My Favorite Movies

This movie changed my life. And that is not an exaggeration. I never looked at the world the same way again after I saw this film. Beforehand, I was very rigid in my understanding of right, wrong, ethics, and morality. This film was the moment when I suddenly understood that there was something.... MORE.

And let's not even get into what a technical masterpiece it is at every single level, amid the chaos of its production.

Hitchcock's masterpiece. Hypnotic, and haunting, and beautiful. I saw this when I was 14, and I've had a crush on Kim Novak ever since.

My introduction to both Oliver Stone, the craziness of the Kennedy assassination, and, most importantly, the notion that, just because you see it on TV or in a movie and someone calls it "news" doesn't mean that it actually happened. Once again, the average critic of this film misses the point - the reason why Stone went through all the trouble of using the different mediums & film stocks with these conspiri-fied recreations of Deeley Plaza was to show you that, if HE could fake some footage that you can't distinguish from the real thing, why should you believe that the real thing is really the real thing at all? A masterpiece.

Part III of my early 90's Oliver Stone trilogy, and, stylistically & thematically an unnamed sequel to "JFK" - Nixon as Stone's version of "Citizen Kane", right down to the opening shots of the White House as Xanadu. Hopkins disappears into the role.

Filmmaking on a whole other level. Genius. Provocative. One of my all-time favorites.

David Fincher is one of my directing idols - every single frame of this film is like a deeply rich Renaissance painting. But, beyond that, it's such a totally engrossing story with one of the most life-affirming endings I've ever seen. Just a beautiful film, disguised as a dark thriller.

one of my all-time favorites. Also one of the most misunderstood movies of all time. Here's a hint - it's a comedy, and it has far less to do with serial killers than it does with celebrity culture run amok. Scene stealers abound! Downey, Sizemore, Tommy Lee, even Rodney freakin' Dangerfield!

When I was in film school, my instructor said that this movie bored him because, as a Yale grad from a rich eastern family, he had lived that life of affluent aimlessness like Jude Law's character, so it bored him. I said, as a Princeton grad from a working class family, I totally identified with my namesake Matt Damon's desire to cave in the skulls of rich spoiled fucks like Dickie Greenleaf and steal the lives they clearly took for granted.

Am I oversharing? :-)

It's a masterpiece. Amazing cast (especially Cate Blanchett) and a seemlessly integrated, heartbreaking score by Gabriel Yared.

Just a joy and a revelation of a film. I'm sorry to all of you Denzel lovers out there, but Kevin Spacey deserved that Oscar. Sadly, so did Annette Benig & Chris Cooper. I love the use of color and space to guide your eye and tell the story in this film. And such a heartfelt, life-affirming ending. I love it.

Do I actually even need to say anything about this movie? If you don't get it, you'll never get it.

one of my all-time favorites. The defibrillator scene and subsequent blood test scene are pure gold. Carpenter at his best.

Just absolutely classic. Kevin McCarthy's descent into raving paranoia is such a wonderfully guilty pleasure.

The very definition of epic filmmaking. Charlton Heston has never, ever been better. The emotional intensity is damn-near operatic. But, at the heart of it all, it's a story about Christ. And the chariot race has to be seen to be believed. For you youngsters out there - that really is Charlton Heston riding on a real horse! No CGI! Now THAT is m----rf--king filmmaking!

a masterpiece - hypnotic and transcendent. Contrary to popular rumor, it actually has a very simple plot, but it strives to tell as much of the story as possible purely through imagery. Those who say they were bored by it don't realize that the movie is actually recreating the experience of dreams experienced in REM sleep. It's trying to reach behind your conscious brain to touch something more essential.... if you let it.

I am so angry I didn't get to see this beautiful film on a big screen. One of my all-time favorites.

Noir masterpiece. The look, the sound, the performances, the story. I think it's perfect. Crowe, Spacey, Pierce, and Cromwell all deserve awards FAR more than Kim Basinger.

Flawless. The best Batman film ever made. I love the truth about Ras Al Ghul. Can't wait for the sequel.

Not even a guilty pleasure. Just a straight forward vampire movie, executed to perfection. Stephen Geoffrey's really gives Roddy McDowell a run for his money in the Best Scenery Chewer department. Lots of fun.

The first horror movie I ever sat down and forced myself to watch without running out of the room. While "The Crate" is clearly the best (Fritz Weaver's performance is deceptively hilarious), "Something To Tide You Over" is a very juicy 2-man show between Ted Danson & Leslie Nielsen. We're all so used to seeing him do comedy now, people forget that Leslie spent most of his career doing rolls like this - as The Heavy. He plays the sociopath to perfection.

The best in the series. Reminds you of what can be accomplished with just models for f/x. This may well be Shatner's best performance of his career. Beyond the spectacle, this is probably the most rich, heartfelt, and layered screenplay in the entire Star Trek series. And by far the most literate - allusions to Moby Dick and A Tale of Two Cities abound. I was 9 years old when I saw this. I cried. And, even now, the ending monologue gives me goosebumps.

Still one of the scariest movies ever made. I didn't fully appreciate how overtly sexualized the entire design of Giger's monster made it even more vicerally horrifying. Also, check the quality of the sound design - it immediately puts you in the wrong mood. As a director, Ridley Scott is one of my idols.

Groundbreaking f/x, but, as with all great science fiction, it's the ideas that make it worth returning. Plus, Leslie Nielsen as a proto-Capt. Kirk!

The best action movie ever made. Flawless. Real characters, fantastic stunts, great story.

To fully appreciate what an amazing achievement this film is, you need to watch it and pay attention to how often actual cuts occur within scenes. Once you realize that certain sequences have been done all in a single shot - sequences that involve people getting into and out of cars that drive, stop, reverse, crash, and stop,etc., or sequences that involve running through blocks of urban battlefields - and can grasp that every single thing captured during those long single takes had to be staged, rehearsed, timed, and then reset & repeated until it is executed flawlessly, and that some of those scenes incorporate CGI elements that must also blend seemlessly into the moving steadicam shots, AND, after all of that technical wizardry, that it's still a story rooted in the very basics of humanity, i.e. fertility and the survival of the species, as it plays out among simple individuals......

It's criminal that this film didn't even get nominated for Best Picture.