcase -- a maladjusted Vietnam vet in a sexual pickle too riotous to explain. Just watch. His Sonny seems closer to real criminals, as we call them, than 99 percent of the flicks out there. (I covered enough crime at newspapers to know.) Lumet’s clockwork precision plays well, the movie seems to spin out in real time, in a throbbing, sweating, raging New York City long gone. John Cazale plays Sonny’s hard-case accomplice, an unhinged guy not afraid to kill or be killed. One of the best films from the 1970s. A+

Rocky IV (1985)

I’m biased on any “Rocky” film. Back in Philly during the 1980s, when a “Rocky” movie was released, work, school, transportation, and pretzel-eating stopped. It was our civic duty in the City of Brotherly Love to watch the latest pounding and last-minute triumph of Rocky Balboa, patron saint of boxing, American flag boxers and Sylvester Stallone’s enduring career. Here, Rocky fights Russian behemoth Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) who towers over our hero like a father to his toddler son. There is death (so long Apollo), there is Survivor (“Eye of the Tiger” never gets old) and training montages galore, before the grand finale. Stallone, also writing and directing, serves up the best storyline since the First Chapter, I mean the 1976 and Genesis, and a kick-ass rock-hard Cold War flick that seems genius now. Lundgren by sheer force takes the film, starting when he throws Carl Weathers across the ring as if he were a grocery sack. A true jaw-dropper scene even now. The fight scenes are bloody fantastic. Stallone was a god of my youth, I cannot criticize him. Everyone together: “Aaaddrriaaan!” A-

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

If “The Outlaw Josey Wales” is on TV – unedited – I’m there. This tale of a supposed “outlaw” (a farmer) out for revenge against the Union troops who slaughtered his family stands tall among Clint Eastwood’s many classics. Eastwood plays the seeker of vengeance as he alternately is hunted by Union forces, and tracks them himself. Along the way, Josey befriends a young doomed gunslinger (Sam Bottoms) and – in a hilarious and touching moment -- a Cherokee Indian (Chief Dan George) who’s smarter than anyone on screen. The action, humor and blood throughout are killer, especially a scene where Josey rests as blood-lust Unions cross a nearby river. The scene’s set-up – and the all-knowing cackle of an ancient hick woman – is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes. The long ironic commentary here has America portrayed as a land of lawlessness and savagery, run by European-Christian descendents who killed untold numbers of Native Americans for … their alleged (and of course untrue) lawlessness and savagery. This film is un-PC as hell, and that’s part of its beauty. This is Eastwood as his highest powers, equal to “Unforgiven.” A+

Toy Story 3 (2010)

*SPOILERS ABOUND* You will mourn every lost or thrown out toy in your life after seeing “Toy Story 3,” the final chapter in the wildly popular, vastly successful Pixar franchise. I did. And I still am, days after seeing what has to be the best “third chapter” film ever made. (Even “The Godfather” series could not pull off that trick.) This gem packs an emotional wallop like nothing ever made by Disney. It is about nothing more than the need to be wanted and remembered, a child crossing into adulthood, and the notion that throwing your cherished toys out is akin to sending them to hell. And there’s a literal inferno at the film’s end. All in a "G" movie.

The story of this “Story”: Young Andy is now 17 and looking toward college, leaving home and packing away all his childish belongings to the attic, donation, or … the trash. Andy hasn’t touched his toys – stashed in a trunk -- in years. Many, including Bo Beep, have been, for lack of a better term, killed: Thrown out. Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest, fear the same fate. Ten minutes in, this animated CGI film is aiming for the adults in the audience, even as children laugh at the jokes and thrill to the action. It got me.

But I digress. The plot thickens: Woody, Buzz and pals end up at a daycare. There, countless children will play with them and cherish them, and the toy world is run by a soft pink bear that smells of strawberry. Heaven? Not so. The children are wild beasts who torture their toys, and Lotso Hugs Bear is a dictator, a vengeful, angry Tennessee Williams character stitched onto the cold-as-ice warden of “Cool Hand Luke,” dangerously sweet Southern accent and all.

Woody, of course, wants to go back to Andy. But is that the best course of action? After a daring escape from Sunnyside that tips its hat to “The Great Escape,” the toys find themselves at a garbage dump, inches away from a blast furnace. Hell. And, by God, I knew all was going to be OK in this film, but as Woody, Buzz, Jessie, etc., all face death, and hold hands as they sink toward flames … wow. I got verklempt. I haven’t done that in a film since “E.T.” in 1982.

The animation is perfect, crystal clear and yet subdued. At every chance, a lesser animated film would go for the brightest effect, but Pixar pitches this “Toy Story” perfectly. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen are, of course, perfect. And the new cast members bat with equal gifts: Michael Keaton as Ken, Ned Beatty as that dastardly pink bear, and Timothy Dalton as a toy named Mr. Pricklepants. The music is priceless.

“Toy Story” 1 and 2 had their own layers of story and themes: jealousy, growing up, wanting to be wanted. But this is a whole new ballgame. If having a relative throw your old vertically enhanced Spider-Man action figure (it was not a doll) into the trash is sending it to hell, then giving it to another child to play with is heaven. And what better heaven is there than a child’s imagination? My childhood mashed the worlds of Star Wars, G.I. Joe, The Black Hole and the Six Million Man in perfect, epic battles, and it made sense to me. To think most of those toys are in a trash dump somewhere is heartbreaking. My 8-year-old self would be furious with the adult who didn’t care enough to save much of anything. (My favorite toys: A set of Coca-Cola trucks, and anything “Star Wars” or G.I. Joe.)

The final scene is perfect. Andy has his toys back and, unwittingly pushed by Woody, hands over his treasures to a young girl who lives nearby. As Andy drives off, I thought of the finale of “E.T.”, where the wrinkled alien left Elliot behind, to go off to his own world. Here, it’s the boy that leaves for a new world, knowing that the joy of a small girl outweighs his need to hold onto the physical past. He always will remember his toys. As Woody and Buzz and all stay behind, they grow up as well. Andy is not God. They are not here on Earth solely for him. If anything is “God” to a toy, it’s the limitless imagination of a child’s mind. Any child’s. The themes are akin, even without a glowing finger pointed at a boy’s chest: “I’ll be right here.” It’s unspoken. But, wow. Our toys will be always with us. And, in some weird way, us with them. Pixar is a masterful film studio, and a master story teller. A

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

What a banner year 1967 was for film, “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Graduate,” and “In the Heat of the Night.” But “Bonnie and Clyde” tops them all. If you’re older than 13, you know the story: Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) rob banks, shoot, kill, and die in a hail of bullets. In this Arthur Penn-directed tale, the couple stumbles into their life of crime, botching their first robberies at a shuttered bank and a grocery, with family (including a frantic sister-in-law played by Estelle Parsons) close by. The first murder is almost accidental, the others come easier. Penn dishes out the dark humor in droves, always with an edge of violence that still shocks with its exploded body parts and proximity. Beatty and Dunaway themselves explode as the original gangster couple with heaps of personal issues, faults and an unending hunger for stability during a financial depression that provides none. I could rave about Gene Hackman as an elder brother Barrow, but it’s Denver Pyle (yes, Uncle Jesse!) who burns brightly as a lawman with a raging psychotic lust for murder, barely masked by his quest for justice. A+

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

There is no finer, happier old-fashioned Technicolor classic Hollywood romp than “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” It follows – of course – Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) as he battles Prince John (Claude Rains), woos Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland, never lovelier) and defends King Richard, God and country. Yes, Flynn was a creep, a drunk and quite possibly a pedophile, but his screen charisma is undeniable – he is the quintessential movie hero. “Robin Hood” feels like the beginning, the alpha if you will, of every action/adventure big-screen film that Hollywood has ever made -- cliff-hangers, kidnappings, chases, the hero about to be (gasp!) hanged and a plethora of sword fights. It still hasn’t been topped. I’m sure the gay innuendo (Prince John is beyond fey, Will Scarlett is far too happy to Robin’s, umm, wingman) was apparent to the discerning eye during the “innocent” time of this film’s release, and that might make this another first -- the ironic Hollywood film. Oh, and Basil Rathbone (what a cool name) as Sir Guy of Gisbourne – nearly steals the movie in that final sword duel. Just awesome. A+

Die Hard (1988)

There’s nothing I can say about “Die Hard” that hasn’t been said before. It’s not only the action classic that set in motion an entire subgenre (remember when every 1990s action film was “Die Hard” on a …), it’s my favorite Christmas flick not involving a child’s air rifle. Or Jesus. Scratch that, it is my favorite Christmas flick. period. Don’t like that? Yippee-ki-yah ... You know the rest. I need not go into plot, if you don’t know how wonderfully Bruce Willis kicks ass in a L.A. skyscraper against a rogue group of terrorists-as-thieves, than you’re under age. Or ignorant. Alan Rickman, in his big screen debut, is hands down the coolest villain ever. His voice. The suit. The glint in his eye. Even as I root (every time) for Willis’ bleeding barefoot all-too-human scared-shitless cop John McClane, there’s never been a viewing where I don’t think, “If I were bad, I’d be Rickman’s Hans Gruber.” The dickering around to paint cops/feds as dicks is a unneeded crock, was in 1988, and still is the case. But the Everyman Hero, that elevator shaft, the helicopters, the C4, the way Michael Kamen turns Christmas tunes pitch dark, and the final confrontation and “Yippee-ki-yah” – drool. Best. Action. Film. Ever. A+

Favorites: Superhero movies

The Best
1. The Incredibles (2004)
2. The Dark Knight (2008)
4. Superman (1978)
5. Flash Gordon (1980)
6. Iron Man (2008)
7. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
8. Hellboy (2004)
9. Batman Begins (2005)
10. X2: X-Men United (2003)

The worst
1. Batman & Robin (1998)
And in no order, and not all inclusive: Batman and Robin (1995), Catwoman (2004), Daredevil (2003), Ghost Rider (2007), The Punisher (1989), Spawn (1998), Zoom (2006), Superman III (1983), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987).

2004: Best and Worst

The Best
1. The Incredibles
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Shaun of the Dead
4. Kill Bill Vol. 2
5. Maria Full of Grace
6. Sideways
7. Vera Drake
8. Ray
9. (Tie) Spider-Man 2 and Hellboy
10. Infernal Affairs

The Worst
5. (Tie) Catwoman and The Punisher
4. The Stepford Wives
3. Fat Albert
2. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
1. The Phantom of the Opera

2003: Best and Worst

The Best
1. American Splendor
2. City of God
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4. (Tie) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1
6. The Magdalene Sisters
7. Finding Nemo
8. Dirty Pretty Things
9. Lost in Translation
10. Thirteen

The Worst
5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
4. Legally Blond 2: Red, White and Blue
3. (Tie) Daredevil and Paycheck
2. The Core
1. The Matrix Revolutions

2002: Best and Worst

The Best
1. Spirited Away. Hayao Miyazaki's animated tale of a girl as hero, fighting for mom and dad is perfect, and, I think, from another world. 
2. Road to Perdition.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. Far From Heaven. Todd Haynes riffs on 1950s American values as the lie they always were, then and now. Julianne Moore, goddess.

5. The Pianist

6. 25th Hour. Spike Lee digs James Ellroy deep in this drama about a dealer facing prison, weeping over 9/11. Edward Norton rules it. 

7. Rabbit-Proof Fence

8. Adaptation
9. Catch Me if You Can

10. (Tie) Insomnia and Spider. Nolan and Cronenberg delve deep into FUBAR minds, one a cop, the other a schizo killer. They are not too far apart, nor are we.


The Worst
5. Time Machine
4. Die Another Day
3. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. An action film so over-the-top, ugly, and dull, it could not pass for a Sci-fi TV movie. Pity Antonio Banderas.
2. Collateral Damage
1. Signs. Water. That is all I will say. M. Night Shyamalan went full dementia here, and never recovered, a high-career destroyed. I hate this film. Hate it.

2001: Best and Worst

The Best
1. Memento
2. Mulholland Dr.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
4. Moulin Rouge
5. Black Hawk Down
6. The Devil's Backbone
7. (Tie) Monsters Inc. & Shrek
8. Amelie
9. Gosford Park
10. In the Bedroom

The Worst
5. Planet of the Apes
4. The Mexican
3. The Musketeer
2. Behind Enemy Lines
1. Blow Dry

Favorites: Comedies

1. The Producers (1968
2. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
4. Young Frankenstein (1974)
5. The Apartment (1960)
6. Spinal Tap (1982)
7. A Christmas Story (1984)
8. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
9. Airplane! (1980)
10. The FBI Story (1959) -- Seriously