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Everybody Loves Lists: Reloaded
It's been a year and nearly ten months since the last time I did this so it looks like you're about ready then?

It takes a certain amount of intelligence, familiarity, and obsession to list the best hundred of anything. It also demands an inordinate surplus of self-confidence or just-plain moxie. With regard to my subject here, I have all of this. I live and breathe the narrative medium known as the motion picture. I understand how it succeeds and how it fails. And I have seen more films than you. Those whom I call friends can attest this brute fact. ** note: I'm not really this gay - it just sounds funny to be so self-aggrandizing **

I also boast cinematic hubris to spare. If you think your favorite film is one of the best one-hundred of all time, yet it appears not on my own Top 100 Films of All Time list (which I will shortly unveil), I am sorry to have to break you the news, but... your film (Magnolia, Titanic, Goodfellas, American Beauty, Forrest Gump, A Clockwork Orange, et cetera) is, quite simply, not as good as The Road Home (#100).

And that is that.

There is no use arguing the matter because you are wrong and should accept that you do not know what you are talking about. So stop complaining and leave this to the professionals—yes, I was once paid twenty-five dollars for my review of Beautiful Girls and that indeed makes me a professional.

Really, I think it comes down to this. The one detail that qualifies me for this task is the fact that I am right. Therefore:

The Dane's Top 100 Films of All Time

Seven Samurai
Year: 1954
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Running Length: 203 minutes

Comments:
Quite simply the most astonishing piece of epic filmmaking ever produced, Kurosawa’s tour de force lasts well over three hours, but never feels like it. The acclaimed director pulls out all the stops to craft a film both elegant and rugged, both heroic and tragic, both epic and personal, and both action-packed and introspective. Kurosawa’s control over actors, scenes, cinematography, and even the weather are legendary and this film demonstrates that talent beyond questioning. Filled with moments of great tension and others of touching poignancy, Seven Samurai trots at a strong pace towards its finish until the final half-hour when it hits a full gallop to reach its climax. The chaos of a stormy downpour conspires with the chaos of honest swords-and-horses battle to present the finest of cinematic climaxes.

Josh Becker is quoted as saying, "The thing that I still love about movies is that, for the course of the time you are watching a movie, you can absolutely believe there’s a God. There’s the hand of a creator leading these people to their logical conclusions." While I really do believe in a God bringing people to their conclusions in reality, Becker’s point is well-taken. In film And that hand works to no better result (though it remains untraceable for the film’s duration) than it does in Seven Samurai and its conclusion.

Snow Falling on Cedars
Year: 1999
Country: US
Director: Scott Hicks
Notable Actors: Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, Max von Sydow. James Cromwell
Running Length: 127 minutes

Comments:
How this film escaped becoming touted as one of the best of 1999 is beyond me. Delicious filming combines with a truly heartfelt story and solid acting to form one of the most moving of moving pictures ever. As many times as I’ve seen the film, I still cannot help being overcome with its crushing grandeur.

Fight Club
Year: 1999
Country: US
Director: David Fincher
Notable Actors: Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Helena Bonham Carter
Running Length: 139 minutes

Comments:
David Fincher has a flair for looking at life through a scarred lens, but with Fight Club he takes that wounded perspective and channels it into a tale worthy of its gaze. This is the kind of film that adjectives like "gritty," "edgy," and "dark" have long been employed to describe—so much so that those words have been rendered as trite cliché. Yet each truthfully describes this masterpiece of vision. Others follow. Caustic. Absorbing. Angst-ridden. Slick. Hard. Violent. Sexy. Nihilistic. Cynical. Psychotic.

Or more to the point: perfect. Fight Club is one fine piece of filmmaking. From its flawless acting to its fine-eyed editing to its trancing soundtrack to its blinding cinematography to its bile-induced narrative to its mind-bending screenplay to its masterful direction, Fight Club stands as a film without flaw. Its tension and anger keep its viewer strapped-in, afraid to miss what may come next. It builds and builds and builds toward an unstoppable point of release and when all is said and done, the film has just begun to take its affect on the viewer.

Fight Club is one of those rare films that stays with a person through the days, weeks, months, years after having seen it. It is an experience to be puzzled over.

Casablanca
Year: 1942
Country: USA
Director: Michael Curtiz
Notable Actors: Humphery Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre
Running Length: 102 minutes

Comments:
Thoroughly romantic in spite of his wish not to be, Bogart’s Rick oozes that kind of charisma that every man wishes were his. Though the adventure and drama of the WWII-era story is entertaining enough on its own merits, Curtiz’s world-renown film is built on a rich character study of a man stripped of all he loved and then offered it anew, though at a steep ethical price. Will the man who has given up on ethics renounce his morality in deed as he has in word? Will he prove to be the hero we so vaguely want him to be? Such are the questions and tensions so trenchantly built into the wonder that is one of the most enduring love stories of all time.

Citizen Kane
Year: 1941
Country: US
Director: Orson Welles
Notable Actors: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten
Running Length: 119 minutes

Comments:
With his ill-advised and thinly-veiled bio-pic of William Randolf Hearst, Orson Welles simultaneously created what is arguably the most influential films of all time and doomed his career as a filmmaker. Despite Hearst’s childish politicking and blackball of Welles and everything he did, Citizen Kane truly is a magnificent cinematic creation. Every single short builds on the one that preceded it and ushers in the next. The story itself is as ambiguous as the man it portrays—so many questions are left to the viewer to conclude on his own. Did Kane die? What did Rosebud represent? Was it all a dream? Kane, far and above just an extraordinary film, sets forth a legacy of cinematic virtues and well-deserves its place in the pantheon of film giants.

Gattaca
Year: 1997
Country: US
Director: Andrew Niccol
Notable Actors: Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin
Running Length: 101 minutes

Comments:
One of the most meaningful films I’ve seen recently, Gattaca eschews most of the fancy, high-budget effects typical its genre. The science of this believable science fiction takes a backseat as we watch human drama unfold. And as ever, it is God’s creation that holds our interest above and beyond man’s creations. Mixing elements of crime thrillers, romances, and A Brave New World, Niccol’s best film leaves us with a moral without ever preaching to us. It respects its audience too much for that.

Before Sunrise
Year: 1995
Country: US
Director: Richard Linklater
Notable Actors: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Running Length: 105 minutes

Comments:
In 1995, Richard Linklater crafted a film starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy that may be among the most thoroughly romantic films ever committed to reel. More about character than circumstance, Before Sunrise established the kind of relationship between two souls that rarely finds its way into any kind of story - whether film or literature. Certainly neither Hawke's nor Delpy's character is without flaw. At times, my brow furrowed at the things they'd say or choices they'd make. Yet this realism is part of the charm, part of the illusion.

Essentially a long conversation (similar to Linklater's Waking Life - though with much more grounding and not nearly as pretentious), the couple, Jesse and Celine, have the kind of personal conversation that I like to think have characterized the best and funnest of my dates - though there's is sustained in a way that only cinema can allow. The love is true and in its own muddled way, pure. I cherished this film.

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Cinema Paradiso)
Year: 1988
Country: Italy
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Running Length: 123/170 minutes

Comments:
A film of wonder and delight, Nouvo cinema Paradiso (its Italian title) follows via flashback the life of little Salvatore as he matures far into adulthood and tries to put meaning to his life. At all times sweet and endearing, Tornatore’s production stands as a love letter to the cinema. Written delicately with humour and heart to spare, Cinema Paradiso is entirely romantic and pulls unabashedly at every movie-lover’s heartstrings in a manner neither gratuitous nor formulaic. As the final scene rolls, I can only sit and marvel—even as Salvatore does the same.

Note: I retract my previous thoughts regarding the Director's Cut.

12 Angry Men
Year: 1957
Country: US
Director: Sydney Lumet
Notable Actors: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley
Running Length: 96 minutes

Comments:
Accept no substitutes. Remakes are for the birds. This is one of the most well-acted films you’ll ever find. With nearly the entire film taking place in on room (and its adjacent bathroom), there is no fluff to get in the way of high drama. In what seems like an open and shut verdict for a murder case, Henry Fonda is the one out of twelve jury members who thinks the defendant might be innocent. On the hottest day of the year, reasons are the last thing the others want to hear—yet still, ever the man of his convictions, he pursues truth over convenience and is in for the fight of his life. And the life of the defendant. Utterly gripping.

Brazil
Year: 1985
Country: UK
Director: Terry Gilliam
Notable Actors: Jonathon Pryce, Michael Palin, Robert De Niro
Running Length: 142 minutes

Comments:
Turning his Python-esque skills of socio-political skewering toward the technological revolution and governmental bureaucracy, Gilliam molds a disturbingly humourous image of a world gone haywire. Never one to offer a blind optimism Gilliam fights to keep his hero’s feet on the ground, no matter the cost, and the results of this struggle against his own protagonist are incredible to watch. One of the most astounding things is that any of Gilliam’s films ever got made in the era before digital manipulation.

Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke)
Year: 1997
Country: Japan
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Running Length: 133 minutes

Comments:
Set in an ancient and mythological Japan, Studio Ghibli’s tale of a young prince on a quest of knowledge and truth is truly epic in scale. Miyazaki excels in producing films choking on rich characters. Never demonizing villains or patronizing heroes, he builds worlds where antagonists are charitable and humble, while protagonists bicker, rage, and exhibit jealousy. In short, his films are never simple.

And yet they felt like it.

Miyazaki’s hand of creation is so warm and gentle that one hardly notices wear he is being led—he only knows that it is a place of wonder. As all of Studio Ghibli’s animated productions, Mononoke is lush in its animation. Remember all those cheap Hanna-Barbara cartoons from the 70s? Compare them to the average Disney film. The animation was awful by comparison. Now replace Disney with Mononoke and put Disney in Hanna-Barbara’s shoes. That is the quality invested in this film.

C'era una Volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West)
Year: 1968
Country: Italy/US
Director: Sergio Leone
Notable Actors: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Claudia Cardinale
Running Length: 165 minutes

Comments:
Though The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is his most accessible film, Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West is his most accomplished. Lazily meandering through beautiful shot after beautiful shot, Leone takes his time in offering a small story on a grand scale. The opening scene alone qualifies this film for my list, but there is really so much more. The music by Ennio Morricone is inescapable and its themes wax and wane appropriately throughout. Henry Fonda is chilling as a villain and Bronson is surprisingly reserved. Robards, however, chews scenery so well that he comes off as the star of the film even though his part is secondary. Altogether beautiful.

Schindler’s List
Year: 1993
Country: US
Director: Stephen Spielberg
Notable Actors: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes
Running Length: 197 minutes

Comments:
In every way disturbing, Schindler’s List stands in the hallmark of wartime drama. Spielberg deftly crafts a response to the horrors that mankind inflicted upon itself during the Holocaust. In fact, though he did not intend it (the focus is on the heroism of the film’s titular protagonist), Spielberg has created one of the strongest indictments of humanity ever to reach the screens of mainstream America. Gorgeously filmed in black and white, Schindler’s List paints bleakly the landscape of human cruelty and degradation that scarred the conscience of a generation. Though I can only watch it sparingly, I hope with all my heart that the film is never lost to any generation for it will always serve to remind us of what man is capable if left unchecked.

Das Boot (The Boat)
Year: 1981
Country: Germany
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Notable Actors: Jürgen Prochnow
Running Length: 216 minutes

Comments:
When critics talk about "edge of your seat excitement" or "fingernail biting tension," they can really only be comparing the film to which they refer to Das Boot. The tension is crushing and the anticipation palpable. There is no film that is so absolutely draining as is this German war film. The heroes are trapped on the U-boat to which they are assigned by the threat of the Allied war machine. Every submarine movie since 1981 is a pale imitation. Against my usual opinion on these matters, I highly recommend viewing a dubbed cut (rather than subtitled), so you can indulge fully in the horrifying claustrophobia of the film without distraction of having to read. Oh, and definitely watch it in the dark.

12 Monkeys
Year: 1995
Country: US
Director: Terry Gilliam
Notable Actors: Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Madeleine Stowe
Running Length: 129 minutes

Comments:
Time travel films have always been intriguing and the paradoxes they necessarily employ are provocative, but if that is all 12 Monkeys had to offer, then it wouldn’t be where it is. While the film treads tired ground, it adds enough to the sub-genre to remain fresh and alive. And outstanding performances by Willis, Stowe, and Pitt (especially!) add a depth and range to the whole endeavor unreached by other time-travel stories. Slightly cautionary, as par for the Gilliam course, the film develops a strange rhythm of action and exposition that allows the viewer to slowly piece together a puzzle that is never quite unveiled—even at the film’s end.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Year: 1965
Country: UK
Director: Martin Ritt
Notable Actors: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner
Running Length: 112 minutes

Comments:
Ritt’s adaptation of LeCarre’s brilliant spy novel stands as the preeminent espionage thriller for all time. Burton plays the dejected ex-operative as if he were simply playing himself (and who knows, he might have been). As in the real world of thieves and liars, there are no happy endings here and the bleakness of the film resembles the loss of heart in the ‘60s as much as it does the mortal despondency that has been part and parcel to the human existence ever since Adam took the fruit offered him by Eve. It was about time someone took note of that and both played it and then played it well (the ‘60s were full of these kinds of joy-absent yarns, but so few were any good; for an example of this, please see Five Easy Pieces—or better, don’t).

Double Indemnity
Year: 1944
Country: US
Director: Billy Wilder
Notable Actors: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwick, Edward G. Robinson
Running Length: 107 minutes

Comments:
"I never knew that murder could smell like honeysuckle."

I never did either. But it can. Billy Wilder, with the help of MacMurray, Stanwick, and the inimitable Edward G. Robinson, makes it smell as sweet as anything you could possible imagine. Did I mention Raymond Chandler who adapted the screenplay? No? Well, I ought to have.

Double Indemnity plays as the noir film that all the other noir films are playing catch up to. The hero is a murderer. Cold blooded too. He murdered for money. And he murdered for a girl. And in his own words: "I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money. And I didn't get the woman." Beautiful.

The Shawshank Redemption
Year: 1994
Country: US
Director: Frank Darabont
Notable Actors: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman
Running Length: 142 minutes

Comments:
Gorgeously filmed, this adaptation of a Stephen King film is a gripping wonder. You really can’t wait to see what’s gonna happy to poor put-upon Andy. At some times sorrowful and at other uplifting, Shawshank runs the gamut and ends on a note of encouragement. It probably would’ve been higher on my list but it’s about a half hour too long.

Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)
Year: 1966
Country: Italy
Director: Sergio Leone
Notable Actors: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach
Running Length: 161 minutes

Comments:
While Leone’s spaghetti western style was made famous by A Fistful of Dollars (his Eastwood-starring remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly will remain his most enduring film. Every element is beautifully orchestrated, from the sparse dialogue to the artistic camerawork to the defiant and animal soundtrack (the ay-yi-yi theme is still the first gunfight music that comes to mind in the social consciousness). The threeway gun-duel in the closing minutes of the film is still the best (and most emulated) gunfight ever filmed. The fact is, I hated westerns before I first saw this film a just out of high school. And now a western is Number 12 on my all time list. Impressive to say the least.

Lost in Translation
Year: 2003
Country: US
Director: Sofia Coppola
Notable Actors: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovani Ribisi
Running Length: 102 minutes

Comments:
Simultaneously hilarious, somber, and heartfelt, Sofia Coppola's ode to the lonely stranger traveling the cold satellite of planet Earth is convincing in its treatment of human frailty and the need to hold onto something beyond oneself. While Scarlett Johansson is suitably bored and disillusioned in her role, Bill Murray plays to the top of his game. He seems very at home in this foreign land. He plays a somber part with the kind of serious comic genius that has been slipping from Jim Carey's grasp movie after movie. I don't think there's really a single thing about this movie that I don't like. Or would do differently.

The Third Man
Year: 1949
Country: UK
Director: Carol Reed
Notable Actors: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton
Running Length: 104 minutes

Comments:
Penned by Graham Greene specifically for the screen, The Third Man wallows in the nature of man. The time is postwar. The place is that bungled intersection of international enclaves in Vienna—where chaos reins and the seeds of the cold war grow in the warm muck. Pitting moral ambiguity against crusadership, Greene settles us in a comfortable place between the two: we are not entirely evil, but neither can we be entirely shiny. The filming owes much to Citizen Kane and we are treated to an enigmatic chase through the city’s sewers at the climax. Welles’s input into the film was minimal, though he did write his famous speech atop the big Ferris wheel: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." Bravo.

El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil’s Backbone)
Year: 2001
Country: US
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Notable Actors: Eduardo Noriega, Marisa Paredes, Frederico Luppi, Fernando Tielve, Irene Visedo
Running Length: 106 minutes

Comments:
The best of all ghost stories, del Toro’s film of an orphanage during 1930’s Spanish civil war exudes confidence, style, and heart. His flair for the visual is evident but never intrudes on the story he’s telling. Revelations unfold bit by bit and piece by piece until he has given a well-rounded and compassionate picture of the characters at the center of this drama. While certainly delving into the uncanny, The Devil’s Backbone never drifts into that realm of cheap scares and should be respected for it. The special effects are gorgeous in that they do not usurp the screen and overshadow the characters they augment. Amazing film.

Dark City
Year: 1998
Country: US
Director: Alex Proyas
Notable Actors: Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland
Running Length: 100 minutes

Comments:
Forging German Expressionism, classical noir motifs, and a sci-fi dystopia into a hardened steel top-notch storytelling. With reserved use of effects, Proyas crafts a sinister world of spiraling madness where nothing is as it seems and those who seek truth are only moments from oblivion. Atmosphere is at a premium as well, and the world of Dark City throbs with dark, anachronistic excitement.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Year: 1962
Country: US
Director: Robert Mulligan
Notable Actors: Gregory Peck, Robert Duvall
Running Length: 129 minutes

Comments:
From now on, every time I read Harper Lee’s book or even hear the name Atticus Finch, I will without doubt imagine Gregory Peck. His portrayal of the honest defense lawyer cannot be undone. He is honest. He is caring. He is wise. He is everything that others should want to be. I want to be him. Beyond this, To Kill a Mockingbird is just one of those great films. The kind that makes you smile contentedly. And the kind that makes you rage internally.

Punch Drunk Love
Year: 2002
Country: US
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Notable Actors: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Running Length: 89 minutes

Comments:
This one surprised me. I knew not to expect Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, or The Wedding Singer, but I was expecting more lackluster screenwork from the indulgent chair of director Paul Thomas Anderson (yes, I still think Magnolia was not as good as Evil Dead II). Instead, I was happy to find a winning tale of love and redemption, of the transformation of a life of cacophony to a life of harmony. And while I normally frown upon obvious imagery, this time, I not only didn't mind it, but I even cheered its use. And honestly, though prior to viewing I had doubts about Sandler in a not-comedic role, I can't think of a better casting choice for this story.

À la folie... pas du tout (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not)
Year: 2002
Country: France
Director: Laetitia Colombani
Notable Actors: Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan
Running Length: 92 minutes

Comments:
To avoid the trap of spoiling a good movie, I will simply leave it at this is about as fine a charming love story as I have ever had the joy to sit through. I sat at seat's edge wondering how it would all turn out. Audrey Tautou brilliantly defies typecasting and expectations that were raised after her faerytale sweetness in Amelie - she plays far more seriously here and the film is better for it! As well, the films conceit of replaying event from various perspectives kindles a Rashomon-like sense of ambiguity, causing the viewer to wonder for a time exactly where the truth of things lies. But only for a time :-)

Ordinary People
Year: 1980
Country: US
Director: Robert Redford
Notable Actors: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton
Running Length: 124 minutes

Comments:
Russ made me watch this one last year, some months after I had released my original list. I remember from my youth, watching Siskel & Ebert's review of the '80s and wondering why a film with such a dulling title as "Ordinary People" would make it onto both their lists of top films from that era. Know I know. This is about as good a film as can be made. You're right there with the characters the whole way. You feel what they're feeling. You grieve when they grieve and you feel released as they find release. You also want to see the destruction of Mary Tyler Moore as she portrays one of the greatest sceen vilains of all time.

La Cité des Enfants Perdus (City of Lost Children)
Year: 1995
Country: UK
Director: Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Notable Actors: Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon
Running Length: 112 minutes

Comments:
This is one of the strangest movies I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. Not awkward, Blue Velvet strange, but a wonderful, fantasy kind of strange. Caro and Jeunet solidify their reputation for the baffling (began with their 1991 classic, Delicatessen), offering the tale of a knight of sorts questing to rescue not the fair maiden (who is already by his side) but the little child he has adopted as a brother, kidnapped by the villainous Cyclops. Ever producing the unexpected, the French duo turns a very dark film into one of joy and excitement.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Year: 1964
Country: US
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Notable Actors: Peter Sellars, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden
Running Length: 93 minutes

Comments:
A riotous look at American sexuality and nuclear warfare, Dr. Strangelove should be remembered firstly for its brilliant satire, turning one of the country’s most feared happenstances (recall the events of the early ‘60s; or at least what you remember from Blast from the Past) into knee-slapping commentary. Also notable is Peter Sellers’s rendering of three distinct characters (including the titular) throughout (for another fine example of this sort of thing, please see the hilarious Kind Hearts and Coronets in which Alec Guiness plays, I believe, ten distinct characters). How Kubrick got this film past the censors is beyond me, but I’ll ever be glad he did.

Lord of the Flies
Year: 1963
Country: UK
Director: Peter Brook
Running Length: 92 minutes

Comments:
No other film so thoroughly, or properly, dismantles the urban legend of man’s basic goodness as does Peter Brook’s vision of William Golding’s disturbing novel. Charting with intrigue and horror the descent of man into his natural state of chaos and hatred, Lord of the Flies draws a chilling portrait of the human frame. Still more disturbing, the film uses societal cherubs to foment and encourage this human degradation; ever regarded as sweet and innocent, it is children we watch spiral into chaos. It is children who embrace depravity. It is children who become the hateful. It is children who embrace anarchy. It is children who become the murderers. And we observe them travel the path from civility to depravity with utter and horrifying believability. So visceral is the effect that years later, I still quake at the memory.

The Empire Strikes Back
Year: 1980
Country: US
Director: Irvin Kershner
Notable Actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams
Running Length: 124 minutes

Comments:
While its father started it all, Empire is where the goods are. Nearly every substantial piece of mythology in the series begins here. Quite a bit darker than its forerunner, Empire takes more time for the establishment of its characters beyond the mere heroic archetypes introduced in 1977. Luke’s training in Dagobah. Han and Leia inside that thing’s belly. The confrontation between Luke and Vader. The introduction of the duplicitous Lando Calrissian and Yoda the wise master he is. So many great bits find their screentime here in the second installment in the Star Wars trilogy!

Trois Colours: Rouge (Red: Three Colors)
Year: 1994
Country: Poland/France/Switzerland
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Notable Actors: Irene Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant
Running Length: 100 minutes

Comments:
While all of Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy are excellent films through both thematic elements and the more brute storytelling, Rouge strikes me as the best of the three (though Bleu's musical is hauntingly gorgeous). Rouge is a story of redemption and second chances and though these are themes that play over and over again in films in every era, Kieslowski treats it in intereseting fashion and keeps it from tasting stale. The interaction between Irene Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignant is charming if slightly unnerving. Kieslowski continues to favour the colour of the movie's name in his filming and red is featured here quite prominently and to, I think, good effect. As well, Kieslowski offers a sense of closure to all the stories of the trilogy in the last minutes of this film.

O Brother Where Art Thou
Year: 2000
Country: US
Director: Joel Coen
Notable Actors: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman
Running Length: 106 minutes

Comments:
If this is the face of musicals for the new millennium, then count me in and get me a heaping spoonful! The Coen Brothers’ artistic romp through the South via Homer’s Odyssey is funny, witty, and dang pretty to listen to. Some of the lines George Clooney utters are among the most humourous in cinematic history, but what really grabs me is the singin’. Backwater and folksy, the entire O Brother oeuvre demands concentrated listening. Which is why I bought the soundtrack (to a musical?!). And which is also why that soundtrack won for Best Album of the Year at the Grammies. Oh yeah, and the filming is real neat too.

High Fidelity
Year: 2000
Country: US
Director: Stephen Frears
Notable Actors: John Cusak, Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Tim Robbins, Catherine Zeta Jones
Running Length: 113 minutes

Comments:
Though he is loathe to admit it, every man can relate to Rob Gordon. Not only does he do terrible things birthed from his everyday mania, but his thought-life makes his actions seem pleasant in the comparison. High Fidelity chronicles the progression of one man as he comes to grips with the fact that he is a selfish, needy misfit who has been subconsciously sabotaging his own life for years, unable to truly love or be loved. Conquered by everyday, mortal fears of commitment, Rob exemplifies the contemporary male in a manner both humourous and disturbing—and at all times honest.

At first blush, Rob’s character (actually, his lack of character) makes him despicable. Until one realizes that he and Rob are not so different after all. Every tragedy of conscience in which Rob indulges hit far too close to home to be ignored. And as the viewer watches Rob perform self-therapy and come out a man with hope and a future, he cannot help but analyze his own life to clear away some of the cobwebs of human lunacy. In all ways that matter, High Fidelity is intensely human and humane—and will resonate with me for the rest of my life.

The Lord of the Rings
Year: 2001-2003
Country: US
Director: Peter Jackson
Notable Actors: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom
Running Length: ten hours?

Comments:
Lord of the Rings is the first great fantasy to be successfully brought to the big screen. This trilogy represents the hopes and dreams of fans of the genre as it finally brought respectability and mass appeal to the ideas and concepts they've loved for years. Never before has a fantasy epic done so well at being taken seriously as a genuine work of art. Though there are moments that might inspire unlooked-for chuckles, for a nine-plus hour adventure, that's not bad at all. Really though, the premiere reason to endorse LOTR is its unabashed relishing of escapism and the fact that it defies audiences not to fall in love with its characters and care about their quest.

Le Fableaux Destin d’ Amélie Poulain (Amélie)
Year: 2001
Country: US
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Notable Actors: Audrey Tautou, Dominique Pinon
Running Length: 122 minutes

Comments:
Romantic and wonderful, Jeunet’s film of fantasy and love skips and leaps with childlike energy. Strangely dark, Amélie never seems it and in spite of the moral ambiguity about her, Amélie seems ever-resistant to the cynicism and cruelty of real life, preferring instead to live in her imagination. And as she lives in her imagination, for the space of two hours, we live in Jeunet’s. I can’t wait to see what he does next!

Pulp Fiction
Year: 1994
Country: US
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Notable Actors: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Uma Thurman
Running Length: 154 minutes

Comments:
If it weren’t for this film, probably half the bad films in the late ‘90s would never have been made. That’s how powerfully charming this violent and sexy piece of trash was. All of a sudden, directors couldn’t fit enough "hip" cultural references into their films. All of a sudden writers couldn’t squish enough verbal diarrhea into their screenplays. And while it was usually a far cry from quality in their films, Tarantino somehow made it work. Perhaps it was the roguish charm of his actors or the unbelievability of their circumstances or maybe just the fact that it still felt like something new, but whatever the case, it worked.

Edward Scissorhands
Year: 1990
Country: US
Director: Tim Burton
Notable Actors: Johnny Depp, Wynonna Ryder, Vincent Price (voice-over)
Running Length: 100 minutes

Comments:
Unlike the average entry into the Burton oeuvre, this tale of a Frankenstein’s creature with heart to spare actually shares its title character’s heart. Filling its viewer with wonder and excitement, Edward Scissorhands paces through the tragic life experienced by anyone who has ever felt lonely and removed from the center of society’s adoration. Likely all men feel as Edward—as if his scissors were somehow metaphorical for the human inability to reach out as we wish. No, perhaps not our inability, but rather those tools of wonder and fear represent that thing which prohibits us from reaching out—that one thing, unique to all of us, that makes us feel as if we were misfits, unloved and unlovable. Even as Edward derives a certain pleasure from simply knowing that he is loved, so too does every man. How often and easily do we forget that though we may be different, there is always someone who will love us. Burton’s touching faery tale serves well as a reminder of what is important to life.

The Godfather
Year: 1972
Country: US
Director: Francis Ford Copolla
Notable Actors: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire
Running Length: 171 minutes

Comments:
It took me years to steel myself up for watching this one. It's a fairly well-known fact that I'm no fan of mobster movies. I did enjoy Miller's Crossing and thought that Once Upon a Time in America was worthwhile, but on the whole the genre bores me and I don't find I have sympathy for the principles. That said, the scale of The Godfather drew me in almost unavoidably. Now I know why it consistently finds itself in the Top 10 of these kinda lists. While it didn't make my Top 10, #39 is nothing to sneeze at and that I would even place a mafia film on The List should speak for itself.

Memento
Year: 2000
Country: US
Director: Christopher Nolan
Notable Actors: Guy Pearce, Joe Pantoliano, Carrie-Anne Moss
Running Length: 113 minutes

Comments:
The infidelity of memory. Christopher Nolan's sophomore film creation, the noirish Memento, bleeds a violent forgetfulness. And a painful ambiguity. And a bleak uncertainty. His amazing and abrupt study of mental corruption plays with the viewer's expectations and leaves each one with a different understanding of "what really happened."

The film creates that same kind of tension that is found in all mysteries by allowing the audience only selected pieces of information at a time and only as the final scene ends does the viewer have an accurate portrait of what has really occurred. Or not. Nolan, by superb direction, turns what could have been a lackluster tale of vengeance (a la Payback or The Patriot) into something much more. While dealing handily with the pain of forgetfulness, Memento delves, at heart, into an exploration of how easy it can be to convince oneself of something other than reality simply because it's more comfortable to believe the lie than the truth.

Touch of Evil
Year: 1958
Country: US
Director: Orson Welles
Notable Actors: Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh
Running Length: 95 minutes

Comments:
In spite of being betrayed by the film industry on all sides, Welles was still able to make the odd film here and there (and have it edited to shreds by production companies). Several years ago some notes came to light and Touch of Evil was re-edited into a form that resembles as closely as possible what is imagined to be Welles’s original intent for the film. And you know what? Who cares if it does! It’s a great film regardless. And Charlton Heston plays a Mexican cop (you can’t get any more realistic than that!).

Before Sunset
Year: 2004
Country: US
Director: Richard Linklater
Notable Actors: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Running Length: 80 minutes

Comments:
Taking place almost moment for moment in real-time, Linklater's long-awaited sequel to his amazing love story, Before Sunrise, this resumption of a romantic aquaintance nine years ealier is a voyeuristic treat for anyone who enjoyed the first film. Linklater allows his principles to ramble on in dialogue so refreshingly honest that we have to believe that it's ad-libbed and unscripted. But it's not. Linklater's screenplays are just so careful to represent real dialogue that they're indistinguishable from reality (except for the fact that none of my friends speak as smart as Jesse and Celine). The pair have grown in their ways since they last met in their early twenties. They're simultaneously more idealistic and more disillusioned. They, like all people, are a strange and wonderful mixed bag of thought, emotion, and moral ambiguities. And so, they are a joy to watch - and most so when they're being honest.

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)
Year: 2001
Country: Japan
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Running Length: 124 minutes

Comments:
Miyazaki’s sense of wonder and imagination has not been diminished by age (the director/animator was born in 1941 eleven month’s before that bygone day of infamy); if anything, it has been honed and cultivated. A manic adventure into the realm fantastic, Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (its Japanese title) quickly develops into a throbbing, pulsating Alice in Wonderland. Only hopped-up on meth. And with good art.

Scratch that. Great art.

While the American animated form languishes in bland simplicity and uninspired characters, Miyazaki’s pen and brush breathe out full-formed inhabitants of lush and colourful worlds. So adept is Miyazaki’s hand here, the viewer stops worrying that he is watching a cartoon and is drawn without reserve into this incredible world of gods, bath houses, magic, love, and little lost girls.

It’s a Wonderful Life
Year: 1946
Country: US
Director: Frank Capra
Notable Actors: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore
Running Length: 130 minutes

Comments:
Perhaps one of the best beloved Christmas movies of all time, Capra’s classic is not even really so much a Christmas film as it is a film dedicated to the question of the worth of a human life. And in answering that question, we are all encouraged and can’t help but hope for our own lives.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Year: 1975
Country: UK
Director: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Notable Actors: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Running Length: 91 minutes

Comments:
Honestly, this is the funniest film of all time. The laughs-to-minutes ratio defeats all other comers by miles. There are so many humourous moments or laugh-out-loud lines that I couldn’t begin to quote them all to you (we’ll leave that to some of you—who I know for certain will wish to begin immediately). This is Python at its height. In fact, the film is so funny that if I want to laugh at every joke, I have to break the film into two viewings because, quite simply, I run out of laughs.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Year: 1988
Country: UK
Director: Terry Gilliam
Notable Actors: John Neville, Eric Idle, Sarah Polley, Oliver Reed, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman
Running Length: 125 minutes

Comments:
The dawning of the Age of Reason. Wednesday. Such is the beginning of a cataclysmic battle between reason and rationality on the one side and fantasy and wonder on the other. As society plunges headlong into technology and industry, it seems that whimsy and awe and imagination and fantasy are relics from a past never to return. But not if the illustrious and indefatigable Baron Munchausen has anything to say about it. This last of Gilliam’s fantasy extravaganzas should not be missed. Every jot and tittle of its screwball glory should be taken in and enjoyed.

Star Wars
Year: 1977
Country: US
Director: George Lucas
Notable Actors: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guiness
Running Length: 121 minutes

Comments:
In 1977, a cinematic phenomenon changed the faces of movies for the rest of the century. For good or for ill, you can blame George Lucas for the endless parade of explosive blockbusters that threatens our theater chains every summer. But at least, for all its reliance on big explosions and special effects, Star Wars had heart. And moxie. Not everyone could imagine resurrecting the space opera and not everyone imagining the resurrection of the space opera could accomplish it so well as did Lucas. Boasting lovable characters and an exciting tale breathing life into a cultural mythos enjoyed since time immemorial, Star Wars not only resurrected the space opera, but breathed life into a then stale sci-fi genre.

And it galvanized a culture. My childhood would not have been the same without Star Wars. I’m not certain how much movie/toy merchandising went on before this point, but from the time I was five (a year after the film’s release) ‘til many years later, there were always Star Wars figures laying around. In fact, I still have a Chewbacca for some odd reason on a shelf in my house (and come to think of it, I have a Chewy on top of my computer at work as well).

And yes, Star Wars was the first film I had ever seen on the big screen. My mom took me to see it at Big Newport and I had to cover my ears during large sections of the final reel. But man! What an experience!

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Year: 1957
Country: UK
Director: David Lean
Notable Actors: William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness
Running Length: 181 minutes

Comments:
Every so often the films that are hailed as classics deserve to be hailed as such. This is one of those. I remembered this being a good film. Heck, I remembered it being a great film. But it wasn't until I watched it after seeing To End All Wars that I realized just how good it really was. On the one hand, I had a film that was pretty decent, that told its story in acceptable fashion, but felt like a long movie. On the other hand, I had a film that was in every way excellent, that told its story with verve and reverence, and (despite being quite long) felt like a pretty short movie. Don't get me wrong, I liked To End All Wras okay. It's just that The Bridge on the River Kwai remeinded me what it was like to experience great filmmaking.

The Empire of the Sun
Year: 1987
Country: US
Director: Steven Spielberg
Notable Actors: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Joe Pantoliano
Running Length: 154 minutes

Comments:
The first of Spielberg’s trilogy of WWII films, Empire may be his most whimsical. The tale of a boy lost and left behind to fend for himself in the wake of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai the day after Pearl Harbor. Moving and thrilling the passage of the boy into maturation is a privileged glimpse into the conflict of innocence and worldliness.

Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior)
Year: 2001
Country: Germany
Director: Tom Tykwer
Notable Actors: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann
Running Length: 135 minutes

Comments:
Compared to his breakout hit, Run Lola Run, Tykwer has reined in considerably. Here, he proceeds not without excitement, but certainly at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the unfolding faery tale to greater degree than was possible in Lola. Paced and thoughtful, The Princess and the Warrior spurs one’s mental faculties while sating his thrist for visual beauty.

Waking Life
Year: 2001
Country: US
Director: Richard Linklater
Notable Actors: Wiley Wiggins, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delphy
Running Length: 99 minutes

Comments:
An intriguing barrage of ideologies and animation, Waking Life never lets up with the talk and so you’re never quite sure where the story begins or where it’s going or where it went. Just like a dream. Words really can’t express the depth of my fascination here, but check it out for yourselves, I guarantee at the very least, interest.

Gettysburg
Year: 1993
Country: US
Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
Notable Actors: Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger, Jeff Daniels
Running Length: 261 minutes

Comments:
By far the most moving portrait of that most tragic of American wars, Gettysburg adapts Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels and gives an accurate taste of the hell and heroism of the Civil War battlefield. And unlike war movies are so apt to do, Gettysburg makes no side the villain. All are caught up in a war the neither side wants. Daniels is enigmatic as Colonel Chamberlain and Sheen is positively regal as General Lee. There is no better cinematic treatment of the subject.

Rashomon
Year: 1950
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Running Length: 88 minutes

Comments:
Adapted from two short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Kurosawa builds an intriguing look at the seeming fluid nature of truth and the corruptible nature of man. Showing through four perspectives the rape of a woman, the death of her husband, and the theft of a small sword, Rashomon tries to discover the truth and almost seems to give up. And all seem to contradict. Some have criticized the film for the fact that Kurosawa, unable to face the nightmare of relativity that his film has propounded, adds a ray of hope in the final scene, demonstrating his belief that in spite of the way things seem, heroic compassion can change the world (or perhaps even save it). Personally, I find this a more intriguing dilemma than the easy fatalism of the short stories. Instead of being handed a simple idea, the viewer is given two and told to judge between them. I think Kurosawa’s choice speaks volumes more about the heart of mankind than would a film that simply echoed Akutagawa.

Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart)
Year: 1995
Country: US
Director: Yoshifumi Kondo
Running Length: 111 minutes

Comments:
Absolutely endearing, Kondo instills a bounty of life into a simple story of a young lady who begins looking for purpose for her existence—almost without realizing it. Shizuku is in her last year of junior high and struggling to see the necessity of her studies; she’d rather spend her life reading diversionary fictions. But fate has conspired against such an immobile life and little coincidences draw her further and further into a realm of wonder and delight. Just when she’s thought she’s lost hope of innocence, she’s found it again. And the discovery is sweet to see unfold.

The Fog of War
Year: 2003
Country: US
Director: Errol Morris
Featuring: Robert S. McNamara
Running Length: 106 minutes

Comments:
I think that I may have even been more anxious to see The Fog of War than I was to see Return of the King. It was awe-striking, horrifying, and astoundingly relevant to contemporary issues in world politics and history.

You may be curious just how it is that a documentary could garner from me such respect and admiration previous to ever having seen it. Well, you probably aren't but I'll tell you anyway. The film is, essentially, one hour and forty-five minutes of interview with eighty-five-year-old Robert McNamara (a man who was one of the strategists behind the fire-bombing of Tokyo, Yokohama, and 65 other Japanese cities and who later became secretary of defense to Kennedy and later, to evident grand-slam jerk, LBJ). Clearly, the film would offer a unique perspective, one neglected by historians and pundits.

And it did. McNamara is a man with great wisdom who has made great mistakes. He shares his lessons candidly and honestly. And to sit at the feet and simply listen will always be one of the great pleasures of my life so far as history and poli-sci go. The man is clearly haunted, but he understands human nature better than many who strut and parade their wisdom and opinions today. The film is riveting (despite being, in my opinion, about ten minutes too long) and is a shoe-in to my dvd collection. No matter what, you must see this film.

And in summary: You must go see Fog of War ASAP.

L.A. Confidential
Year: 1997
Country: US
Director: Curtis Hanson
Notable Actors: Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, James Cromwell
Running Length: 138 minutes

Comments:
All hail the return of noir cinema! Hail! Hail! Hail!

Seriously, L.A. Confidential packs a wallop and takes no prisoners and leaves not a soul untarnished. This is the dirty world of the Los Angeles police force circa fedoras and long coats. And boy, what a ride! This is the film that introduced most people to the thespian whizbangs, Russell Crowe (of Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind) and Guy Pearce (of Memento). This is a very tight piece of cinema and there is no way that it could not have even been nominated for Best Picture in its year. Although I will admit that Kim Basinger did NOTHING to deserve an Oscar win for her performance.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Year: 1998
Country: US
Director: Terry Gilliam
Notable Actors: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro
Running Length: 118 minutes

Comments:
"We were somewhere near Barstow—on the edge of the desert—when the drugs began to take hold."

Hilarious and disgusting, this adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s autobiographical journey through drug induced fantasia begins lightly and descends ever deeper into the pit of despair that Gilliam identifies as the American dream. Expanding beyond Thompson’s book, Gilliam adds his own thoughts and perspectives to the story of two stoners running amuck in the City of Sin.

At times, the film even becomes almost mournful of the state of things. "We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." And really, this is just the way we likes it.

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Year: 1981
Country: US
Director: Steven Spielberg
Notable Actors: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies
Running Length: 115 minutes

Comments:
In 1977 George Lucas resurrected the space opera. Four years later, he and Steven Spielberg worked together to breathe life into another relic of a bygone era: the Saturday-matinee, cliffhanging adventurer. The character of Indiana Jones solidified Harrison Ford as a household name and became the thrill ride that parents and children would return to over and again. And you know what? Twentysome years later, Raiders has lost none of its steam. It’s music is legendary and still, every time someone mentions Noah’s ark, I think of all these poor animals getting their faces melted off by the glory of God. The end.

Eat Drink Man Woman
Year: 1994
Country: Taiwan
Director: Ang Lee
Notable Actors: Sihung Lung, Yu-Wen Wang, Chien-Lien Wu, Kuei-Mei Yang
Running Length: 123 minutes

Comments:
A presentation of family and life that is too endearing to miss. Ang Lee had long crafted real and heartfelt drama (e.g., Ice Storm and Sense and Sensibility) before becoming well-known for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And oh the food. *licks lips* Lakeside, here I come!

The Last of the Mohicans
Year: 1992
Country: US
Director: Michael Mann
Notable Actors: Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Wes Studi
Running Length: 122 minutes

Comments:
He may be most widely known for directing Crockett and Tubbs on "Miami Vice," but Mann directs a mean film in spite of that tragedy. Adapting James Fenimore Cooper’s intriguing-but-longish adventure yarn to the screen (its sixth big screen adaptation—not to count several made for television incarnations), Mann pares the tale down to its meat: an adventure/romance.

And he does so extremely well. Last of the Mohicans is one of the most exciting adventure rides one could ever hope to take courtesy of the cinema. The scenery is awe-striking and the soundtrack pulls at that sense of everything that is beyond our finite existence. The camerawork is delicate and in an age before MTV-style chop-cutting, the scenes of battle are jaw-dropping.

The Matrix (Trilogy)
Year: 1999
Country: US
Director: The Wachowski Bros.
Notable Actors: Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, Carrie Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joey Pantoliano
Running Length: 136 minutes

Comments:
Not only did the Wachowski Brothers return blockbuster science fiction to its more intellectual routes by using their film to pose questions about life and perception, but they made a pretty stylish action film as well. After seeing The Matrix for the first time, all my movie-going companion and I could say do was offer a Keanu-esque "Woah." With incredible cinematography, pioneering FX, and a storyline that makes one sit up and think, The Matrix certainly stands above your everyday sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, kung fu fiesta.

Tianguo Niezi (The Day the Sun Turned Cold)
Year: 1994
Country: Hong Kong
Director: Ho Yim
Notable Actors: Chung-Hwa Tao, Gaowa Siqin
Running Length: 99 minutes

Comments:
Faced with a cold decision, young Guan Jian at last reports a murder ten years past. Chilling landscapes mirror the frigid reality of his tale. In all ways a good film. I love foreign noir.

Dut Yeung Nin Wa (In the Mood for Love)
Year: 2000
Country: France/Hong Kong
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Notable Actors: Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung
Running Length: 98 minutes

Comments:
Entirely sumptuous! Wong Kar-Wai has an incredible talent for developing mood through sight and sound—and using that above and beyond exposition to tell his story of star-crossed lovers. More profoundly at odds than ever Romeo and Juliet were, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow seem destined to remain apart and it is pure, unadulterated joy to watch their audio-visual destiny play itself out. The soundtrack (and especially the main theme) are haunting and serve to draw the viewer into the film’s easy pace.

Big Fish
Year: 2003
Country: US
Director: Tim Burton
Notable Actors: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman, Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, Danny DeVito
Running Length: 120 minutes

Comments:
It's not often that a good story about telling good stories comes along. Big Fish was beautiful and reminded me of how greatly I value the ability to tell a story well. In some ways, this reminded me of Gilliam's Baron Munchausen - though I can't be certain which is more grounded in reality. I'm still trying to decide what I think about the film's conclusion, about its moral. And for a film I saw months ago, that speaks volumes (that I'm still pondering its message).

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Year: 1990
Country: UK/US
Director: Tom Stoppard
Notable Actors: Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss
Running Length: 117 minutes

Comments:
Altogether witty and thoughtful, Stoppard’s play off Hamlet is fodder for much more intriguing discussion than ever the Bard’s tale of Danish royalty could have been. He explores questions of destiny, predestiny, and the freedom of the will with such ease and eloquence that the average viewer will never recognize that he has all the while been wrestling with one of the greatest issues to plague the human mind over the ages.

Kurenai no buta (Porco Rosso)
Year: 1992
Country: Japan
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Running Length: 94 minutes

Comments:
By now it's pretty obvious that I have a serious soft spot for the films of Hayao Miyazaki - not so much because I'm partial to films with his name attached, but simply because his stories are wonderful and touch something deep and common in the human experience. And not only is Porco Rosso no exception, but the film is the perfect example. I found its themes to be mirrored in my own experience - themes of the long-disillusioned, long-alienated hero slowly being reaquainted to both his own humanity and the humanity around him through his love for a woman and more, her abiding love for him - cuz you know, I was once a pig too. Actually, if it weren't for the too-cartoony portrayal of the Mama Auitto Gang, this would be my favourite Ghibli work and would easily make my Top 10 films.

Out of Sight
Year: 1998
Country: US
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Notable Actors: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn
Running Length: 123 minutes

Comments:
With a stunning use of editing and flashbacks, this crime-adventure-romance is enough to thrill even the most cynical of moviegoers. Clooney and Lopez share chemistry like no other onscreen couple I have ever seen. The heat generated between them is almost tangible. This is bar none the best adaptation of anything by crime novelist Elmore Leonard.

The Big Sleep
Year: 1946
Country: US
Director: Howard Hawks
Notable Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Malone
Running Length: 116 minutes

Comments:
This is Bogart at his slickest. While we admired his resolve at the end of Casablanca, here we can only admire his wit; for his character is certainly not something to be emulated. The Big Sleep is probably the most accessible of Raymond Chandler’s books-become-film. And for most people, Humphrey Bogart is the famous shamus, Phillip Marlowe (though near ten others have played the dick). And really, it’s not hard to see why. He absolutely oozes that same sarcastic and cynical charm. Yummy. But Bogart isn’t the only reason to love The Big Sleep. Her name is Lauren Bacall and she makes Natalie Portman or Claire Forlani look like Bull from "Night Court." She smolders on the screen and you wonder how Bogart could stand it (then you remember he married her—good job tough guy).

Die Hard
Year: 1988
Country: US
Director: John McTiernan
Notable Actors: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman
Running Length: 131 minutes

Comments:
Quite simply the best action film ever. Bar none. John McClane is the action hero of all time. Smart, funny, and tough, he never seems invincible and he never seems cheesy. When looking for bang for one’s buck, one can’t do any better than this.

Say Anything
Year: 1989
Country: US
Director: Cameron Crowe
Notable Actors: John Cusack, Ione Skye, Joan Cusack, John Mahoney, Lili Taylor
Running Length: 100 minutes

Comments:
If High Fidelity portrays every man as he is, then Say Anything portrays every man as he wants to be. Lloyd Dobler is sweet, funny, genuine, and has one goal in life. To spend as much time as possible with Diane Court. He’s in well over his head and that suits him and us just fine (as he is a pleasure to watch as he woos and wins the girl of his dreams).

Stand by Me
Year: 1986
Country: US
Director: Rob Reiner
Notable Actors: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko
Running Length: 89 minutes

Comments:
My mom dragged me to see this when I was in sixth grade. Honestly, it wasn't a blockbuster and it wasn't animated and it wasn't a comedy. So what could I find of interest in it? Well, I think it was the fact that it was just an amazing film helped me stay interested.

What is it with Steven King movies that don't involved the supernatural? Why are they all so good but the ones that deal with killer corn demons, living cars, and sewer-bound clown/spider monsters just suck? Oh, I think I answered my own question there ;-)

Dogtown & Z-Boys
Year: 2001
Country: US
Director: Stacy Peralta
Featuring: Stacy Peralta, Craig Stecyk, Jay Adams, Tony Alva
Running Length: 91 minutes

Comments:
Let's get this straight. I don't really like sports documentaries. Even "extreme" sport documentaries. Besides Endless Summer II, there really aren't any surf movies I've enjoyed and the number of skate films in which I've found pleasure has always been even less. So it's strange that an examination of the rebirth of excitement in skateboarding that occured in Santa Monica in the '70s with the Zephyr Surf Team should make me giddy with nostalgic glee - especially since I was like three at the time.

But Peralta does such a great job drawing the audience into the time period, into the zeitgeist, that you almost feel as if you were an actual participant in the events that led to pool and ramp skating. The documentary was so entertaining that even my mom was thoroughly intrigued by the story - though it helped that she grew up in Santa Monica.

Akahige (Red Beard)
Year: 1965
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Yuzo Kayama
Running Length: 185 minutes

Comments:
Toshirô Mifune’s final collaboration is a fantastic drama about doctors in a free clinic in the late period of the Shogunate. Mifune plays an aging master doctor who takes on a younger apprentice. The film not only showcases Mifune’s established and well-honed style, but gives Kurosawa and opportunity to unlabour his personal views upon the viewer without the viewer minding. My only sadness is that this was the last venture between two masters of the cinema that were so evidently compatible.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Year: 1998
Country: UK
Director: Guy Ritchie
Notable Actors: Jason Stratham, Nick Moran, Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Vinnie Jones, P.H. Moriarty
Running Length: 105 minutes

Comments:
With style to spare, Ritchie introduces us to his brand of crime story—and my, what a ride! His characters, when not being the funniest people alive, are bungling into more mischief than you can shake a stick at. And not bungling in a Keystone Cops kinda way either. Well, okay. Maybe a little. But this is still an amazing film regardless.

The Usual Suspects
Year: 1995
Country: US
Director: Bryan Singer
Notable Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollack, Chaz Palminteri
Running Length: 106 minutes

Comments:
Who is Kaiser Sozé? Mastermind of criminal schemes from here to there and back again, they say he’s a ghost. He’s not. He is very real for the characters of The Usual Suspects and until the film’s final moments, Singer keeps one guessing and guessing, never suspecting the truth. This is a fantastic crime piece! And it just doesn’t get any tastier.

Léon: The Professional
Year: 1994
Country: UK
Director: Luc Besson
Notable Actors: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman
Running Length: 136 minutes

Comments:
Horribly butchered in its original American release (presumably for fear of stateside reactions to the rather one-sided romantic involvement between a twelve-year-old girl and a grown man), Besson’s masterpiece finally received its just desserts a few years ago when the international cut was released on dvd. What was already a pretty cool action film evolved into something much more touching and heartfelt. The relationship between Matilda and Léon is certainly chaste (despite Matilda’s occasionally belligerent infatuation), but more, it is deep. This is Portman’s first film. And this is why she is a big deal today.

Detour
Year: 1995
Country: US
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Notable Actors: Tom Neal, Ann Savage
Running Length: 67 minutes

Comments:
In 1945, Edgar G. Ulmer directed a sixty-seven minute masterpiece of fear and hitch-hiking. This was no horror film, but the tale of a femme fatale in all her masochistic glory. A poor sap played by Tom Neal gets mixed up in a death that could get pinned on him though he was innocent of wrongdoing. Enter Ann Savage as the cruelest woman on the planet (meaning she’s tied for the lead with all the rest of ‘em) and the game is afoot. Neal, speaking about the way things work can give you a pretty good idea of the taut film’s direction: "That's life. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you." Bro-ther.

The Princess Bride
Year: 1987
Country: US
Director: Rob Reiner
Notable Actors: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright
Running Length: 98 minutes

Comments:
While filled to the brim with all the pieces that make up a rollicking good adventure yarn and roiling with more than a modicum of hearty laughs and quick wit, William Goldman’s tale plays more as an endearing faery tale boasting the power of true love. In fact, the sheer and utter romance of the film is so truly absorbing and truly brain-washing that when Wesley and Buttercup share a very chaste kiss at film’s end and the narration reads "In the history of true love, there have been five truly great kisses. But this one surpassed them all in its purity and its passion," we undoubtedly believe in spite of what we see. Now that is power.

Beauty and the Beast
Year: 1991
Country: US
Director: Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise
Running Length: 84 minutes

Comments:
The second of Disney’s new crop of animated films (begun with the introduction of The Little Mermaid), Beauty and the Beast stands as Disney’s finest achievement to date. After years of under-developed characters who fall madly in love upon first glance, at last they introduce two well-hewn characters of better than standard mettle. Belle is thoughtful, pretty, eloquent, and caring while the beast is troubled, hunted, and given to fits of uncontrollable rage. That they could believably fall into the arms of a true and abiding love is a testament to both the writers and animators. The songs are lively and actually contribute to the film as a whole.

Mother Night
Year: 1996
Country: US
Director: Keith Gordon
Notable Actors: Nick Nolte
Running Length: 114 minutes

Comments:
This amazing tale of WWII intrigue and more importantly, its aftermath, is what turned me onto the writing of whom I now consider one of the best American authors of all time, Kurt Vonnegut. After all, the film is based on his book of the same name. A moral dilemma of astounding proportions, Mother Night aptly warns, "Be careful who you pretend to be, because in the end, you are who you pretend to be." Well directed and well acted, Gordon’s film stands as second only to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in the land of espionage-cinema and takes on a human depth unthought-of by the larger budget spy-fantasies that endlessly portray the espionade as a creature of glamour and adventure. Gordon drives home the bleaker aspect of Howard W. Campbell, Jr.’s life as he writes his memoirs from prison in Jerusalem; all flashbacks are in colour while the present is filmed in a stark black and white, illustrating that the character is already dead (despite the fact that he moves and eats and breathes as would a live person).

Ran
Year: 1985
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Tatsuya Nakadai
Running Length: 160 minutes

Comments:
Retelling Shakespeare’s King Lear in a setting of feudal Japan, Kurosawa fuels the tragedy with striking visuals and a style that may be initially strange to Western audiences. The tale is frenetic and anarchic. Despite the breath-taking visuals, the film is not cheery and does nothing to ease the spirit. Even the film’s title means "chaos" or "turmoil." Yet still, for all the chaos and lawless action on the screen, the director’s hand deftly takes its actors through their paces.

The Graduate
Year: 1967
Country: US
Director: Mike Niccols
Notable Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katherine Ross
Running Length: 105 minutes

Comments:
Engorged on self-pity, self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-adoration, The Graduate portrays characters of entirely selfish motives. These people are alienated by the world around them and disenchanted by the promise of the future. Niccols works his craft well and through humour presents a portrait of a people disenchanted with the wider world around them (assassinations, Vietnam, the Cold War).

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Year: 1939
Country: US
Director: Frank Capra
Notable Actors: James Stewart, Claude Rains
Running Length: 125 minutes

Comments:
Every bit a poignant today as it was in 1939, Capra’s ode to political idealism makes even the crusty old cynic in me want to hope. I suppose this should be categorized more under fantasy-adventure than under political drama, but James Stewart inspires belief at every turn.

When Harry Met Sally
Year: 1989
Country: US
Director: Rob Reiner
Notable Actors: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher
Running Length: 96 minutes

Comments:
The preeminent romantic comedy, Reiner’s exploration of men and women and the friendship they can’t possibly share is simply wonderful. With the least amount of cheese and the greatest degree of honest heart, When Harry Met Sally is that to which all other romance-comedies aspire, yet fail. It also boasts the conceit of being actual proof that Billy Crystal can not be annoying if properly directed.

Saving Private Ryan
Year: 1998
Country: US
Director: Steven Spielberg
Notable Actors: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Ed Burns, Tom Sizemore
Running Length: 170 minutes

Comments:
The first thirty minutes are really what people will forever remember about Spielberg’s most audacious anti-war film—being that it stands likely as the most horrifying example of what the invasion of Normandy must have been like. The rest of the film, however, is just as solid and often plays eerie counterpoint to the frantic dismemberment of humanity on that fey shoreline. Spielberg offers us a taste of battles terror sans the typical Hollywood glamour and hopes that we won’t glory in destruction. And for the space of three hours, we don’t.

Trois Colours: Bleu (Blue: Three Colors)
Year: 1994
Country: Poland/France/Switzerland
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Notable Actors: Juliette Binoche, Benoit Regent
Running Length: 93 minutes

Comments:
With one of the most hauntingly expressive and beautiful scores in any movie I've ever seen, the first film of Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy will always be among my favourites. The story of a young widow and recent mother as she finds liberty from the numbing loss of her family is beautiful to watch - and while it could have been a mere gimmick, Kieslowski's use of blue as the film unfolds truly adds to the flavour of the story and helps point the way to his goal and end.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Year: 1956
Country: US
Director: Don Siegel
Notable Actors: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter
Running Length: 80 minutes

Comments:
Incredibly enough, and despite the odds, this hold out from the Cold War is oftimes honestly thrilling and even frightening. When Kevin McCarthy runs up the highway yelling at the unsuspecting, you realize the horror of the situation as all will believe him a lunatic in spite of the truth on his lips. The meaning behind Siegel’s film is debated time and again (some supposing an anti-communist message, while others prefer to believe it refers to anti-consumerism), but whatever the case, it certainly offers food for thought.

Tengoku to Jigoku (High and Low)
Year: 1963
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuyo Nakadai
Running Length: 143 minutes

Comments:
Delving into nourish pessimism, Kurosawa’s Tengoku to Jigoku (better translated as Heaven and Hell) develops two stories over its two-and-a-half hours: the first a tense focus on the kidnapping of a presumably wealthy shoe manufacturer, while the second half delves into the underbelly of society in which the kidnapper dwells. Heaven and hell bleed into each other and we come to find that there is not so much separating the two.

Also, an unexpected use of effects partway through gives us an idea where Spielberg may have been influenced for one of his most famous bits.

Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Country: US
Director: Clint Eastwood
Notable Actors: Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Richard Harris
Running Length: 131 minutes

Comments:
So much more than a simple cowboy flick, Eastwood’s directorial magnum opus didn’t do much for me when I first saw it. Of course, I was nineteen and had just run through his three Sergio Leone gunfests and well as The Outlaw Josey Wales (which by the way is wonderful until Sondra Locke shows up about two-thirds in). I expected fast action and lead death, not a fascinating character study of an aging ex-gunslinger. Even as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly stands as the high-watermark of Eastwood’s youth, so Unforgiven stands testament to his growth and maturation as both actor and director.

Aliens
Year: 1995
Country: US
Director: James Cameron
Notable Actors: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrikson
Running Length: 154 minutes

Comments:
This is really the only pure sequel that comes to mind that is fully self-contained and easily surpasses the strength of its predecessor. Cameron takes a mildly frightening sci-fi horror film and injects it with amphetamines to the point that it becomes one of the premiere action films of all time. Terrific explosions, nervous sweat, raw tension, and a light helping of corporate-political intrigue and Marine Corps über-pride to feed as exposition work to make Aliens one of the most exciting cinematic rides imaginable.

The Importance of Being Earnest
Year: 1952
Country: UK
Director: Anthony Asquith
Notable Actors: Michael Redgrave
Running Length: 95 minutes

Comments:
After reading Oscar Wilde’s famous play in high school, I sought after vainly to purchase the 1952 adaptation of the riotous work. But to know avail. Not only was video production on moratorium, but there was only one available copy to rent in my area. I watched the beaten and battered old cassette with relish—and was well-rewarded. Asquith’s production of Wilde’s play is the definitive cinematic version. It cannot be surpassed. That a modern production with Rupert Everett was released is a sham. I have not seen it and do not need to for nothing can be added to Asquith’s version.

Oh. And I just added the recently released Criterion version to my bookshelf for Christmas (thanks Donut Girl).

Mua he chieu thang dung (The Vertical Ray of the Sun)
Year: 2000
Country: Vietnam
Director: Anh Hung Tran
Notable Actors: Tran Nu Yen-Khe, Ngo Quang Hai, Nguyen Nhu Quynh, Le Khanh
Running Length: 112 minutes

Comments:
I don't know anything much about Vietnam and what it's like thirty years after the war. I don't know much about them politically, socially, or economically. But I do know this: if the colour and life are half as vibrant as they are in The Vertical Ray of the Sun, I don't think I'd mind spending a decade or so of my life living in that kind of world. The scenery is sumptuous and the water constant. The picture throbs and pulses with a kind of low key energy that is so foreign and beautiful that I couldn't help but be touched by it. The story was meandering and probably forgetable, but story was never the concern of this project. It's all about the sense of the world as being something wonderful. A creation of delicacy, of rapture.

Yojimbo
Year: 1961
Country: Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Running Length: 110 minutes

Comments:
Kurosawa is obviously a favourite of mine. He crafts stories and characters and scenes with a master’s touch. It really is no wonder that so many great American directors have sought to emulate his work (Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola, et cetera). Even Yojimbo has been remade twice (as Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and as the Bruce Willis vehicle Last Man Standing). On top of Kurosawa’s auteur’s touch, Toshirô Mifune excels in playing up the loveable rogue and his portrayal of the titular character here (yojimbo means bodyguard) is without flaw.

Iron Giant
Year: 1999
Country: US
Director: Brad Bird
Voice Talents: Jennifer Aniston, Vin Diesel, Harry Connick Jr.
Running Length: 86 minutes

Comments:
While I realize that this is the fifth animated film on this list, the fact is, these movies are really that good. Really, I think it is tragic that I would even feel the need to apologize or make note of the presence animation in a serious list of films, but that’s the fallen world we live in!

Not only is the Iron Giant one of the hippest cinematic automatons, but in spite of the hackneyed story element of a robot with a heart of gold, the big metal galoof pulls it off so well that I have yet to meet someone who didn’t get moisty-eyed in the film’s climax. Truly a touching film—with an art style that is both retro-hip and fresh all together. Definitely that elusive creature known as a film the whole family can enjoy.

Charade
Year: 1963
Country: US
Director: Stanley Donen
Notable Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau, James Coburn
Running Length: 113 minutes

Comments:
Capturing the essence of the 60s lounge-intrigue, this caper follows a dizzying twist of false identities, false motives, and even false pretenses. Hepburn and Grant play charmingly off each other and one is never in doubt that he is watching actors par excellance thoughout. Henry Mancini’s score does for Charade as John William’s does for Star Wars or Raiders. Donen’s film is, in the end, a whole lot of fun!

Donnie Darko
Year: 2001
Country: US
Director: Richard Kelly
Notable Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnel, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze
Running Length: 112 minutes

Comments:
After having put off watching a film that looked too "indy" for too long, I finally embarked on the Darko voyage (dragging several friends with me). I was stunned. How could this amazing little film not have garnered more press or a wider distribution? While certainly as dark as the title would imply, Donnie Darko is incredibly humourous and thoughtful as well. Equal parts dark comedy, sci-fi gobbledygook, spiritual journey, and coming-of-age angst, Kelly’s first outing as a full-length filmmaker is astounding. Even his choices of music are inspired. This is yet another film that sets the wheels of one’s mind turning and won’t allow peace for some time.

Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)
Year: 1997
Country: Spain/France/Italy
Director: Alejandro Amenábar
Notable Actors: Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz
Running Length: 117 minutes

Comments:
Following a thread of films I seem to like, Open Your Eyes (later remade into the damnable Vanilla Sky) deals with a man unsure of himself and unsure of what is real. César is used to living life on his terms, but suddenly he finds himself in prison for the murder of the woman he truly loves. As what is and what is not slowly unravels, we begin to piece together the truth even as César does. And it’s an interesting and worthwhile trip.

Festen (The Celebration)
Year: 1998
Country: Denmark
Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Notable Actors: Ulrich Thomsen
Running Length: 105 minutes

Comments:
This was chilling in its realism. The Celebration is an excellent film that chronicles an evening that sees the reunion of disfunctional family for the patriarch's birthday where secrets are opened and lives are revealed. This could very easily have become yet another stale film in the tired reunion genre, but fresh characters who defy stereotype and a distinct lack of melodrama save the day. This is serious stuff - no light-hearted feel-good event to sugarcoat the truth and make everybody sigh with relief at the tidy manner in which the issues of life are resolved. No, this time, it actually works out as it would.

Hoshi no koe (Voices of a Distant Star)
Year: 2002
Country: Japan
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Running Length: 25 minutes

Comments:
Hewn together on a home computer, this twenty-five minute piece is at once touching and relative to anyone who's carried on a relationship at a distance. Separated by increasingly long stretches of time (first weeks, then months, then years) the couple communicates with increasingly infrequent text messages through some amazingly sci-fii, hyperstellar cellphone system. This is a cartoon that could very well make you cry with its sweetness. To what lengths should a couple be willing to go? And when is it good and appropriate to finally let go and move on to avoided an emotionally dead or stunted future? It may not give the answers, but the important thing is the questions.

100

Wo De Fu Qin Mu Qin (The Road Home)
Year: 1999
Country: China
Director: Yimou Zhang
Notable Actors: Ziyi Zhang
Running Length: 89 minutes

Comments:
If it were not for the incredible American reception of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the subsequent stardom of the young and ethereal Ziyi Zhang, The Road Home would not likely have ever gotten theater time on these coasts. And quite frankly, that would have been tragic. At all times sentimental and sweet, director Yimou Zhang’s tale of lasting love grips one’s heart without ever seeming manipulative. It is subtle and altogether real as it unfolds the tale of romance as you would like romance to be. And of course Ziyi Zhang is adorable even when she’s not tearing up opponents with the Green Destiny.

For anyone who cares, here are some of the breakdowns of what kinds of films I chose:

Yes, I s'pose it is still pretty obvious how I feel about films from the '70s *shrug*

11:18 PM 28 comments