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This film is one of the smartest and most wonderful animated films I’ve ever seen. The film is set in the 1950s and satirizes the Red Scare. The amazing attention for detail brings this era to life in a vibrant way. While it address the paranoia of its era and the issues of the Cold War, it does so under the surface. At its core, the film is simply about a boy and his giant pet robot.

The story (very similar to E.T.) follows that boy named Hogarth (Eli Marienthal), who discovers a 100-foot robot in the woods. Hogarth befriends a beat nick artist named Dean (Harry Connick Jr., INDEPENDENCE DAY), who helps him hide the giant in his junkyard. Sightings of the robot are heard around town and a paranoid government agent named Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) comes to town to investigate. Because it quickly becomes too difficult to hide a mental munching 10-story-sized robot, Hogarth must especially use all his wits when his mother (Jennifer Aniston, TV’s FRIENDS) takes Mansley in as a border.

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Along with STAGECOACH, this is one of my favorite Westerns and one of my favorite films. For people who shy away from Westerns, you should give the better ones a chance. I’ve found that Hollywood used the Western at times to talk about sensitive topics with a bit of distance like Hollywood does with Sci-Fi nowadays.

The story is simple, Will Kane (Gary Cooper, MEET JOHN DOE) sent Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald, JOHNNY GUITAR) up for murder, but Miller gets out on parole and comes gunning for Kane. It’s Kane’s wedding day to a Quaker named Amy (Grace Kelly, REAR WINDOW, TO CATCH A THIEF) and she wants to run, but Will knows the killers will just hunt him down and he’ll live in fear until that day. Will tries to round up a posse, but for various reasons everyone backs away.

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Before there was Denzel and Halle, there was Sidney Poitier — simply my favorite actor of all time. I’ll watch anything that he’s in and I haven’t dislike anything I’ve seen. And I saw both sequels to IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. LILIES is the film that won Poitier his best actor Oscar and until last year he was the only non-white person, male or female, to have won the top acting Oscar. While it’s not a defining character for his career, he brings charm, wit and depth to a character that wins our hearts.

In the film, Poitier plays traveling work-for-hire man Homer Smith. He stumbles onto a small nunnery in the desert comprised of five German nuns and gets roped into building them a chapel. The war of wills between him and Mother Superior Maria (Lilia Skala, FLASHDANCE, HOUSE OF GAMES) is classic. The film deals with pride, faith, community, humility and race, but not once do you ever feel like the film is preaching anything. The story is so simple, but ends up being greatly profound.

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Many people have attempted mock documentaries; or mockumentaries; but no one has done it better than the talents behind this film and two other classics, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN and BEST IN SHOW. Rob Reiner, playing a fictitious doc maker, follows fake metal band Spinal Tap during their tour to promote their new album, “Smell the Glove.” The film works more as a low-key satire than a laugh-a-minute comedy fest. The film deftly skewers bad rock lyrics, pompous star attitudes, rotating band members, kitschy style changes, and feuding bandmates.

Spinal Tap is made up of lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean, BEST IN SHOW), guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest, THE PRINCESS BRIDE), bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer, TV’s THE SIMPSONS) and a rotating drummer, a position plagued by freakish accidents. Over the years, there has been a professional rivalry between David and Nigel, an unspoken tension on who is the true artistic center of the group. Derek is content to just bask in their genius. However, the long simmering tensions come to a head when David’s girlfriend Jeanine Pettibone (June Chadwick, TV’s V) bring her astrology into band decisions, which pushes the band’s manager Ian Faith (Tony Hendra, JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH) to the brink.

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Cameron Crowe has not made a bad film. He’s written everything he’s directed and those films consist of SINGLES, JERRY MAGUIRE, ALMOST FAMOUS and VANILLA SKY. However, his first film, SAY ANYTHING…, may be his best and is definitely my personal favorite. The film is hands down one of the best movies ever set in high school. Teen comedy/dramas can only aspire to be as good as this film.

The story follows Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack, HIGH FIDELITY) as he tries to form a relationship with the beautiful valedictorian, Diane Cort (Ione Sky, DREAM OF AN INSOMNIAC). He invites her to a graduation party and she reluctantly comes with him. But as the movie’s tag line says, “To know Lloyd Dobler is to love Lloyd Dobler.”

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What a brave movie for Bette Davis to do. She is so ugly in his film — and I don’t just mean her character either. Her Oscar-nominated performance is so true and so real that you forget that you’re watching a screen legend and feel you’re watching a bitter psychopath.

The story follows two sisters Jane (Davis, ALL ABOUT EVE) and Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford, MILDRED PIERCE). Jane, known as Baby Jane, was a child star, who was the main breadwinner for her family for years. However, as they got older, Blanche became the movie star and Jane became a B-movie actress, who only got roles because it was in Blanche’s contract that for every picture she did her sister got a picture.
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A lot of long movies even when they’re good can seem long. However, this movie, clocking in at nearly four hours, zips by. The reason for that is because the action and epic wonder never stop. Modern audiences get turned off by long running times, but BEN-HUR has not faded from popularity, remaining the most beloved Biblical epic ever made.

The story follows the rise, fall and rebirth of Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston, PLANET OF THE APES), a Jewish nobleman living in the time of Christ. In a parallel story the film also follows the rise and fall of Christ himself. And we all know about his rebirth so the film left that part out. The story is a classic tale of two friends torn apart by differing ideologies. Ben-Hur is Jewish and loathes the idea of the Romans suppressing his people. Then there is his childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd), who joins the Roman army and is sent back to Jerusalem to head up the garrison there. After an accident, Ben-Hur is made a slave, finally freeing himself to return to Jerusalem to challenge Messala and find his mother and sister, who were imprisoned along with him.

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This film is one the subtlest satires that I’ve ever seen. The poignant and funny comedy comes from a very simple premise, one that director Hal Ashby handles with great precision. Too broad it would have been a disaster. This is why star Peter Sellers is such a key to the films success. He plays his character straight without a hint of irony, making him all the more successful and funny.

Adapted from his own novel by Jerzy Kosinski, the story follows simpleminded gardener, Chance (Sellers, DR. STRANGELOVE), who has never left his place of employment since he was a boy, learning all socialization from what he has seen on TV. His employer (the old man) dies and he’s kicked out of the only home he has ever known into a world in which he doesn’t understand. Through a mistake, he is believed to be a rich businessman and taken in by a very wealthy and influential dying man named Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas, HUD). Chance’s simple statements about gardening are mistaken as profound statements about the government and economy. Eventually, he begins to consult the President (Jack Warden, THE VERDICT). Because of his relationship with Chance, Rand feels better about dying, because his wife Eve (Shirley MacLaine, THE APARTMENT) likes the gardener and will have someone to be with after he passes.

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What else can one say about the film besides that it’s the best action/sci-fi film that has come out in ages. It’s smart and a lot of fun at the same time. The Wachowski Brothers, who first made the highly stylish and highly recommended crime thriller BOUND, brought an anime aesthetic to live-action for this film. The bullet time effect has become a landmark in visual effects history, but it’s how the visuals are used in service of the story that truly makes this film awesome.

The film follows Neo (Keanu Reeves, SPEED) as he stumbles upon a band of rebels led by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne, WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?) and discovers that the world he lives in is not what it seems. Morpheus believes that Neo is the Chosen One, a prophesized leader whose superhuman skills will free all humans from the oppression of the mysterious Matrix and their powerful agents, lead by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING). Neo doesn’t believe he’s special and Morpheus’s crew is divided. Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss, MEMENTO), Morpheus’s second in command, wants to believe with her whole heart, while Cypher (Joe Pantoliano, BOUND) is tired of the rough life of a rebel and has lost faith.
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