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Funny things can happen in Hollywood... (<click here and see!) Our Favorite Movies
"As Time Goes By".
16. TITANIC. This is going to be one of the all-time classics, about how to keep love warm and alive even when the water is numbingly cold and you happen to be the hero who happens to be quite dead. Our hearts do go on with certain kinds of love, and even death cannot stop that love.
17. AMERICAN TAIL. Feival wins the day. But oh! That music! "Somewhere Out There" reminds us that someone IS watching the same moon we are watching, defeating the idea that we are alone. Never say never, Feival!
18. SOMEWHERE IN TIME. A miraculous little film, which succeeds more as tone and poetry than as cinematic grandeur. This story shows us scenes containing the most beautiful that Jane Seymour has ever been on film, and she's one beautiful lady in any movie. Here it hurts to look at her, she is so appealing. And Chris Reeve don't look too bad either, the ladies tell me, even with that dumb tiny bowler perched on his head. But again, the music gets you in your heart and it won't let you go. And all you wish for is a happier ending, somewhere in time, where the keeper of time can make a place for these two clock-crossed lovers.
19. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Okay, I know, this is REALLY everybody's all-time favorite. Jimmy Stewart in a Capra-ish Everyman role primed and honed to pluck the strings of your heart. And it gets better every time you see it. Especially the dance sequence when the gym floor opens up over the swimming pool. We need you again, Jimmy. May your spirit return.
20. LONE STAR. Tough, gritty little comtempo Western that is so real you can smell the salsa and taste the fear Kris Kristofferson engenders. Makes you think that certain instances of cold-blooded murder might actually be justified, and that's pretty dangerous territory for your supposedly civilized head to be in. And they leave you hanging on a sweet ending: "Are they or aren't they?" (and anyway, does it really even matter in the eternal scheme of things?)
21. HIGHLANDER. Secular semi-immortality. Scottish brogues. A Laughing Villian who eats heavy metal for lunch. All this and a well-seasoned Sean Connery doling out ice-cold witticisms in his polished, virile, self-deprecating and ironic way to make you believe in laughing victory. This movie is not perfect, but it resonates the right sparks all across the sky. There can be only one, and this is it.
22. BLADE RUNNER. Harrison Ford in his darkest role. A far cry from Han Solo, but a lot more vulnerable, and believable, in many ways. Enjoyed Edward James Olmos as the weirdest tweedle-dee-dum cop ever. But the chases through the glassteel, dark, surreal canyons of next-century Los Angeles-cum-Tokyo really shake loose the imagina-neurons and give a mood to everything. No wonder this is a cult movie. Watch out though: you may wind up rooting for the androids.
23. CLUELESS. Funny, funny, funny. VERY funny. Alicia Silverstone has the right balance in this excursion into '90's high school ultra-yuppie preppy nescience. This is actually "Alicia in Wonderland", and the mad hatters and jabberwockies are everywhere in disguise, making a mockery of sex, drugs, rock-and-roll and everything in between the lines. But you'll come back to this little gem over and over for more laughs.
24. NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION. With apologies to "It's A Wonderful Life," "White Christmas," "Miracle on 34th Street," and a few others, NLCV is just about our favorite Christmas movie, and this is a tour-de-farce deluxe for Chevy Chase. His best and funniest presentation on film. A little on the scato side in places, it still makes you wish there was a sequel worth it in the series. Even Little Old Ladies laugh at this crazy thing. Don't try some of the things you see in this movie at home, kids. But it's still fun watching Chevy try them.
25. GROUNDHOG DAY. This may be Bill Murray's greatest contribution not only to the movies, but also his greatest contribution to the study of the twentieth century American male ego. Andie McDowell is at her most charming and appealing here; Murray's foil and eventually, his quest of the heart. She is an outstanding actress who people are going to remember a long, long time. Having spent some early years in the culture near rural Pennsylvania where the movie is set, for me the movie resonated with nostalgia. But the humor is universal. Who among us has not fantasized that every day our lives it is the same, boring and uncreative? Bill discovers what it is that moves life from the repetitive to the progressive. In what may be the funniest line, weatherman Bill looks to producer Andie and says about himself, deadpan as always, "Take care of the talent…" Yeah, right, Bill. Anyway, you let your acting talent take care of this movie, and your talent helped make it superlative. Beats anything you ever did on SNL. 26. CHARIOTS OF FIRE is surely one of the very best movies about courage ever made. A man with a will of iron stands up against the world...and his own God-given giftedness...to preserve a sense of honor before God. And then he gets to run the race of all time. His competitor says, "It says in the old Book...'He who honors me, I will honor'..." Yes. And honor honored does not go unrewarded by the One who upholds honor. 27. HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY touches you in your heart of hearts if you really watch it. A John Ford effort that spans masculinity and femininity in young and old and explores the bonds of family love like few movies have ever done. Filmed in black and white, you can see the green of the valley in your mind as if it were your own soul, your own valley, your own love. 28. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY is a chicks' movie, more or less, but there is a lot of wisdom here for everybody, delivered with a style that sticks. Meg Ryan created a whole new American idiom with this movie: the idea of "a diner." 29. THE MATRIX is what we are all afraid of in some part of our mind. Keanu Reeves does a good job in this but Carrie Ann Moss steals the show, in my opinion, with acting way, way up on the top scale. Electric lady comin' atcha! 30. CITY SLICKERS I (No, not II in a million years...yuckerino!) was a very funny little movie that had a very healing idea underneath it: "Get your smile back...life is a do-over." Thanks, Billy! 31. GONE WITH THE WIND is the greatest chicks' movie of all time because (a) Rhett Butler utters that famous line at the end that appeals to the latent masochism and self-doubt in so many women ("Frankly, my dear...I don't give a darn..." [or something like that]), (b) because Scarlett is the one who we come to understand REALLY is the one who doesn't give a d...( is she trhe first CLUELESS lady on screen or what?) , and because (c) in the end Scarlett shows she's the strongest anyway because she sigths and says "Tomorrow is another day," despite the fact that her world has just become toast. Cheers, Scarlett. And cheers, all you adoring ladies. Scarlett was right. One other thing about this movie: Scarlett and Rhett keep their clothes on, and somehow we still get the idea that this is a worthy love story. A little different from the present trend in "romance" on screen, huh? 32. SHANE is the definitive Western in many respects. The former hero gunfighter feels like a loser, a drifter, a man ashamed of his bloody past, and here in this story of honor, for a brief moment in time he redeems himself by doing a heroic deed for the common people and becoming a glowing, golden legend in the eyes of a boy, and then rides off into the sunset with that great soundtrack music playing behind him. And oh, yes, his honor is tested mightily by the temptation to forbidden love with a beautiful woman, which he calmly and resolutely withstands, an ethical choice that might have taken a different turn had an actor like, say, Clint Eastwood been in the role of the protagonist. Filmed with the snowy Grand Tetons as a backdrop to many of the scenes, you love the look in Alan Ladd's eyes as he surveys his choices. Jack Palance plays a cunning villian who you love to see get his due when the day of reckoning comes for him. Shane is a keeper. 33. ON THE BEACH was made back in the 50s when people were afraid of global nuclear war and the paranoia level was pretty high. In the movie the ominous danger is that the people in Australia fear that a great cloud of radiation from WW3 is going to come cover their continent and irradiate everyone to death. We know now that that is not the way the physics of a nuclear war work exactly, but rather that nuclear winter from the dust and smoke of the explosions and fires would be just as deadly in the long run after all plant and animal life died in the years-long night. But the real heart of this story is the love between the characters played by the ever-sensual Ava Gardner and the ever-cool Gregory Peck characters. Fire and ice up against swiftly coming death and hopelessness evoke Dylan Thomas' line about raging against the fall of night. And the dying of the light. Well, in the movie WW3 was set for 1964 and it didn't happen. But this is still a poignant story and a period piece about what it was like to be living in a world under the threat od global nuclear way. Hope we never have to do that scene again. 34. THE SEVEN SAMAURAI is long on honor but short on the hokum action of so many short-attention-span American action movies of the early 2000s. So a lot of folks miss this one. However, for the serious student of film, this is a beautiful galaxy of starry little acting miracles. Our American clone, "The Magnificent Seven", a Western wonderfully actor-led by Yul Brenner, filmed a few years later, was a pretty good imitation. But the Japanese version is the spiritual giant. All the good buddy movies like "Lethal Weapon" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" before it can trace their bonding/chemistry strength back to TSS. Banzai! 35. SHADOWLANDS is a movie to make an intelligent person cry. Anthohy Hopkins and DEbra Winger are just wonderful as a pair of "lapsed atheists" who fall in love in the early 50's in England and whose search for beauty draws them both close to the Eternal and what it is to search for meaning in a place of beauty mixed with deep pain and grief. Don't miss the scene at the end where C.S. Lewis is trying to comfort the boy and finally all his intellectual walls come crumbling dowen as he dissolves into humanness and tears, tears which open the way into newness. This is the kind of movie one wishes the movie makers would risk their reputations to make. It is so good you want another piece of Lewis's life and love.
Don't spill your popcorn or your cokes, please!
Things you would never know without the movies... ...All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555. ...If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick's Day parade - at any time of the year. ...All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her. ...All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French Bread. ...It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down. ...Once applied, lipstick will never rub off - even while scuba diving. ...The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty. ...If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition -even if you haven't been carrying any before now...You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home...Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do...If your town is threatened by an imminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor's first concern will be the tourist trade or his forthcoming art exhibition...The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris...A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds...When paying for a taxi, don't look at your wallet as you take out a bill - just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare...Kitchens don't have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead...If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing panties and bra...Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every morning even though their husband and children never have time to eat it...Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames...The Chief of Police will always suspend his star detective - or give him 48 hours to finish the job...A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of RFK Stadium...Medieval peasants had perfect teeth...Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant...It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations...Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments...All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off...It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting...A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty...It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts - your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors...When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage....No one involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion will ever go into shock...Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite...When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other...You can always find a chainsaw when you need one...Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds - unless it's the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside...Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at that precise moment. (Thanks to G.C.F.L. for this little bit of wisdom.)
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