The Train (1964)

John Frankenheimer’s World War II “The Train” is a classic beyond compare. Maybe the grimy, sweaty black and white photography gets in the way? No idea. This film is perfect. Burt Lancaster plays French railway manager Labiche, a control freak who reluctantly and then obsessively plays out a suicide mission to stop a Nazi colonel (Paul Scofield) from looting France of its most treasured historic art -- irreplaceable Monets and Picassos, etc. The genius plot trick: Labiche and his fellow saboteurs don’t care a whit about the paintings. This is personal pride, and screwing the Nazis. At the end in eerie imagery, our star and director sternly ask if even one life violently sacrificed to save paintings or any other treasure, land, or national pride, is worth the toll. War is fruitless. Another reason to endlessly love this film: The destruction of a massive rail yard and a three-way way crash between three engines are shot in-camera, single takes. These scenes astound. You can near smell the ash and smoke. Lancaster does his own stunts, sliding down ladders and jumping trains, with Scofield’s villain as one for the ages. Quite possibly my favorite film ever. This is epic film-making. A+

Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (2011)

Never discount Tom Cruise. Whatever his quirks, he is a blazing fireball on screen, and his latest Ethan Hunt outing -- “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” according to the credits, but “Mission: Impossible: There’s an App for That” by my reckoning from the countless Apple plugs -- is the best of the series. Brad Bird, director of animated hit “The Incredibles,” has fashioned the Hollywood Action Film of 2011, a spectacle of stunts – from the side of Dubai’s Burj Khalife skyscraper to a high-rise robotic car park in central Mumbai – that boggles the mind because I’ll be damned if I could see the CGI seams. Using IMAX cameras, Bird makes a packed theater gasp in wonder at the high heights and then wince at every plummet. The plot shenanigans are mostly second-rate as Hunt and his M:I team (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner) hunt a madman (Michael Nyqvist) who sees nuclear war as humanity’s best hope. Renner’s dull agent is so badly written, you can see hope die in the actor’s eyes when he has to speak. But the stunts and action atop the world’s tallest building are for the ages. Witness Cruise re-born as an unstoppable movie star. A-