This film from John Ford (THE QUIET MAN) is the archetypical Western. It tells the legendary conflict that led to the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Henry Fonda (THE GRAPES OF WRATH) stars as Wyatt Earp, who takes the job as marshal of Tombstone after his youngest brother James (Don Garner, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY) is killed by cattle rustlers. Earp believes Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan, RIO BRAVO) and his sons are involved.

At first the wild town is reluctant to accept the new lawman, especially the town’s top gambler Doc Holliday (Victor Mature, THE ROBE) and his on-and-off-again Indian girl Chihuahua (Linda Darnell, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS). However, Wyatt and Doc soon become friends. However, Wyatt becomes torn when Doc’s true love from back East, Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs, THE SUNDOWNERS), comes to Tombstone.

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Lucio Fulci is considered one of Italy’s masters of horror. From this film, I couldn’t tell you why. I’ve seen this movie on greatest horror lists, but I don’t know why. It’s not scary and often boring. As I have said many times before, gross things are not inherently scary. Bad things happening to people are not inherently scary. It takes context and tension to make things scary. The threat of gross stuff and death is scarier.

After her father’s boat washes up in New York with a zombie on it, Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow, THE LAST HUNTER) sets out to discover what happened to her dad. A newspaper reporter Peter West (Ian McCulloch, MOONLIGHTING) teams up with her, which leads them to take a boat with Brian Hull (Al Cliver, THE BEYOND) and Susan Barrett (Auretta Gay, OMBRE) to the Caribbean. When they arrive on an uncharted island, they meet Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson, LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER), who has been working to uncover the mystery of zombies much to the dismay of his beautiful wife Paola (Olga Karlatos, PURPLE RAIN).

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There’s nothing revolutionary or subversive about this Western. It’s a fairly straightforward revenge drama. However, skilled writing that plays with story conventions combined with the always-wonderful screen legend James Stewart, the film emerges as a solid piece of cinema. As we will learn, greed for power is a dirty business to be in.

The film begins with Lin McAdam (Stewart) and his best friend High-Spade Frankie Wilson (Millard Mitchell, TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH) riding into Dodge City where sheriff Wyatt Earp (Will Geer, IN COLD BLOOD) is holding a shooting contest for a rare Winchester rifle. Lin runs into Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally, JOHNNY BELINDA) who we can tell by their stare down have had a bad past together.
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I simply love this film. It’s amazing. Slow-witted poor girl Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina, NIGHTS OF CABIRIA) is bought by a traveling performer named Zampanò (Anthony Quinn, GUNS OF NAVARONE), who is a brute. She goes along because her mother and four younger sisters barely have enough to eat and Zampanò will pay 10,000 lire.

The duality of Gelsomina and Zampanò relationship is fascinating. He tears her down, but also teaches her talents that give a purpose to her life. Later in the film while working for a circus, they meet aerialist The Fool (Richard Basehart, BEING THERE), who has had an antagonistic relationship with Zampanò for years. The Fool can be a mean-spirited jokester at times, but underneath he has a very kind streak. He works as the mirror opposite of Zampanò.

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This famed musical is brought to life with wonderful performances by Deborah Kerr (AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER) and Yul Brynner (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN).

Kerr plays Anna Leonowens, an English schoolteacher brought to Siam by the king (Brynner) to teach his children and his wives. Their relationship starts out rocky due to a clash of cultures, but they warm to each other as Anna learns the true heart of King Mongkut and he learns what a woman can really teach a man.

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This black comedy is hilarious and simply perfect. Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price, SON OF DRACULA) is 12th in line from being a Duke. His mother (Audrey Fildes) married for love and was disowned by her family. She wasn’t even allowed to be buried in the family tomb. This enrages Mazzini who sets out to eliminate the people in his way.

Those eight people are all played by Alec Guinness (BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI) in a tour-de-force performance equal to that of Peter Sellers in DR. STRANGELOVE. This British comedy is droll and often laugh out loud funny.

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Based on a true story, this film is a powerful tale of friendship and survival. Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston, TV’s LAW & ORDER) is a journalist for the New York Times. He’s covering the war in Cambodia in 1975 along with a photographer and interpreter Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S. Ngor, HEAVEN & EARTH).

The film works in two parts and I was reminded of the way THE INSIDER played. The film begins with Schanberg and Pran together and mainly chronicles Schanberg’s dogged determination to report the bloody truth of what is going on in Cambodia. He often fearlessly (or cockily whichever way you like to see it) puts himself in harm’s way with Pran dutifully following.

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You ain’t seen nothing like this. It’s PULP FICTION drenched in film noir. If you’ve ever read a Frank Miller comic this film is that experience on the screen. It’s violent and stylish and dripping with cynicism… and that’s what makes it great.

Based on three SIN CITY comics – “That Yellow Bastard,” “The Hard Goodbye” and “The Big, Fat Kill” – the film works as three separate episodes taking place in one city with various characters overlapping each tale. The film starts with an unrelated opening involving Josh Hartnett (BLACK HAWK DOWN) and Marley Shelton (NEVER BEEN KISSED), which sets the tone for the film. Then we start out with Bruce Willis (THE SIXTH SENSE) as veteran cop Hartigan, who is after a pedophile (Nick Stahl, TV’s CARNIVALE), who’s the son of the powerful senator Roark (Powers Boothe, FRAILTY).

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I cannot encourage people more to search out this film and see it right away. This is one of the best family films I have ever seen. It’s simple brilliant.

I use the term family film to describe the movie because its main characters are kids and there is nothing too offensive about it, but the term is too much of a pigeonhole. The plot might seem familiar – train robbers lose a bag full of money and two boys recover it then find ways to spend it. But the way writer Frank Cottrell Boyce (THE CLAIM and also plays the Nativity play director) and director Danny Boyle (TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER) develop the characters and world like you’ve never seen before.

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This film is based on 1973 Japanese anime film of the same name. With modern visual effects, the film captures the feel of anime to the T. However, this film doesn’t rise above anime’s tendency to ramp up outlandish action with tacked on pretentiousness.

The film is set in an industrialized future — a mix of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS and Kerry Conran’s SKY CAPTAIN. Kotaro Azuma (Akira Terao, RAN) is a famed scientist who has discovered the “neo-cell” that can regrow any human cell. He desperately wants his experiment to work because he wants to cure his ailing wife Midori (Kanako Higuchi, 1989’s ZATOICHI), who is going blind. Kotaro’s rebellious son Tetsuya (Yusuke Iseya, AFTER LIFE) joins the army to spite his father and witnesses the horrors of war first hand. Tetsuya is engaged to Luna (Kumiko Aso, KAIRO), who loves him dearly.

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