Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/29/13-1/4/14)

    Not a lot going on this week outside of trying and failing to sleep.  Weird week, though.  I somehow didn’t watch a movie between Monday night and Friday night.  Weird.  I did spend a bunch of time on the Dorkies, and I’ve been doing some reading and prep-work for my upcoming game.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto:  A gorgeously shot movie about a couple of young men who want to become heroes, samurai.  Each takes a different path after their first battle.  The film deals a great deal with life in 1600 Japan, from politics to the daily doings of simple people.  The place of women, the role of men, what is important in life, religion, and death.  I’m certainly interested in what will happen in the rest of this trilogy.

The Man Who Never Was:  This World War II thriller has some of the feel of a 40s police procedural, but with a British, stiff upper lip sort of mindset.  The actors all do a fine job, with Gloria Graham getting chance to deliver a couple emotional scenes.  It’s good.  It’s perfectly watchable.  And if you’re in the mood for a WWII movie that isn’t about the combat side of things, this is a nice choice.

Hollow:  Gah.  Found footage.  It can be done right.  This ain’t how.  There’s a potentially cool Wicker Man type pagan tale hinted at that might have made for a cool movie.  This ain’t it.  Typical of modern horror films, especially found footage films, the characters are all bloody awful and I couldn’t help but anticipate their inevitable end.  And man does it go on.  There’s probably about 30 minutes of worthy material in a 90 minute movie.  Bah.

John Carter:  Though I do still find this film somewhat frustrating, what with its almost complete squandering of an awesome book series, I do still enjoy the movie.  It’s nowhere near as balls-out crazy as it needs to be, not as over the top, wild, adventurous or fun.  And yeah, Taylor Kitsch is kinda awful in his drab portrayal of the titular hero.  But it does have a lot of cool stuff, some good design work, and some good sequences.  In some ways, they did manage to put some good images of Burroughs’s Barsoom on screen, even if they didn’t get any of its heart.  I realize there is never going to be a movie that does it right.  Not really.  There’s never going to be a movie where the entire cast is naked, but for pieces of armor and jewelry for the entirety.  But I would still like to see a movie get more to the essence.  Whatever the case, I hope that some kid(s) out there saw this movie and were wowed by it, leading them to read the original novels and more.  That’s the best thing this movie could do; inspire a younger generation to read the classics.

Zodiac:  The late 60s and 70s are beautifully reconstructed in this crime solving epic.  Police officers, reporters, and the public must come to terms with a new kind of crime (at least, new to them), while dealing with old guard methodology, red tape, and politics.  The actors are great and the production design is impeccable.  And while I find the story engrossing while it’s on screen, I don’t find myself carrying anything away from the movie.  Nothing stays with me.  I do feel like this would be an interesting companion to Bullitt and Dirty Harry, though.

2014

Beyond the Black Rainbow:  This movie has quickly become one of my favorite go-to films.  There’s this mysterious magic that captures something from my youth.  The director has said that it was partially inspired by late night movies and VHS covers spotted in rental shops from his childhood.  I believe it.  It captures all the mystery and weirdness of the best late 70s/early 80s movies, and the potential of all those descriptions for films that didn’t live up.  Intensely strange, beautifully shot, with pulsing and jarring music, it’s the perfect film when you’re in the mood for classic Cronenberg but want something a little different.  It also touches on a bunch of things I find fascinating, including the post-Hippie attempts to mix science and new age magical thinking into new forms of society and perception…and the failure thereof.  You have the failed seeker and the enlightened one, and their deadly conflict.  Even though the end seems a bit out of tune with the rest of the film, I’ve found that on repeat viewing, it works for me more.  Great stuff.

Hell Baby:  Sometimes extremely funny while at others, flat; Hell Baby is the newest effort from those nut-jobs behind Reno 911...and it shows.  Overall, worth watching if you enjoy some ignorant, gross out humor.  And one scene had me laughing so hard I was in tears (cable installation van).  Most of the stuff with the two priests and with the two cops gave me the giggles, and Rob Corddry was very good throughout.  A surprising amount of Riki Lindhome nudity.  Was 2013, for all its many faults, the year that full frontal nudity came back?  I’ve been noticing the welcome if gradual return of nudity over the last few years, after a painful 20 year absence (yes, there were some exceptions).  But much like male nudity, full frontal remains largely in the domain of Cinemax (or Starz, the new Cinemax).  What changed?  Is this a trend?  It’s a welcome change from the puritanical 90s, whatever the case.  I’m sure as heck not against violence in film, but I’ve always been a bit bothered by people’s willingness to accept the most horrendous acts portrayed in the most graphic of fashion, while turning nearly blue with rage and offence if a nipple gets flashed.  So stupid.

The Prodigal:  The story of the Prodigal Son gets a typical 50s Hollywood take.  In watching these, I can’t help but find most of the lead characters to be raging a-holes, which actually fits with my re-reading of the Bible.  Unwilling to give even an inch in the name of politeness our hero spits in the face of everyone who doesn’t agree with him, defies law and custom, and generally makes a spectacle of his pointless defiance.  Still, there’s some lavish spectacle.

    I started watching some episodes of Voyagers!, the old 80s show.  It’s good kid’s entertainment.  Enough for me to keep watching, I guess.  It’s basically Quantum Leap meets The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, shot on all the usual locations (the whole world looks like Southern California).

    That’s about all I’ve got this week.  Here’s hoping the new year is better than the old.  Time to start making things happen.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (12/29/13-1/4/14)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  That feels good.  2013 was a gas, but I'm quite pleased to be through the Holiday Hoopla, and I'm looking forward to devoting more attention to the blog.  Most of this week was concerned with formulating my Favorite Films of the year as well as the rest of the Dorkies.  As I stated there, 2013 ended up being one of my favorites as far as the Pop Culture scene was concerned.  Nicholas Winding Refn cranked out his best film yet (Only God Forgives), Martin Scorsese proved that no matter how hard they try (American Hustle) there is still only one guy right for the job (The Wolf of Wall Street), and the more I think on it, Edgar Wright's latest (The World's End) slowly eeks its way to the top of the Cornetto Trilogy.

Not to mention, this year I actually witnessed Martin Scorsese deliver his Jefferson Lecture "The Persistence of Vision," I sat in the front row of Hall H where Samuel L Jackson actually stared me down, saw the 4K Restoration of Lawrence of Arabia at the AFI Silver, met Peter Tork, discovered the surreal genius of Keoma, and won a Tyler Stout Mondo Print signed by Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, & Edgar Wright at the Cornetto Trilogy Screening of The Alamo Drafthouse, which in turn has become my new home away from home.  Yeah, I should say that's a pretty good year.

Jaime Foxx Does Django For Spidey (I Took This Photo!!!)

I'm pretty gosh darn excited by the prospect of the new year.  How can 2014 top 2013?  Dunno, but I can't wait to find out.  This particular week in transition began with another bit of cinematic shame finally getting checked off my Resolution list - Singin' in the Rain.  How had I never seen this before?  Not sure.  I was just never much of a musical kid; I'm happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The last film I saw in the theater in 2013 was David Fincher's Zodiac (again, at The Alamo Drafthouse).  One of my all time favorite films, I was a bit bummed that co-dork Matt doesn't seem to quite "get it."  My first film of the new year was Man of Steel, the rewatch was prompted by a conversation I had with my brother-in-law at our annual New Year's Party.  So much to love, so much to hate.  But the first film I saw theatrically of the New Year was Saving Mr. Banks.  I enjoyed it, but certainly not as much as The Wife.  She got all filled with emotions with this Marry Poppins lovefest.

I also got off my duff and finally got back into Sweet Tooth comics.  Apart from our Graphic Novel Book Club (aka The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Graphic Novel Book Club), I feel like I've been neglecting the comic book medium lately.  Sure, I hit up Big Planet Comics every week, but I've got a massive stack of graphic novels I need to work my way through.  There's a New Year's Resolution for sure.  Not to mention the fact that I've left both my Scorsese-A-Thon & John Carpenter-A-Thons hanging.  Gotta find my Elvis dvd or simply buy another one.  As far as why I haven't watched New York Stories yet.....it looks dull....but Goodfellas follows that so there are no excuses.  Anyway, let's get on with the mini-reviews shall we?

P.S. I'm growing a beard!

Singin' In The Rain:  "You're nothing but a shadow on film."  I honestly had no idea what this movie was about.  I knew there was rain in it.  I knew there was singing.  Some sorta romance.  And yep, all those things are there.  But I was kinda flabbergasted to discover that the backdrop for the film was the transition from the Silent Era into the Talkies.  That must sound silly to all you die-hards out there, but once the Hollywood biography started to get hashed, my interest immediately perked up.  Sure, the big song & dance numbers are fantastic.  Gene Kelly is great, but I was even more enamored with Donald O'Connor's sidekick character - the "Make 'Em Laugh" number is joyous, but it also has a nice bit of biting truth to it.  What's the next Golden Era Musical I have to hit?  Yankee Doodle Dandy?  Show Boat?  Guys And Dolls?  Certainly The Jazz Singer.  A whole genre of film missing from my brain.  Maybe that's my great quest of 2014.

Pain & Gain:  This was mostly background noise while I worked on this year's Dorkies.  But what beautiful background noise!  Finally all of Michael Bay's weird, misogynistic, homophobic, mocking humor makes all the sense in the world.  A "True Film" about a trilogy of dumbbells committing heinous acts in the pursuit of The American Dream.  It's a hilarious watch, and a rather painful one if you think too deeply into the real events that inspired this idiocracy.  The Rock gives his single greatest performance so far, but Mark Wahlberg should get some serious recognition as well.  No one can do moronic earnestness quite like this guy.  And I still argue that it has as much to say about our deeply flawed Nation as Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

Keoma:  If I could grow Keoma's beard I most certainly would.  Franco Nero is a wild man native returned home after the cataclysmic conclusion of the Civil War.  A group of bandits (a perfect collection of pricks one can only see in Spaghetti Westerns) have staked claim over the land, and it's up to Nero & Woody Strode to slaughter their hateful asses.  The plot is straightforward, but it's telling is so wonderfully dreamy thanks to its slow-mo gunsmoke ballets, the constant guttural caws of the score, and Keoma's metaphorical ability to walk in & out of his past.   When people think of Italy's contribution to the West they think The Good, The Bad, & The Eastwood.  If they reach a little beyond that then maybe they think of Sergio Corbucci or Django.  But for my money, the niftiest entry of the sub-genre is Enzo Castellari's Keoma.  Is it my favorite?  Tough call...The Great Silence is sooooo beautifully ugly...but give me three or four more rewatches of this Weird Western and Keoma might very well land on the top.

Haywire:  Steven Soderbergh is a fascinating animal.  He burst onto the scene with a Sundance Classic (Sex, Lies, & Videotape) that absolutely revolutionized Hollywood and paved the way for indie darlings like Quentin Tarantino, then Sophomore Slumped for a series of films (Kafka, King of the Hill, The Underneath, Schizopolis), knocked one out of the park (Out of Sight) creating a megacelebrity (George Clooney), crafted a brilliant love letter to John Boorman (The Limey), floundered with Oscar Bait (Erin Brokovich, Traffic), made bank on Blockbusters (The Oceans Trilogy), drowned in drivel (Full Frontal, Bubble, The Good German, Che, The Girlfriend Experience), and found new life in his final series of weirdo genre pictures (The Informant!, Contagion, Magic Mike, Haywire, Side Effects).  Has there ever been a career with more peeks or valleys?  Of his last batch, The Informant! is probably my intellectual favorite, but the one I watch the most is Haywire.  I mean - Wow! - that Fight-to-the-Death hotel room brawl between Gina Carano & Michael Fassbender is AWEsome!  Possibly my favorite asskicking this side of They Live.  The rest of the film is good too, but that Fassbender beatdown....that's some real movie magic.  I wish Soderbergh all the best in TV Land, but I doubt he'll stay there for long.  The Silver Screen will call you again sir.  Whatever type of picture you decide to make should certainly prove interesting.

Zodiac:  My favorite film of the last 13 years.  This fact seems to baffle Matt.  He just keeps saying "it sure is 3 hours long."  I tell him it's the best police procedural of all time, he says he preferred The Silence of the Lambs.  I'v been thinking about this.  I too love The Silence of the Lambs.  Great movie. Duh.  But it's not really a procedural, is it?  I think what elevates Zodiac so high in my pantheon of All Time Favorite Movies is how meticulous the film is with the investigation - and the obsession born from it in Robert Graysmith.  There are no real answers here, but Graysmith has to hunt them down.  He sacrifices family for the Zodiac.  He might even fool himself in the process.  It's tragic.  It's ultimately pointless.  And David Fincher perfects his clinical eye with this film, and it's never been more suited for a subject.

Man of Steel:  2013 marked the 75th anniversary of Superman.  A milestone for capes & spandex.  But he's never been a character I've really gravitated towards.  I guess I enjoyed the Christopher Reeve films as much as any kid my age, but when I rewatched them earlier this year they didn't have the same shine I once remembered.  Reeve himself is astonishing as the character.  It's a great performance.  But there's plenty of room for improvement as far as the script and side characters are concerned.  I thought Bryan Singer's love poem, Superman Returns was fairly fun if not utterly forgettable, and I was soooooo ready for Zach Snyder to add a little freeze-frame punch to the franchise.  I am, after all, not a Snyder-hater (yes, yes, yes, Sucker Punch sucked).  What I love about Man of Steel:  Russell Crowe's Jor-El & his holo-ghost, Pa Kent's barnyard revelation to young Clark, Amy Adams's plucky newswoman, and the Metropolis Holocaust (yep, two gods meet in an American City...we are fucked). What I hate about Man of Steel:  Pa Kent's utter fear for his son culminating in his final act, Michael Shannon's Screaming Zod, the kissy face in a crater of human ash, and the neck break.  I could probably handle most of my beef if not for Pa Kent.  His parenting seems all wrong for the character.  That being said, there is enough here for me to enjoy the film for years to come.  I can't really say I'm stoked for Batman vs Superman, but I'm certainly curious to see what they cook up, and how all these icons are going to fit with each other.  But if you really want to get to the heart of the Man of Steel, and you've always had trouble like me, then please read Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman.  It's a beautiful depiction of Supes as well as that Golden Age of Comics.

Furious 6:  Not the Action-Packed Roller Coaster Revelation that was Fast Five, this film still manages to pack more fun into car crashes than it has any right.  Frankly, I'm still just shocked at how much of a fan I've become of this franchise.  It wasn't too long ago that I was mocking the first film and downright being a jerk towards 2 Fast 2 Furious.  Now it's 2014, Paul Walker died tragically, and I'm desperately awaiting word on how they'll honor him in Fast Seven.  This series is a goof.  A lark.  But there is something so absolutely charming about the intensity in which they support the notion of family.  We all might be thieves and gunrunners, but we love each other and we know how to crack a skull when we have to.  Fast Five took the franchise into the realm of the unreal, and Furious 6 practically throws a cape over The Rock while he's tossing thugs across rooms.  Don't fool yourself.  This is the very best of Comic Book Cinema.

Saving Mr. Banks:  "The Mouse is Family."  I was a little nervous going into this one.  A friend shot me a link to Harlan Ellison's latest rant, and his tirade nearly brought me into a frenzy against The Disney Machine.  How dare they purport PL Travers's complacency for Mary Poppins when she most certainly did not appreciate the adaptation.  And maybe this film doesn't go into her eventual contempt for the film, but it also doesn't reveal her to be joyous either.  This is a nifty, surface level exploration of  the writing process, and the romance one can have with their creation.  Emma Thompson starts this film as a shrill, nearly psychotic "Writer" battling it out with the Keeper of Dreams, Walt Disney.  A cynic could easily tear this film apart.  But there were several moments in the movie where I thought it understood and appreciated PL Travers's preciousness for her character.  One scene (where musical & biography collide) that nearly brought me to tears in my seat.  Is it the best film of 2013?  No.  Not even close.  But I imagine if you (like my wife) already have great affinity for the Disney Film then you'll just adore Saving Mr. Banks.  And when is Harlan Ellison not ranting? - don't sue me!

MST3K - I Accuse My Parents:  "Can I interest you in a size of ME?"  For the new year, The Wife & I have committed to watching as many episodes of Mystery Science Theater as we can.  When I hear Joel, Tom Servo, and Crooooooow snicker and jeer their way through some shoddy movie it immediately takes me back in time.  I'm 12 years old, it's way past my bedtime, and I'm snorting up a bowl of CT Crunch as The Killer Shrews shuffle about my tv screen.  Ah...bliss.  I Accuse My Parents is one of those terrible cautionary tales in which a teenage shoe salesman goes on a kill crazy rampage because his mom was a drunk.  Boo hoo, kid, it's tough all over.  Good jokes, but also not the finest hour for the Gizmonic Institute.  Looking forward to the next one.

Sweet Tooth Volumes 3-5 by Jeff Lemire:  My goodness, these are some wonderfully sad comics.  Volume 2 left poor Sweet Tooth in the hands of some diabolical scientists, and Volume 3 picks up with Mr Jeppard marching to the rescue before Doctor Singh can gut the deer boy open, and dissect just how these hybrids avoid The Sickness.  I enjoyed the first few chapters of this series, but once Jeff Lemire gets these guys out of the camps and on the road of discovery, the saga really begins to take shape.  What is Sweet Tooth?  A man made creation or some ancient god of the earth?  I don't know, but I'm betting whatever the answer it's a depressing one.  Not for the faint of heart...or the squeamish, Sweet Tooth is an apocalypse story drowning in dread.  And I love it.  One trade to go, should be done in a few days.

Drew - The Man Behind The Poster:  If you're in your mid-30s and you love movies then you love Drew Struzan.  The premiere illustrator who birthed countless posters for such films as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, Masters of the Universe, and Police Academy.  I've been collecting his work since I was fourteen.  Behind every framed poster in my house, you can probably find a Struzan buried behind whatever current obsession.  This is a typical talking-heads documentary, but I was pleased to discover how in-depth it goes into some of his creations.  And I certainly appreciated hearing the praise coming from such icons as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael J Fox, Ken Kelly, and Steve Guttenberg.  Harrison Ford at the junket, though?  That's awkward.  It's currently on Netflix Streaming, give it a whirl.

--Brad

A Fistful of Double Features! (Brad's Picks)

I love pairing movies.  Grab Eyes Wide Shut off the shelf and double it with Days of Thunder and see what happens.  Or how about Conquest of the Planet of the Apes with Hell Up In Harlem?  I try a lot of weird Double Features here at the apartment, and I love subjecting my wife & friends to the most gonzo of combos.  Listed below are a few of my favorite mixtures, and a couple I'm dying to try out.

 

5.  The Raid/Dredd:  Two films in which a supreme badass kills his way to the top of a drug cartel's diabolical bunker high-rise.  Perfect examples of thrilling ultraviolence that should not be pitted against each other, but partnered like the exploitation beauties they truly are.

4.  Night of the Creeps/Halloween III:  Who's the go-to action hero of the 1980s?  Schwarzenegger?  Stallone?  Yeah, probably one of those guys.  But who's the go-to action hero of 1980s horror films?  Kurt Russell?  Bruce Campbell?  Yeah, probably them.  But standing right over their shoulders is Tom Atkins.  He never got the fame or the fortune, but this mustached madman did confounded rage like no other.  Whether rising to the challenge of "Thrill Me" in Night of the Creeps or screaming "Turn It Off" to a bunch of kiddie hating druids in Halloween III, Tom Atkins ruled the VHS tapes if not the big screen.  I dare you to watch these wildly weird B Movies back-to-back and not come away a fan for life.

3.  Point Blank/The Limey:  Viewed on their own, Point Blank & The Limey are exceptional examples of crime cinema.  But if you watch The Limey immediately after Point Blank then you will discover a great love letter to the movies.  Having already dabbled with John Boorman's dialog/image layering in Out of Sight, Steven Soderbergh goes for broke replicating both the dreamy quality of Point Blank as well as the rage motivating his professional thief.  The fine details might be different, trade a chunk of cash for a dead daughter, but The Limey is practically a remake of the Boorman beast.  A bloody brilliant one.

2.  Dirty Harry/Zodiac:  The San Francisco Zodiac Murders grabbed all the sensational headlines of the late 60s/early 70s.  The killer was never apprehended, but the mystery spawned dozens of What If TV movies & True Crime novels.  The most famous spawn being Clint Eastwood's constitution smasher, Dirty Harry.  When bureaucracy and political red tape get in the way, Detective Harry Callahan is there to put his boot on the perp's knee and beat a confession out of him.  A frustrated public response to indiscernible crime perpetuated by media fear mongers.  Decades later, wannabe sleuth Robert Graysmith would write two books detailing the backwards insanity of the Zodiac investigation, and David Fincher's cinematic adaptation actually incorporates the Dirty Harry premiere as a means of punctuating the passage of time.  I have yet to commit this double feature, but I think Dirty Harry could provide some fantastic catharsis after suffering the procedural frustration of Zodiac.

1.  After Hours/Into The Night:  Both of these films are at once absolutely hilarious and deeply depressing in their assault upon their protagonists.  Ever have one of those nights where nothing goes right?  No you haven't.  You might think you have, but after you sit yourself down for these two brutally funny films from Martin Scorsese & John Landis then you'll have a brand new appreciation for your dull, pedestrian life.  Griffin Dunne's nightmare is a little more ordinary than Jeff Goldblum's (certainly fewer David Bowie assassins in After Hours), but both flicks are masterful in their ratcheting of tension. The only release at your disposal is laughter - of the schadenfreude variety.   If you sympathize too much you'll probably go mad after this double feature.

--Brad

Two More Fistfuls of Favorites! (Brad's Picks)

Two years ago, I finally settled on my Top Ten Favorite Films of All Time.  These are not The Great Films lauded by the AFI, Roger Ebert, or Sight & Sound.  These are the flicks that bring a smile to my face, or a race to my heart.  I don't believe in "The Best" - I only believe in Favorites.  I'm pleased to report that my films remain firmly set in stone.  I wouldn't switch a single number.  Unforgiven is certainly my #1 and Point Blank is certainly my #7.  Crafting the next ten, 11-20, was much more of a challenge.  I love so many movies.  What keeps Phantom of the Paradise on the list, but Lawrence of Arabia off?  Not exactly sure.  In another two years I'd safely bet my Top Ten is holding strong, but this Top Twenty will probably flip-flop a film or two.  Well, Dr. Jones is going nowhere.

20.  Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974):  I only recently fell in love with this Rock n Roll horror musical from the king of the Hitchcock steal.  Maybe only a half dozen watches, and I'm kinda shocked to see it on the list.  All that being said, Phantom of the Paradise is everything the Rocky Horror Picture Show wants to be - and more!  Struggling singer/songwriter Winslow Leach (the super sad & adorable William Finley) has his art stolen from him by the diabolical record producer Swan (sexual deviant Paul Williams) just before a tragic accident takes his face & voice.  The film mixes elements from The Phantom of the Opera & Faust but is steeped in all sorts of rock n roll - surfer, glam, metal.  And thanks to Paul Williams's pen, the songs are utterly brilliant.

19.  Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007):  There is no better police procedural than Zodiac.  Following the infamous investigation of eight murders surrounding the San Francisco area from 1968 to 1969 and possibly beyond, the movie really excels in its depiction of obsession.  Breaking the film up into three parts & three characters, the Zodiac killings attract the attention of Robert Downey Jr's Chronicle Reporter, Mark Raffalo's dogged detective, and Jake Gyllanhaal's curious cartoonist.  Like the best mysteries, the enjoyment doesn't come from the answers but the questions, and how these killings root their way through the souls of the protagonists.  I grew up reading the Robert Graysmith books as well as dozens of other sensational true crime novels, but none of them came close to touching the humanity found here.

18.  12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957):  The Great American Movie.  This film has the power to grant every audience member the courage of their convictions.  12 jurors file into a room ready to sentence a teenager to death, wash their hands, and race home to the ball game.  Henry Fonda stand up, "wait a sec", let's discuss.  One man can make a difference.  And 12 Angry Men should be watched every Fourth of July.

17.  Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997):  Maybe not the flashy game changer that was Pulp Fiction or as violently referential as Kill Bill, however, Tarantino's Elmore Leonard adaptation has one thing going for it that all his other movies don't....Elmore Leonard.  Tarantino is famous for his sponge style to filmmaking, the director can squeeze every scintillating drop from a hundred/thousand/million other lesser films of yesterday and mold them into staggering works of genius.  That fetishizing is certainly on display in Jackie Brown, but less so - the man lets Leonard do the hard work.  You've got smart criminals, dumb criminals, smart cops, dumb cops.  Pam Grier's money mule flight attendant finds herself up the creek, but uses the opportunity to free herself from the rut of her daily life.  Sam Jackson gives his All Time Great Performance as showboating gunrunner Ordell Robbie, and Robert De Niro is the ultimate expression of an Elmore Leonard character with his putz of a convict.  Not enough love has ever been properly thrown their way.  And yeah, Robert Forester, Michael Keaton, and Bridgette Fonda are in top form.  All expertly shot & executed by master movie man Quentin Tarantino.

16.  Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974):  Movies about movies, we love em around here.  And filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, and Edgar Wright are virtuosos in cinematic dictation.  But the greatest movie about movies is Roman Polanski's Chinatown.  A love letter to the noirs of the 1940s as well as the hard boiled fiction of Raymond Chandler, Polanski's film is elevated by Robert Towne's paranoid, hateful screenplay and Jack Nicholson's escalating rage.

15.  Planet of the Apes (Franklin J Schaffner, 1968):  Whether you've seen the movie or not, you probably already know the story.  Charlton Heston's astronaut lands on a mysterious planet in which apes rule over man.  "Damn Dirty Apes" & Statues of Liberty ensue.  But similar to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the film is much more than its quotes & twists.  Some of my favorite bits come in the first thirty minutes in which Heston, Gunner, & Burton explore the desert landscape and Chuck spouts his beautiful nihilism.  Then the horns blow, the hunt chases down our Earthly crusaders, and damn revelation tears our hero to shreds.  Planet of the Apes is some of the smartest science-fiction Athenaed from Rod Serling's skull, and I only wish the big, beastly blockbusters of our day bothered to mine the wit on display here rather than Ciffsnoting the climax.

14.  The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980):  What began as a Saturday Night Live showstopper quickly transformed into the greatest celebration of Rhythm & Blues ever.  But it's so much more than that.  Under the hyper enthusiastic direction of John Landis, The Blue Brothers reaches levels of cartoonish adventure worthy of the greatest Warner Brothers cartoon or, yeah, Tolkienian quest.  Jake & Elwood Blues are on a mission from God, and if they don't get the band back together then all the boys & girls of the Catholic Orphanage will go homeless.  Standing in their way are a caravan of hillbillies, a squadron of state troopers, the Illinois Nazis, and a bazooka packing Carrie Fischer.  The Blues Brothers is a madcap musical and totally badass.  Not too many of those around.

13.  Big Trouble in Little China (John Carpenter, 1986):  I was seven years old when I first saw John Carpenter's werido action, comedy.  I couldn't quite wrap my head around it.  Kurt Russell was all smiles and bravado, but he kept getting knocked on the ground while wearing ladies lipstick.  Russell's Jack Burton was boss, but he was also a dolt.  Of course, that's the whole point.  The John Wayne white man is the sidekick, and Dennis Dun is the chop socky badass fighting his way to the evil wizard.  Big Trouble in Little China is silly, goofy, and cool.  A combination hard for some, but absolutely in tune with the ITMOD sensibilities.

12.  Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973):  Two friends find themselves on opposite sides of the law; James Coburn's Sheriff is charged by local government to hunt down and capture Kris Krisstofferson's rabble-rouser, Billy the Kid.  Peckinpah's obsession with the closing West continues, but it plumbs new depths of depression as Garrett's soul is traded for easy living.  Melancholy has never been represented so fully than in the posture of Coburn's sell-out.  Not a fun night out at the movies, but as far as Westerns go, few achieve richer emotion.

11.  Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981):  Spielberg may have ushered in the new era of Blockbusters with JAWS, and George Lucas certainly solidified it with Star Wars, but it was Raiders of the Lost Ark that perfected the phenomenon.  Hollywood and its audience have been doomed ever since.  But let's not focus on the negative.  Harrison Ford is the king of self-depricating cool.  He's a real man's man with the grit of Lee Marvin and the charm of Cary Grant.  He can take a beating from a Nazi thug, but jump back swinging.  He can play drunk, asshole, or bastard and we still love him.   He's everything I've ever wanted to be and have absolutely no chance of achieving.  Toss in an epic quest to save God from Hitler and you have the ultimate adventure film.  Fortune & Glory.

So there you have it.  My favorite films from 11-20.  Again, if you're still interested in reading drivel, check out 1-10 HERE.

--Brad