54 - "Alien" (1979)

     On the way home from a mission, a spaceship called the Nostromo receives an SOS beacon from a nearby planet and the crew is awaken from hibernation. When they arrive, there are no signs of human life but a creature has attached itself to the mask of one of the crew members. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in her most iconic role) does not want the crew member bought back onto the spaceship, but she is overruled as the others fear for his life. That ends up being a really bad mistake. I think that is about all I will give away of the plot for those who haven't seen Alien and want to. Alien is a brilliant sci-fi/horror movie and from a tension standpoint it may be one of the best ever. This movie builds very slowly. A lesser movie would jump right to the action scenes but director Ridley Scott is smarter than that and he utilizes the techniques that worked so well in Jaws. We do not see the creature in its whole form until the second half of the movie. Instead, there is a foreboding since of dread which builds, and builds, and builds until we are sitting on the edge of our seats. Then Scott turns the alien loose and we hang on for the ride. Alien is one of the best horror films ever made and inspired many movies and several sequels.
     Speaking of sequels, during my list I have been mentioning any sequels that I thought were worthwhile. This is a little different because in this case, the sequel is every bit as good (and perhaps better) than the original. Aliens is one of the best sequels ever made for any film. If you put a gun to my head, I would probably choose the original Alien, but Aliens is worthy of a spot on this list so I am mentioning it.

55 - "12 Angry Men" (1957)

     12 Angry Men is one of those movies that sort of happened upon me accidentally. I was laying in bed sick one day and caught this movie on when there was nothing else playing and decided to watch it. However, the version I caught was made in 1997. I thought the movie was pretty good and decided to read a little bit more about it as I am curious about how movies are made and stuff like that. I learned that it was a remake of a 1957 Henry Fonda film that had terrific reviews. I decided to watch the original and boy was I blown away and it has remained one of my favorite films ever since. 12 Angry Men is about a jury of 12 men who are deciding the fate of a young Hispanic kid who is accused of murdering his father. From the first scenes, it appears to be an open and shut case. This film is not a courtroom drama though by any means as we hear no evidence or testimony about the trial. Every fact about the case that we get is after the fact as the jurors talk about it. There is a very brief prologue and a very brief epilogue scene in this movie but 99% of it takes place in the jury room with these 12 individuals. Right away, 11 of the jurors vote for guilty with only Henry Fonda's character holding out. He doesn't necessarily think everyone else is wrong, but he doesn't feel like a boys life sentence should be decided in five minutes. So he slowly starts to question some of the evidence that was submitted in the case. As he continues to debate the "reasonable doubt" of the defendant, other jurors start to question things which leads to a lot of angst and frustration among the jurors. It's here where the movie really takes off and becomes a classic. All the while, we are never told if the kid is guilty or not, we must figure it out along with the rest of the jury. 12 Angry Men is such a simple formula for a movie and it is one that will leave you thinking about things long after. All of the actors have characters who are developed well and have their own personalities which come out in the jury room. This movie is simply a masterpiece.

56 - "Rounders" (1998)

     In the early 2000's, poker had a resurgence in popularity due to ESPN showing the World Series of Poker on it's networks. It seemed for a few years there, everyone and their grandmothers were playing poker. I even got involved in a few games here and there. But I wasn't new to the game as a lot of people were during that time. I had played for years with friends just for fun, or penny poker at the most. So in 1998, when I heard about this movie Rounders coming out, and it was about poker, I was all in (pun fully intended). Rounders stars arguably the two best young actors in Hollywood at that time, Matt Damon and Edward Norton. Damon is Mike McDermott, a law student who was a former poker player who lost everything to an underground crime boss named Teddy KGB (John Malkovich). He has backed away from the game with the help of his girlfriend and hopes to be a lawyer one day. When his best friend Worm (Norton) is released from prison, Mike finds himself being pulled back towards the game by Worm. At one time, these two were pros at working together to fix games in their favor. Mike is hesitant because he knows what happened in his past, but Worm owes a lot of money to some dangerous people and Mike knows he has the ability to help his friend out. The movie eventually becomes a race against time and will lead to Mike facing a lot of enemies from his past. Rounders is a superb little film that flew under the radar at first but picked up a cult following when the poker boom hit. Damon and Norton are nothing short of fantastic and the script is very well written providing great dialogue for the two. This is a movie you can enjoy even if you don't know a lot about poker. It certainly helps, but it's not a necessity. If you want to see two of Hollywood's finest at the top of their games, Rounders is your movie.

57 - "There's Something About Mary" (1998)

      There's just something about Mary. I can distinctly remember watching this movie when it was released in 98. I had seen the previews numerous times on tv with the dog biting Ben Stiller's crotch and I thought that was something that needed to be seen. With so many films, what you see in the previews are the only thing worth watching and I kind of feared that would be the case with this movie. But my fears ended up being unwarranted. I don't think I have ever laughed as hard as when I saw this movie for the first time. I literally had moments when I couldn't breathe due to my laughing so much. Ben Stiller is Ted, a high school geek, who ends up getting a date to the prom with Mary, the prettiest girl in school. Mary is played by Cameron Diaz in what I think is by far her best work on the big screen. The date goes horribly wrong before it even really starts due to a "zipper" accident which provides us one of the funniest scenes in the film (We got a bleeder!!!). Years later, Ted has moved on with life but he still thinks about Mary. He hires a private detective, played by Matt Dillon, to track down Mary. Upon finding her, Dillon falls in love with Mary also and this leads to both guys pursuing Mary along with a few other assorted characters. There's Something About Mary is directed by the Farrelly Brothers, who also gave us the great Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber. Their brand of humor is not for everyone and this is definitely not a movie for the kiddos to watch by any means. But if you want some mindless entertainment, and get some great laughs along the way, you can't do much better than this.

58 - "Munich" (2005)

     One of the more ridiculous Academy Award arguments of recent memory is the debate that rages on about Crash beating out Brokeback Mountain for the Best Picture Oscar in 2006. The reason that it's ridiculous is because NEITHER one of them was the best movie from that year. Yes, this is just my opinion, but I feel pretty strong about it. Both of those films were seen by a wider audience but the true star of 2005 is Steven Spielberg's Munich. During the Summer Olympics of 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage and murdered at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist group called Black September. Israel's Prime Minister, Golda Meir, deploys a secret group of five men to hunt down and exact revenge on the terrorists. Munich tells the story of these five men and their quest for justice for the nation of Israel. Eric Bana and Daniel Craig are the big names attached to the film but all of the acting is top notch. The cinematography is stunning and some of the suspense scenes are ones that would make Hitchcock proud. Out of all the movies on my list, I'd be willing to bet this is one that is probably the least seen and that is unfortunate. If you get an opportunity to see this, make sure you do. It represents a true, but widely unknown, chapter of history and will leave you thinking.

59 - "The Fugitive" (1993)

     Ah, the wonderful year of 1993. It was the year I graduated from high school and also one of the best years in cinema history, in my humble opinion. 1993 was right in the prime of my movie love and I was seeing at least one new movie every week. Because of that it should come as no surprise that this year is the most represented on my list with 9 movies. Some have already showed up such as Philadelphia and Schindler's List, and others will come later. But when I think of that year, usually the first film that pops in my mind is The Fugitive. Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Kimble, who has been mistakenly found guilty of murdering his wife and sentenced to death. While being transferred to prison his bus is involved in accident with a train which gives us one of the best crash scenes in movie history. Sensing an opportunity to prove his innocence, Kimble escapes and goes on the run. US Marshals led by Sam Gerard, played brilliantly by Tommy Lee Jones, go on the search of Dr. Kimble and this provides us with the plot of the film. Jones picked up a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal as the relentless pursuer. The film earned a Best Picture nomination, losing out to the previously mentioned Schindler's List. Other than his iconic roles as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, I feel Harrison Ford is at his absolute best here. For action at its absolute best, The Fugitive is a must own in any video library.

Movie Review - "Super 8" (2011) ****

     The summer movie season used to be the best time of the year for me. You always had great action movies that even though they may not be the greatest movies in the world, they were just simply a heck of a lot of fun. I don't know what it is the last few years but I have just not been interested in the summer movies and find myself more drawn to the award season movies that tend to come out later in the year. I love both and wish I could bridge that gap but I just don't like the endless superhero, pirates, transformers type movies that have dominated the summer months in recent memory. Every once in awhile something surprises me, like The Dark Knight, but usually these movies are just headache inducing sound machines that have no character development to speak of. And it is this last fact that bothers me the most as I am seeing it more and more in cinema where almost zero attention is giving to writing good characters. How can I care about Transformers tearing up the world if I have no emotional attachment to the people running from these behemoths? Yeah, it may look cool, but who cares. I certainly don't. Which makes a movie like the just released Super 8 a breath of fresh air and gives me hope that the summer movie season still has a solid future.
     Super 8 takes place in 1979 and tells the story of a group of children who are making a monster movie utilizing a Super 8mm camera (hence the title of the film). One night while filming at an abandoned train station, they get their opportunity at a great shot when a train unexpectedly appears in the distance. They get everything set up and start shooting the scene when one of the kids sees a pickup truck get in the path of the train, causing a massive train wreck which destroys just about everything in the immediate area. After collecting themselves and realizing that everyone is safe, the kids find the driver of the truck still alive and he also happens to be a teacher at their school. He warns the kids to not speak of this incident and makes them leave as it appears a military convoy is coming towards the crash scene. The kids leave, narrowly escaping the military personnel, but before they do they realize that some of the cargo of the train is strange and one of them takes a cube object home. In the following days around town, weird things start to happen such as power outages, missing car engines and all of the towns dogs appear to go missing. There also seems to be a creature of some sort terrorizing the town, but we only get very brief and unclear images of it. What is creating havoc in this town and why is the military taking over the immediate area? I could tell you but of course I won't as the journey to these answers is a joy to take.
     If you have read or seen any reviews of Super 8 you almost certainly have seen mention of this film being an homage by the director JJ Abrams to his idol, Steven Spielberg, who is a producer on this film. I have seen this mentioned numerous times....and they are all absolutely right. This is definitely a Spielberg-type film and Abrams, creator of my favorite tv show of all time "LOST", does justice to the Spielberg name. There are many references and nods to Spielberg films, some are subtle but most are staring you right there in the face. I think the movies I picked up the most connection to while watching are definitely E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Jaws but one that I think really stands out that I don't see mentioned much is Jurassic Park. There are definitely a couple of scenes that stand out where I thought I was watching Park for a minute, and that's a good thing to me. Abrams is still fairly new to the directing world but he received a lot of praise for his Star Trek reboot (not seen by me for obvious reasons if you know me!!) and I thought Mission: Impossible 3 was a lot of fun. But with Super 8 on his resume now he has established himself as a director that is entering his prime and is hopefully ready to continue the Spielberg tradition of storytelling.
    Abrams is great and this movie would not be the same without him directing, but the highlight of this movie for me was the cast, most notably the kids. While most are given equal screen time, it's pretty evident from the beginning of the movie that newcomer Joel Courtney is the primary lead as Joe Lamb. As the movie opens, Joe has lost his mother in an accident and he is trying to get by in life with his father Jackson, played by the superb Kyle Chandler (his lead role in the show Friday Night Lights may be one of the best tv fathers of all-time). Jackson is a police deputy in the small Ohio town where the story takes place and is struggling to raise his son alone. The bond these two have as father and son plays a key role in the emotional elements of the movie. If they don't work well together, this movie would not work well. They obviously do. Riley Griffiths is Charles, the boy who is making the film that the kids are shooting. He is bossy like a typical director but he provides some good laughs in the movie and I really enjoyed seeing him work. Zach Mills, Gabriel Basso and Ryan Lee also have roles as Preston, Martin and Cary, respectively. Lee's Cary is especially great as the kid who provides special effects for the film. I think most of us growing up knew a kid in school who liked to play with fire and explosive things just a little too much. Cary is that kid here and that personality trait provides some great laughs in the film. All of these boys are great, but we can't forget the lone girl in the group, Alice, played by the beautiful and extremely talented Elle Fanning (sister of Dakota Fanning). Fanning is simply wonderful here as a balancing act to the boys in the film. The chemistry she displays with Joel Courtney early in the film gives me a lot of hope for the future of actors and actresses. All of these kids make this movie work because of what I mentioned at the start of the review.....we CARE about them. For the most part we get to know them individually and we are sympathetic to what they have witnessed and are experiencing in their small hometown. As is typical of a Spielberg film, the kids seem to know more than the adults in the film and that is perfectly fine. It worked in such great films like E.T. and The Goonies, just to name two.
     Super 8 is a brilliant kick-off to this years summer movie season. I hope there will be other films that have the same passion and heart. Yes, there is something out there, and it is loud and dark and scary. The action in this movie is definitely summer movie worthy and can be very intense at times. I would not recommend this for very young children. But families with kids in the 8-10 range and up can definitely find a movie here they will enjoy watching as a family. That is what summer movies are all about. I am refraining from giving this movie an extra star for a couple of different reasons. While I enjoyed the ending, I think it could have been a little bit better and there were also a couple of times in the middle when I found myself looking at my watch a couple of times but these were mainly during the military scenes. When the kids are on screen, the movie is solid, unfortunately there are times when they are not. But don't let these couple of negatives dissuade you, I give this movie a very high recommendation.