My Favorite Movies

Not only the best horror film of all time, it's arguably one of the greatest films ever. Michael Bay's push to remake it would be laughable if it wasn't so offensive. Don't mess with perfection!

Opulently scored, seductively suspenseful, and devilishly indecent 'Psycho' homage; Ms. Dickinson's dangerous afternoon liaison and its astonishing conclusion is my all-time favorite movie sequence. Its stylish brutality owes as much to Argento as Hitchcock, but De Palma's combination of glossy elegance and urban grit lifts this steamy thriller to a class of its own.

It's hard to imagine any of today's A-list actresses taking the risks that Keaton did here, or any mainstream Hollywood movie daring to end like this one. Stunning.

If John Waters took a stab at horror, the result would be something like this. Weird, wild and bloody little gem.

Better than it had any right to be. Exceedingly respectful of the original, this densely-plotted mystery thrill-ride is funny, scary and progressively nasty as it builds to a frenzied bloody climax in the same fruit cellar where Norma Bates revealed herself all those years ago.

Abortion is no laughing matter. Except in this hilarious movie!

I remember recoiling against the bleak nihilism of the ending on first viewing, but now I know it couldn't be any other way. It morphs a candy-colored if somewhat routinely plotted political thriller into a tragedy of Shakespearian proportion.

Bizarre Argento gem has a very young Jennifer Connelly tangling with a killer dwarf, mean boarding-school girls, telepathic insects, a dangerous sleep-walking habit, and the most endearing razor-wielding monkey you'll ever see, all set against the spookily remote backdrop of the Swiss Alps. Everything builds to a deliriously over-the-top Grand Guignal finale in a cavernous house of horrors that will have you squirming in your seat. My kind of movie!

"That wasn't me, that was my game character" is a line I plan to use in my next compromising position.

Anyone who ever had a relentlessly noisy neighbor will relate to this Kafka-esque urban nightmare. 'Hell is other people', indeed.

The rather prominent afro of the romantic male lead, the fake rusty-orange blood and occasionally ugly shrieking score make this early De Palma outing feel a bit dated at first, but it gradually evolves into a surreal Bergman-esque nightmare fantasy of shifting identity and female revenge that puts it a cut above other Hitchcock knock-offs. Margot Kidder always fascinates.

Sure the story is a bit derivative (aside from the incest angle) but Bernard Hermann's swirlingly epic score propels it to heights of tragic greatness.

The sex looks more uncomfortable than hot, but there's an undeniably kicky horror to watching the downward spiral of people in high places making the worst decisions imaginable.

A movie that gets more relevant by the day. A Stepford wife becomes the casualty of environmental allergies that seem to be triggered by the suffocating plasticity of suburban sprawl. Is Carol White's sickness legit or the manifestation of an inarticulate desire to escape her synthetic life? There are no easy answers in this deeply unsettling examination of a woman so estranged from her inner self that she barely even exists to begin with.

Rent control is to die for. A guilty pleasure to be sure, but slick and well-acted enough to warrant repeat viewings. I never tire of watching this female power struggle set in spacious yet sparse Manhattan apartment. The death by high-heel shoe is surely a movie first.

Sex in the city, salvation in the desert. Provocative examination of an aimless, promiscuous woman whose soul-searching prompts her conversion to apocalyptic evangelicalism. Minus a star for cheapo effects and that whiny little girl.

This sunlit yet surprisingly dark comedy has its heart very much in the right place.