Favoritest Movies of 1994

My father and I used to keep a list throughout the year of movies we saw in the theater on the refrigerator with ratings on them.  He'd give me crap about seeing more movies than him.  But, considering that essentially every weekend I was seeing a movie with him (we'd miss a few weekends in this period due to going to a Cardinal game, or a show at the Fox, or the St. Louis Symphony), I'd go to the movies fairly often with my girlfriend at the time, and once a week my friend Verne and I would ditch class to go see a movie at Crestwood Mall.  Until we saw it... A movie that was, to us, just disgustingly unenjoyable.  Our weekly skip to the movies was killed dead by Natural Born Killers.  I was a little surprised to see it placed only third from the bottom on this list.

I was more surprised that Stargate is my favorite 1994 movie.  I really had no idea what would come out on top.  Maybe I haven't been clear about this before, but I've been using (a slightly modified) Condorcet method to rank each year of movies.  But there were so many movies that I saw at the time and since, either on video or cable that I did enjoy; how did Stargate win? When I saw Stargate for the first time, at Keller 8 Cine; 1) I thought it was one of the most predictable movies I've ever seen, but 2) I really wanted to see a sequel.  It was co-opting Erich von Däniken and the rest of the ancient astronaut mini industry of books you'd find in the metaphysical / new-age section of any Waldenbooks, without being tacky.  I really wished for a second movie where they went to Atlantis.  Other gods in addition to the Egyptians would have been nice to see as well.  But, If I had made this list in 1994, not only would it have been a lot shorter.  Stargate wouldn't have passed Forest Gump, Pulp Fiction, or Leon.  It probably would have been just above the middle.    

"Never underestimate your audience. They're generally
sensitive, intelligent people who respond positively
to quality entertainment." - STARGΛTE SG·1

So why so much love now for a truly ridiculous movie?  Ridiculous I say?  The premise is this; If you find an old safe, and have the first 6 numbers of a 7 number combination, how many experts does it take to open it?  But, that's what Alfred Hitchcock would call a "Refrigerator Moment", so it's forgiven.  Now, my wife and her brother dig on Stargate, but that's not enough alone.  Star Trek The Next Generation is my favorite TV series ever, and that probably helped Generations to the second spot (tied with The Lion King).  Heck, Generations isn't even that great, Why didn't Tolian Sorin just get himself a shuttlecraft and one of those thruster suits Spock had in The Motion Picture and fly into the Nexus, save all the people on Veridian 3 the trouble of dying... by the way, if you kill an entire planetary civilization in a movie these days, you don't gewt a pass like Generations or New Hope, we need to see cities crumble and families crushed or engulfed in flame... Go Roland Emmerich on their sorry carbon based bottoms!  Say, aside from 2012, didn't he make... Stargate?  Stargate got to the top of this list with Ten seasons of clawing it's way into my heart.  As much as I loved Richard Dead Anderson, and I still as of the writing of this, I need to watch all of Farscape.  But, Ben Browder and Claudia Black joining the show, made SG·1 some serious family time TV viewing.  It's a conceptual high tide, and I'm probably not the first person to enjoy the original film more, thanks to the series.  So, it's on to the next round for twenty movies from the class of 1994, here's the list of how everyone stacked up in the end.

1. Stargate
2. (Tie) Star Trek Generations
3. (Tie) The Lion King
4. Interview with the Vampire
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Léon
7. Forrest Gump
8. Clerks
9. Maverick
10. The Crow
11. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
12. True Lies
13. The Shawshank Redemption
14. Radioland Murders
15. Street Fighter
16. Ed Wood
17. Love Affair
18. The Flintstones
19. The Hudsucker Proxy
20. Timecop
21. The Next Karate Kid
22. The Shadow
23. Speechless
24. The Paper
25. Quiz Show
26. The Mask
27. Reality Bites
28. Richie Rich
29. Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla
30. Major League II
31. Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult
32. Threesome
33. Three Colors: Red
34. Heavenly Creatures
35. Color of Night
36. Speed
37. The Ref
38. I.Q.
39. Bad Girls
40. Highlander III: The Final Dimension
41. Nobody's Fool
42. Sirens
43. The Madness of King George
44. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
45. Backbeat
46. Mixed Nuts
47. Three Colors: White
48. Africa: The Serengeti
49. Lightning Jack
50. Greedy
51. Cobb
52. With Honors
53. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
54. Disclosure
55. Guarding Tess
56. Police Academy: Mission to Moscow
57. North
58. Clear and Present Danger
59. Legends of the Fall
60. Nell
61. Little Women
62. The Getaway
63. Blown Away
64. Dream Lover
65. The Scout
66. Four Weddings and a Funeral
67. No Escape
68. The Specialist
69. Shallow Grave
70. The Return of Jafar
71. City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold
72. On Deadly Ground
73. Renaissance Man
74. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
75. The Chase
76. I Love Trouble
77. Only You
78. Wyatt Earp
79. Terminal Velocity
80. Immortal Beloved
81. Double Dragon
82. Gunmen
83. Wolf
84. Black Beauty
85. The Santa Clause
86. The Cowboy Way
87. Intersection
88. Miracle on 34th Street
89. Exit to Eden
90. Lassie
91. The Jungle Book
92. The Client
93. Beverly Hills Cop III
94. Drop Zone
95. It Could Happen To You
96. The Puppet Masters
97. Junior
98. Muriel's Wedding
99. The Little Rascals
100. Angels in the Outfield
101. When a Man Loves a Woman
102. The Swan Princess
103. Baby's Day Out
104. Serial Mom
105. A Troll in Central Park
106. My Girl 2
107. PCU
108. Natural Born Killers
109. Dumb and Dumber
110. It's Pat

Legend: Onto the next Round! ( >/= .8) In the middle. I do NOT enjoy. (< / = .2)

"This page would look so much cooler if I were at the top" -- Pulp Fiction Movie poster, squatting here in it's own coolness protesting the movies loss.

Favoritest Movies of 1995

 

We see twin movies in almost every year it seems, 1995 had  Kevin Spacey interrogated by cops TWICE on this list, French Kiss, meet Forget Paris, and of course Rob Roy and Braveheart!  But, there are SIX Cyberpunkish movies in this year;  Russell Crowe became real, Keanu had an 80G storage capacity, and Sandra was able to begin boring me with everything she'll ever do in perpetuity, we got to see Angelina Jolie for the first time (no, I saw Cyborg 2!) and did I mention Strange Days?  The only one to get to the next round was the anime.

I was the guy doing the layouts on our college paper that year, and there were two big benefits to that; an all expense paid trip to the collegiate journalists conference in Washington DC and demanding that I got to go to the press screening of Goldeneye.  The sound was a bit screwed up, and when Brosnan fires that grapple gun at the start of the movie, it was physically shocking to everyone in attendance... just way too loud, just a few minutes later the sound was turned down to less than deafening, but I could have cared less.  Bond was back, and back then a six year absence felt near enough to eternal.  

But, the winner of the year.  That movie poster hangs above my living room couch.  It was one of, if not completely, my fathers favorite movie.  We saw it at Ronnies 8 on a screen that we were making fun of for being only slightly larger than our 46" TV at home.  I swear he didn't initially love it, but later he practically wore the VHS copy out.  As for me, I still think Aaron Sorkin is the best dialogue writer in Hollywood; he has every other screenwriter asking each other how to spell erudite.

1. The American President
2. GoldenEye
3. Mallrats
4. Ghost in the Shell
5. The Usual Suspects
6. Ninja Scroll
7. Babe
8. Bad Boys
9. Se7en
10. Mortal Kombat
11. Nixon
12. The Quick and the Dead
13. Toy Story
14. Braveheart
15. Apollo 13
16. Judge Dredd
17. Grumpier Old Men
18. Die Hard with a Vengeance
19. The City of Lost Children
20. Desperado
21. Tank Girl
22. Batman Forever
23. Strange Days
24. Twelve Monkeys
25. The Brady Bunch Movie
26. Congo
27. Rob Roy
28. A Little Princess
29. Casper
30. Species
31. Assassins
32. The Indian in the Cupboard
33. Waterworld
34. Nine Months
35. The Prophecy
36. Sabrina
37. Outbreak
38. Circle of Friends
39. Shanghai Triad
40. Empire Records
41. Four Rooms
42. Clueless
43. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
44. Crimson Tide
45. Hackers
46. Sense and Sensibility
47. Johnny Mnemonic
48. The Last Supper
49. Police Story 4: First Strike
50. Powder
51. First Knight
52. Jumanji
53. Nick of Time
54. Showgirls
55. Cutthroat Island
56. Screamers
57. Dracula: Dead and Loving It
58. Get Shorty
59. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
60. Virtuosity
61. Lord of Illusions
62. Othello
63. Dangerous Minds
64. Heat
65. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
66. French Kiss
67. A Goofy Movie
68. Operation Dumbo Drop
69. The Bridges of Madison County
70. The Brothers McMullen
71. Billy Madison
72. Fair Game
73. Father of the Bride Part II
74. Something to Talk About
75. Forget Paris
76. Pocahontas
77. Sudden Death
78. Balto
79. Casino
80. Iron Eagle IV
81. Just Cause
82. While You Were Sleeping
83. Don Juan DeMarco
84. Money Train
85. To Die For
86. The Net
87. Murder in the First
88. Jury Duty
89. Never Talk to Strangers
90. Vampire in Brooklyn
91. The Scarlet Letter
92. Jade
93. Tommy Boy
94. Kids
95. The Basketball Diaries

Legend: Onto the next Round! ( >/= .8) In the middle. I do NOT enjoy. (< / = .2)

Favoritest Movies of 1996

What a waste of a year of movies.  Take the bottom 60 titles on this list, I'll never watch any of them ever again.  We will not see a year this bad until 2010, but being fair 1996 is worse.  As I continue this trip back, I hope I don't come across another year that stinks as badly.  BUT, maybe just maybe its the number of movies I saw.  106!  That's the third highest count on my list following 1990 at 109 and 1994 at 112 movies seen.  So... maybe just maybe the more movies one sees the more crap they see.  That's a shame.  I was really hoping the the more you saw, the more likely you are to find hidden nuggets to treasure and enjoy...  Well, maybe there were... where's my optimists hat?  Oh, here it is covered in dust caked on by age.  Well look at you two...

There were two gems that I probably would not have seen at the time If I only saw the popular movies to see.  The Phantom is one of the worst marketed... screw the rhetoric here, the poster says "SLAM EVIL"  I have no idea what that means, but it feels lame to me.  It looks like it's trying to appeal to eight year olds, not real ones, but the tertiary characters on Leave it to Beaver.  I know we're a year before South Park here, but how could you not know that that poster and everything about the movie looks lame to... humans.  Everywhere, everywhen.  But, The Phantom is a good movie.  It's a fun to watch, Indiana Jones movie but the guy is in a purple body suit.  Best of all, on Blu-Ray this movie looks good, really really good.  To me this is the gold standard for how an old catalog title should be treated.  I've read some complaints about the video quality, but lets put things into perspective.  The Phantom is a BD from Lionsgate of a 1996 movie that grossed 17 million dollars.  And it looks almost brand new.  If an old popcorn flick that's life was somewhere between flop and bomb can look this nice; no movie you care about has any excuse.  The other nugget, was the first movie I saw by Peter Jackson.  It's fun too, but Peter Jackson's done better.  On to the list.

1. Independence Day
2. Star Trek: First Contact
3. The Rock
4. Hamlet
5. The Phantom
6. Mars Attacks!
7. The English Patient
8. Mission: Impossible
9. My Fellow Americans
10. Jerry Maguire
11. From Dusk Till Dawn
12. Muppet Treasure Island
13. Dragonheart
14. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
15. The Frighteners
16. Space Jam
17. Romeo + Juliet
18. Scream
19. The Long Kiss Goodnight
20. The Truth About Cats & Dogs
21. Escape from L.A., aka John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.
22. Ransom
23. Up Close & Personal
24. The Arrival
25. That Thing You Do!
26. The Ghost and the Darkness
27. Broken Arrow
28. Rumble in the Bronx
29. Swingers
30. Spy Hard
31. Tin Cup
32. Police Story 4: First Strike
33. Executive Decision
34. Jingle All the Way
35. A Time to Kill
36. Twister
37. Last Man Standing
38. The Craft
39. Bound
40. The People vs. Larry Flynt
41. Courage Under Fire
42. Happy Gilmore
43. Evita
44. Eraser
45. Multiplicity
46. Beautiful Girls
47. 101 Dalmatians
48. The First Wives Club
49. The Crow: City of Angels
50. The Nutty Professor
51. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
52. Maximum Risk
53. Looking for Richard
54. Mulholland Falls
55. Dear God
56. Bed of Roses
57. Barb Wire
58. Daylight
59. Flipper
60. Phenomenon
61. Chain Reaction
62. Michael Collins
63. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
64. One Fine Day
65. Down Periscope
66. The Island of Dr. Moreau
67. Fargo
68. In Love and War
69. Michael
70. Dunston Checks In
71. Mary Reilly
72. Alaska
73. Bulletproof
74. Striptease
75. The Mirror Has Two Faces
76. Larger than Life
77. Extreme Measures
78. Ghosts of Mississippi
79. Sgt. Bilko
80. City Hall
81. She's the One
82. Mother
83. The Portrait of a Lady
84. The Adventures of Pinocchio
85. All Dogs Go to Heaven 2
86. Sleepers
87. The Preacher's Wife
88. The Associate
89. Diabolique
90. Jack
91. Eddie
92. Mr. Wrong
93. Heaven's Prisoners
94. Kingpin
95. Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
96. Kazaam
97. The Crucible
98. The Fan
99. The Pillow Book
100. Thinner
101. The Stupids
102. Black Sheep
103. Joe's Apartment
104. Fear
105. The Cable Guy
106. Big Bully

Legend: Onto the next Round! ( >/= .8) In the middle. I do NOT enjoy. (< / = .2)

#1 movie buff on GetGlue

All glory (if you can call it that) is fleeting.  But this morning, I saw that I'm GetGlue's top ranking movie buff.  probably won't be tommorow, and I'm still not sure what the point of the freaking site is.  But it's nice to get some... I've no idea what.

Favoritest Movies of 1997

Creating these lists is like taking a personality test.  We know who we are, but we can still learn from self examination.  To that end, I was a little shocked when I sorted the results, and Contact came away on top.  I saw Titanic 17 times in the theater, no exageration.  My father and I would go to the movies every week in these years of the nineties and for the end of 97 and first few months of 1998 it was Titanic.  I remember us standing, looking at the movies at the box office of Des Peres 14, probably in February of '98, and couldn't see a reason to not see Titanic.  Eventually, my father and I one weekend, Titanic was on such a small screen, and was so scratchy and dirty it just couldn't hit VHS soon enough.  Thinking back on a thought that honestly didn't occur to me the whole time looking at all of these movies; I didn't buy Titanic on Laser Disc, I did buy Contact.

This might be a good moment to say that These are not "best" lists.  I'm going to be making a page explaining how these lists are made, but the simple explanation is I look at two titles, and ask myself which one do I [presently] enjoy more?  With such a question there's no way to filter out guilty pleasures.  1997 required making 4,278 title to title comparisons.  Spice World came to a rank of .7258  compared to Good Will Hunting getting a .6398.  I know Spice World isn't "good", it's pop stars running around in mini skirts.  I just don't know a definition of 'good'.  I think "good" when syntactically modifying the noun 'movie' means that is of a quality approaching Oscar worthiness.  I'll contemplate that further the next time we take the family to an Annie Hall Celebration  with the kids doing some Diane Keaton cosplay, or when I stand in front of the Wii to play Lego Chariots of Fire.

Here's the list...

1. Contact
2. Titanic
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. Starship Troopers
5. The Devil's Advocate
6. Tomorrow Never Dies
7. The Fifth Element
8. Gattaca
9. Evangelion: Death and Rebirth
10. The Saint
11. L.A. Confidential
12. Men in Black
13. Hercules
14. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
15. Grosse Pointe Blank
16. Air Force One
17. MouseHunt
18. Cube
19. Clockwatchers
20. Private Parts
21. Out to Sea
22. The Game
23. Perfect Blue
24. Kull the Conqueror
25. A Life Less Ordinary
26. Spice World
27. Boogie Nights
28. Fools Rush In
29. Face/Off
30. Flubber
31. Wag the Dog
32. Good Will Hunting
33. The End of Evangelion
34. Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
35. Scream 2
36. Absolute Power
37. The Postman
38. In & Out
39. Event Horizon
40. Alien Resurrection
41. George of the Jungle
42. Murder at 1600
43. Chasing Amy
44. Jackie Brown
45. Addicted to Love
46. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
47. Dante's Peak
48. Anaconda
49. As Good as It Gets
50. Mimic
51. The Full Monty
52. Picture Perfect
53. Seven Years in Tibet
54. Volcano
55. My Best Friend's Wedding
56. Spawn
57. The Relic
58. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
59. Conspiracy Theory
60. Liar Liar
61. Batman & Robin
62. The Edge
63. Fierce Creatures
64. Warriors of Virtue
65. Anastasia
66. Con Air
67. I Know What You Did Last Summer
68. Selena
69. Kundun
70. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
71. The Peacemaker
72. Home Alone 3
73. The Jackal
74. Breakdown
75. Donnie Brasco
76. Red Corner
77. Kiss the Girls
78. Turbulence
79. Metro
80. U Turn
81. Vegas Vacation
82. Playing God
83. Speed 2: Cruise Control
84. The Devil's Own
85. Bean
86. The Apostle
87. Steel
88. Air Bud
89. Good Burger
90. City of Industry
91. Gone Fishin'
92. One Night Stand
93. Fathers' Day

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. I do NOT enjoy.

Special Honorable Mention:

Picture Perfect! At 52nd on my list, this movie did something for me I will eternally be grateful for.  On the soundtrack, was the song "Say What You Want" by Texas.  I enjoyed the song quite a bit, so I bought the album, not the movie soundtrack, but Texas White on Blonde.  

If I were to do these lists for musical album, it just might win... yeah, over Achtung Baby (doubtful there...) or more definitely The Joshua Tree.  Thank you for my (probably) 2nd favorite album of all time.*

Favoritest Movies of 2010 (So far!)

My wife didn't think much of Tron.  Okay, she derided it in it's entirety.  Why would I be fond of a sequel that was so derivative of the original, that it was little more than an almost an exact rehash of the original plus jets?
Here is the plot outlines of both movies: Spoilers in italics

Our protagonist sneaks into a place in the middle of the night and sits in front of a laser and goes into the computer world.  He is given a disc, and put into the games.  The first game his opponent falls through the floor, subsequently this is followed by a Light Cycle scene which ends with going off the grid. Here we regroup, consume sustenance, and share exposition establishing on how to resolve the plot. We'll wind up on a vessel sailing on a beam of light, towards a larger perpendicular beam of light, through canyons and encounter the enemy battleship. There will be a final confrontation of good and bad guys, a big explosion and traveling home up that big beam of light to a sunny and happy ending.

This describes both Tron movies. If I deleted a few dozen words, it'd be almost every Final Fantasy game from the '80's and '90's. The less words you use to describe any story the more it sounds like another.

Tron is about a guy needing... a piece of paper. While for the whole time I've known my friend Matt, a fellow fan of the original movie we've used "Greetings program!" as a greeting. Yes, we are huge dorks.  But, in all the times I've ever been looking for a piece of paper, I've never felt or even thought of Flynn.

Tron Legacy is a father and son movie.  "You're messing with my Zen thing man."  No movie, that I've ever seen, has put all the internal contradictions of being a parent into one line so efficiently just so it can get to megalomaniacs trying to do their Ming the Merciless impersonations, only to have the heroes escape (with a shot riffing the departure in Jaws) and do a cover rendition of the Falcon escaping the Death Star; kicked off with the female character saying "Here they come!"

If a movie is going to be a hack rip off, it tries to hide it more.  This movie was nostalgia squared, cubed... Hell, nostalgia ad infinitum!  When I look at my kids, I see little derivative copies of us.  And this movie, better than any other of these ill thought out movies, born out of our childhoods, gave us (nerds at least) one to share with our kids.  I love that my kids love the Transformers movies, I loved Transformers and still do.  But I look at these movies of the past few years, and while the Blu-rays of them make my TV look prettier, and remind my how loud my sound system can get... I'd rather watch Springer and Arcee push that launcher into place against Devastator.  Well, maybe Dark of the Moon will top the post this time next year!  This year was about Tron...  other than that, it was kind of meh.

Now, there are a number of movies I'm really looking forward to seeing that I haven't yet; The Social Network, Tangled, Megamind, The Other Guys and plenty more.

1. Tron: Legacy
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
3. Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
4. Salt
5. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
6. Toy Story 3
7. Iron Man 2
8. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
9. Inception
10. Kick-Ass
11. Hot Tub Time Machine
12. The A-Team
13. Despicable Me
14. Batman: Under The Red Hood
15. Predators
16. Planet Hulk
17. Clash of the Titans
18. The Special Relationship
19. Killers
20. Knight and Day
21. Sherlock Holmes (Asylum)
22. True Grit
23. The Spy Next Door
24. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
25. Valentine's Day
26. The Wolfman
27. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
28. The Last Airbender
29. Resident Evil: Afterlife
30. Skyline
31. Océans
32. The Losers
33. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
34. Centurion
35. The Karate Kid
36. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
37. Dante's Inferno
38. How to Train Your Dragon
39. The Expendables
40. Letters to Juliet
41. Jonah Hex
42. Paranormal Activity
43. Date Night
44. Alice in Wonderland
45. Furry Vengeance
46. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
47. Cop Out
48. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
49. Vampires Suck
50. When in Rome
51. The Runaways
52. Repo Men
53. Dinoshark
54. The Bounty Hunter
55. The Crazies
56. Grown Ups
57. Legion
58. Tooth Fairy
59. Altitude
60. Sex and the City 2
61. A Nightmare on Elm Street
62. The Book of Eli
63. Robin Hood
64. Shutter Island
65. Black Swan
66. Dear John

Oh heck, one more nice visual never hurt anyone...

Legend: Onto the next Round! (Scored at or above the 80th percentile.)  In the middle. I do NOT enjoy (below the 20th percentile).

Favoritest Movies of 1998

My father and I used to go to a movie every weekend.  I remember, having just seen Shakespeare in Love at the AMC in Crestwood Mall (The mall is defunct, but the movie theater is still there, and pretty much unchanged since the year I'm writing about) and we were walking to The Pasta House to have dinner, debating which movie would be more deserving of an Oscar win, Saving Private Ryan or Love. But, I find out, my father really couldn't care all that much about William Shakespeare.  However, on January 17th, 1980, my father gave me...

Now, I only know the date because he wrote it inside the book, with no other words except "For Paul" and "From Dad".  This book comes up in our post movie conversation since, he gave me such a volume when I'm only four yours old.  He replies that it seemed like the type of thing I would like. 

I read every word.

Only in hindsight is it apparent that my father, for all of our problems did occasionally pay attention.  Heck, by the time I was six, I was fairly regularly afforded copies of Starlog magazine.  As I do these lists, I can't hide my affection for genre films, they're to me, the reason for movies.  I'd rather see feats of, and playgrounds for the imagination than an engaging portrayal of typical peoples doing typical things, but I don't think anyone likes boring movies.

1. TIE: Shakespeare in Love
2. TIE: Mulan
3. Armageddon
4. The Man in the Iron Mask
5. Meet Joe Black
6. Saving Private Ryan
7. The Prince of Egypt
8. Star Trek: Insurrection
9. Dark City
10. Soldier
11. Lethal Weapon 4
12. The Big Lebowski
13. Lost in Space
14. Rush Hour
15. The Mask of Zorro
16. Dangerous Beauty
17. The Truman Show
18. Great Expectations
19. City of Angels
20. The Avengers
21. What Dreams May Come
22. Mighty Joe Young
23. There's Something About Mary
24. Godzilla
25. Wild Things
26. Deep Impact
27. Vampires
28. Sliding Doors
29. The Big Hit
30. Blade
31. The X-Files
32. Six Days Seven Nights
33. Elizabeth
34. Bulworth
35. Small Soldiers
36. Fallen
37. Everest
38. The Faculty
39. The Rugrats Movie
40. A Bug's Life
41. Antz
42. Primary Colors
43. Les Miserables
44. Deep Rising
45. Phantoms
46. Tarzan and the Lost City
47. A Civil Action
48. Pleasantville
49. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
50. Ring (Ringu)
51. The Negotiator
52. Rounders
53. A Perfect Murder
54. Enemy of the State
55. Can't Hardly Wait
56. The Newton Boys
57. Sphere
58. Out of Sight
59. You've Got Mail
60. Species II
61. Urban Legend
62. The Wedding Singer
63. Practical Magic
64. Dr. Dolittle
65. Ronin
66. The Object of My Affection
67. Psycho
68. Babe: Pig in the City
69. Ever After
70. Krippendorf's Tribe
71. Hard Rain
72. The Horse Whisperer
73. Stepmom
74. Knock Off
75. The Waterboy
76. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
77. Blues Brothers 2000
78. The Siege
79. The Last Days of Disco
80. BASEketball
81. Madeline
82. Snake Eyes
83. Major League: Back to the Minors
84. Mercury Rising
85. Gods and Monsters
86. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
87. A Night at the Roxbury
88. The Replacement Killers
89. Bride of Chucky
90. 54
91. Jack Frost
92. Apt Pupil
93. U.S. Marshals
94. Rushmore
95. My Giant
96. Pi

Looking back, I remember thinking 1999 was such a good year for movies. After doing 1999's list, I was wondering why I felt that way at the time. Looking over 1998, it could have been a lot better of a year. Next back, 1997...

Or

Titanic vs Contact vs Starship Troopers!

and 91 other movies... 

 

Wow, that reads cheesy.

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. I do NOT enjoy.

Favoritest Movies of 1999

We used to make Top 5 or Top 10 lists talking about the "Best" movies of the year.  I can't figure out what "Best" means anymore.  I've heard to many critics say things along the line of 'while not my favorite, it's one of the best..."  Well, if it wasn't your favorite, it must have done something wrong.  And then I see the poster above.  I was not a foregone conclusion that this would be my favorite movie of 1999.  But in every match up, it would win or split points with its competition.  I saw it 21 times in the theater.  I'd pop it in the VCR every Sunday when I worked at Comics Universe.  For all of its flaws, it's still got a bit of that Star Wars magic: rewatchability.  A tiny bit.  Okay the 1983, 1980, and 1977 lists are a race for second place at this point.

1. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Galaxy Quest
4. The Thomas Crown Affair
5. The Mummy
6. Bicentennial Man
7. The Matrix
8. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
9. Office Space
10. The Iron Giant
11. Pokemon: The First Movie
12. Sleepy Hollow
13. Tarzan
14. The Thirteenth Floor
15. Fight Club
16. Deep Blue Sea
17. The 13th Warrior
18. Entrapment
19. She's All That
20. The World Is Not Enough
21. Muppets From Space
22. Pushing Tin
23. The Boondock Saints
24. Godzilla 2000: Millennium
25. Cruel Intentions
26. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
27. Toy Story 2
28. The Insider
29. October Sky
30. Payback
31. Three Kings
32. The Talented Mr. Ripley
33. My Favorite Martian
34. The Muse
35. Run Lola Run
36. Election
37. The Green Mile
38. The General's Daughter
39. Trekkies
40. A Midsummer Night's Dream
41. Lake Placid
42. Liberty Heights
43. Mystery, Alaska
44. Mystery Men
45. Runaway Bride
46. The Haunting
47. Fantasia 2000
48. Three To Tango
49. Eyes Wide Shut
50. Notting Hill
51. Wing Commander
52. Stuart Little
53. Virus
54. Wild Wild West
55. American Pie
56. Analyze This
57. Dogma
58. Anna and the King
59. American Beauty
60. The Corruptor
61. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
62. Blast from the Past
63. Inspector Gadget
64. End Of Days
65. Any Given Sunday
66. Magnolia
67. Big Daddy
68. Stigmata
69. Anywhere But Here
70. The Astronaut's Wife
71. Girl, Interrupted
72. The Mod Squad
73. The Omega Code
74. Being John Malkovich
75. The Sixth Sense
76. Go
77. Black Mask
78. House on Haunted Hill
79. Boys Don't Cry
80. Jawbreaker
81. Romance
82. Brokedown Palace
83. Man on the Moon
84. Open Your Eyes
85. The Blair Witch Project
86. 8MM
87. Baby Geniuses

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. I do NOT enjoy.

Anticipation of Movies in 2011

As I do with my Favoritest movies of the year, I decided to rank; "How much am I looking forward to each of these movies?" Or, asking; which movie am I looking forward to more? And the numbers rolled out thusly...

Cowboys & Aliens	100%
Harry Potter and...	94%
Thor	85%
Green Lantern	84%
Transformers: Dark...	84%
Captain America:...	84%
Rise of the Apes	81%
Sherlock Holmes 2	79%
The Muppets	77%
Pirates of the...	73%
Sucker Punch	66%
X-Men: First Class	66%
Conan	63%
Immortals	61%
Super 8	60%
Rango	47%
Fright Night	42%
The Three Musketeers	37%
The Thing	37%
Kung Fu Panda 2	37%
Priest	35%
Cars 2	35%
Battle: Los Angeles	34%
Mars Needs Moms!	29%
The Green Hornet	24%
The Twilight Saga:...	23%
The Adjustment Bureau	21%
I Am Number Four	15%
Red Riding Hood	13%
Diary of a Wimpy...	6%
The Dark Fields	5%
The Eagle	3%

Favoritest 40 Movies of the '0 Decade!!!

It bows to no one (Yet...). The first "My favorite movies ever" list, where I had listed 250 movies I really liked off the top of my head, and figured this out on a large paper graph at the kitchen table, in pencil... Fellowship of the ring was a movie of special notice. Here, it strides a decade like no other movie. Avatar and Wall-E are movies that gave me the kind of movies I've always wanted to see. I've always been a Sci-Fi guy, but, before Fellowship, I wouldn't really like calling Star Wars Sci-Fantasy. After the Mines of Moria, I would allow myself to enjoy fantasy without the name Jim Henson somehow attached to it.

Second place was just a "Nooooooo" out of first.

Eleven of the top forty are based on comic books, and one filmmaker made the top 40 with every outing of the decade... Okay, more than one did, but I was thinking of someone who's made more than one movie that decade.

The decade is also a different field of comparison than the individual year is, so a movie like Black Pearl may come out stronger to pull ahead than Master and Commander does, when faced with movies like Iron Man and Minority Report.

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
4. WALL-E
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
6. Avatar
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
8. Star Trek
9. Watchmen
10. X2: X-Men United
11. Transformers
12. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
13. Thirteen Days
14. "300
15. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
16. Casino Royale
17. The Incredibles
18. The Man From Earth
19. Spider-Man 2
20. Minority Report
21. Gladiator
22. Howl's Moving Castle
23. Spirited Away
24. Superman Returns
25. Iron Man
26. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
27. Stardust
28. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
29. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
30. Serenity
31. Titan A.E.
32. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
33. Spider-Man
34. Ponyo
35. Ah! My Goddess: The Movie
36. The Chronicles of Riddick
37. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
38. Die Another Day
39. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
40. Hellboy

How do movies get to advance to the All-time list? Don't know yet. Got other decades to do. Time to go back to the '90's!!!

Favoritest Movies of 2009

I almost forgot I had this blog thing here. I don't twitter, lurk on message boards, and check Facebook maybe once a month. Maybe. Actually I think I forgot to this month. Maybe there's a way to tie my Blogger blog to Facebook. I'll see if there is when I care. At some point, this blog became a refuse dump for my favorite movies lists...

The Goal; Determine my hundred or so favorite movies of all time, but by evaluating every movie I've ever seen. This is done year by year, then decade by decade... you know what, that'll make a post in and of itself.

As for 2009, It was a good year considering that all the good movies were really from other years thanks to the writers strike awhile back, so here's the list!

1. Avatar
2. Star Trek
3. Watchmen
4. Sherlock Holmes
5. Monsters vs. Aliens
6. Green Lantern: First Flight
7. G.I. Joe The Rise of Cobra
8. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
9. Angels and Demons
10. Inglorius Basterds
11. Terminator Salvation
12. 2012
13. Night at the Museum 2 Battle of the Smitshonian
14. Astro Boy
15. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
16. Up
17. Pandorum
18. Land of the Lost
19. Earth
20. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
21. Battle For Terra
22. Wonder Woman
23. Dragonball Evolution
24. The Men Who Stare at Goats
25. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
26. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
27. The Girlfriend Experience
28. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
29. Gamer
30. Princess of Mars
31. Knowing
32. District 9
33. Race to Witch Mountain
34. Echelon Conspiracy
35. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
36. Caprica
37. Planet 51
38. Coraline
39. State of Play
40. The Hangover
41. "9
42. Delgo
43. Aliens in the Attic
44. The Final Destination
45. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
46. Whiteout
47. Shorts
48. G-Force
49. Space Buddies
50. Dance Flick
51. Year One
52. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
53. Bride Wars
54. The Princess and the Frog
55. Adventureland

Wy O wy SyFy ?

I'm sorry, but I can't stand it.

The Sci-Fi Channel is changing their name to SyFy.

So, I wrote Sci-Fi channel in regards to their name change...

==============================================================
Hy! Longtyme vyewer, fyrst tyme complayner.

I remember pinning a flyer, of an alien watching TV with a dog, to my wall almost 19 years ago, anxious, eager and psyched about the promise and prospect of the very idea of a network dedicated to Science Fiction. I realize that across almost every bit of the basic cable landscape, stations have sacrificed their specialized uniquity in effort to broaden their audience. For some time now, it has been clear to fans, that Sci-Fi wants to become just another TNT, USA, G4, SPIKE, MTV, TBS, etc. We understand that programming like Galactica is much more expensive than Soth Park and The Daily Show to produce, hence why Comedy Central is one of the few stalwart specialty stations left.

Good luck becoming generic, but, this isn't false posturing of we'll stop watching the network, but this is the truth...

As you become generic, and programming becomes more and more on-demand, I won't need, or want SyFy. I'll have Netflix.

Thank you, and thank you for have been a wonderful network.

You're already missed.

===========================================================================

I had more to say, but it's much better said, when their own NEWS SITE runs this:

Forrest J. Ackerman has a message for you from beyond the grave

Ouch, and that kick to the groin was from YOURSELF! We've NOTHING more to say.

Once again, Thanks Forry!

Forry Farewell
by dreadcentral

Movie: Watchmen

I was aware of Watchmen as it was coming out, and was curious, but I didn't read it. I'd just gotten into comics heavily that year, so I read it about a year or so later, so still It was 20 years ago. I've reread it once or twice, which, says a LOT, and I liked it, a lot, maybe not Dark Knight Returns, but I don't have a favorite Graphic Novel. I just don't. There's really not a lot of them. I love comics as much as movies, but comics don't come with "Beginning, Middle, End." all that often. So, Dark Knight, Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Marvels, V for Vendetta, Crisis on Infinite Earth, the Dark Phoenix Saga... Well, the Dark Phoenix was part of an ongoing series... I would have loved LOVED to see that one on the big screen, but NOOOOOOoooooooooooooo. Oh well maybe someday. Thinking of Dark Phoenix, and Crisis, especially Crisis... Watchmen was unfilmable? Crisis is much worse, if Unfilmable means that it'd cost a billion dollars to shoot. Here, here's what Crisis would look like as a movie...
That'd cost a couple bucks. Really, Watchmen should shame DC/WB into making a Justice League movie, I'd imagine that at least some exec looks at Watchmen, and sees that if a 3 hr R-rated movie with characters outside the pop-culture mainstream can do a 55 mil opening, then a JLA movie is like printing money. The problem is they'd probably screw it up. JLA would need to be as good of a movie as Watchmen. Oh, yea, I'm blogging about Watchmen.
I can't get it out of my head, I might have a greater liking of Bob Dylan than I did a week ago. I think, think, I may like the movie more than the Graphic Novel.
Yea.
Yea, I do.
This is up there with Blade Runner, and The Hunt For Red October. I hope. Seriously hope this isn't my favorite movie of the year, but it's Watchmen's year now. The rest of the year could be shit, and it'll be fantastic, I love this thing that much. This thing is now the best/greatest Super-hero movie ever made. Thank you for being the complete opposite of Dark Knight. But, the Dark Knight wasn't a comic book movie, not like Watchmen... Watchmen one of few comic-book movies to be like this. Dark Knight, like most comic book movies that we've lapped up are more like Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li than they are Watchmen. Oh, sorry, forgot to blog about Street Fighter....

Movie: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
This movie cements the Jean Claude Van Dame version as a classic of modern cinema. I swear this was some, unproduced generic action flick script, and they opened it up in Final Draft, named the female lead Chun-Li, named the villian Bison, and dropped in a description of one bounty hunter dressing like Vega oh, and named Michael Clarke Duncan Balrog.

I'll admit most comic book born adaptions have given more effort than this piece.

Favoritest Movies of 2000

While doing the spreadsheet for this year, I was sure Gladiator might win the top slot, I couldn't tell. I like a lot of these movies for very different reasons. Heck, at one point I was wondering just how high Rocky and Bullwinkle were going to be. Wouldn't they look odd at the top spot. But, no this works. I've actually rewatched Thirteen Days more than Gladiator. While I'm not fond of how Kevin Costner's character feels the need to be the chorus of the obvious, a narrator with legs walking through the plot, and you could argue that the movie would be better without his character at all. None of that has anything to do with Costner either, he's just not playing John or Robert. For faults with the movie, it's THE "Major Motion Picture" of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Battlefield Earth isn't red either. I realised while doing the list, I like this movie in a sense. It's not good. It's the ultimate of bad, the textbook case, but, it's fun to make fun of. Battlefield Earth is so bad, it's a shared crappiness, a benchmark, and a collective whipping boy.

The Dune movie here, is the Sci-Fi mini-series. I'm still wrestleing with how TV movies and straight to DVD play out in this. the majority of these movies I see on DVD and not in the theater. While I did see 7 of the top 10 here theatrically, for instance, the Anime titles rarely even come out in a theater in St. Louis. So, later years may be adjusted with the animated Dr. Strange, Iron Man and Superman Doomsday movies. Crap, Stitch the movie might wrangle to vie for the all time list!

1. Thirteen Days
2. Gladiator
3. Ah! My Goddess: The Movie
4. X-Men
5. Titan A.E.
6. The Road to El Dorado
7. Finding Forrester
8. Frank Herbert's Dune
9. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
11. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
12. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
13. Pitch Black
14. What Women Want
15. Shanghai Noon
16. Scream 3
17. Escaflowne: The Movie
18. Pokemon The Movie 2000
19. Meet the Parents
20. Quills
21. The Perfect Storm
22. Pollock
23. Final Destination
24. Unbreakable
25. Dungeons & Dragons
26. U-571
27. Frequency
28. Almost Famous
29. The Whole Nine Yards
30. The Art of War
31. Shaft (2000)
32. Charlie's Angels
33. High Fidelity
34. Chicken Run
35. The Patriot
36. Gone in 60 Seconds
37. Coyote Ugly
38. Dinosaur (Walt Disney)
39. Bedazzled
40. The Next Best Thing
41. Erin Brockovich
42. Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
43. How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
44. Digimon: The Movie
45. Boiler Room
46. Mission: Impossible II
47. Snatch
48. The Million Dollar Hotel
49. Traffic
50. The Family Man
51. Battlefield Earth
52. Scary Movie
53. The Emperor's New Groove
54. Return to Me
55. Cast Away
56. Nurse Betty
57. Requiem for a Dream
58. American Psycho
59. Me, Myself, and Irene
60. What Lies Beneath
61. Cruel Intentions 2

One small factor that may have helped Thirteen Days slip by Gladiator. I this poster hanging over my DVD collection.

Favoritest Movies of 2001

If I was only listing first place, I wouldn't have even needed to do a spreadsheet for this year. Some movies, in their own year, are an automatic 100th percentile. Like Star Wars for '77 and Jaws in '75, 2001 ended with a movie that says "You shall not pass!". Coming in 62nd place is a movie my friends and I walked out of. I don't walk out of movies. It was the first and only (willingly Reel breakages don't count). Problem is, the list isn't 62 movies long, it's 66.

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
3. Spirited Away
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
5. The Mummy Returns
6. Monsters, Inc.
7. Iron Monkey
8. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
9. Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heavens Door
10. The Affair of the Necklace
11. Rush Hour 2
12. Just Visiting
13. Swordfish
14. Jurassic Park III
15. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
16. Spy Kids
17. Kate & Leopold
18. Spy Game
19. Shaolin Soccer
20. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
21. Amélie
22. The One
23. Moulin Rouge!
24. Evolution
25. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
26. Josie and the Pussycats
27. Black Hawk Down
28. From Hell
29. Cats & Dogs
30. Planet of the Apes
31. Shrek
32. Bandits
33. Pokémon 3: The Movie
34. A Beautiful Mind
35. Rat Race
36. Super Troopers
37. Ocean's Eleven starring George Clooney
38. K-PAX
39. Donnie Darko
40. Hannibal
41. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
42. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
43. Pearl Harbor
44. Driven
45. Metropolis
46. The Tailor of Panama
47. A Knight's Tale
48. Legally Blonde
49. Ghosts of Mars
50. Monkeybone
51. Behind Enemy Lines
52. Blow
53. Osmosis Jones
54. The Royal Tenenbaums
55. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
56. The Fast and the Furious
57. Zoolander
58. CQ
59. Left Behind: The Movie
60. Scary Movie 2
61. The Mexican
62. 3000 Miles to Graceland
63. Memento
64. Rock Star
65. Vanilla Sky
66. Shallow Hal

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. Did NOT enjoy

Redboxed: Mamma Mia and Babylon A.D.

I rented. We watched. I apologized to my family. I still have great affection for Vin Deisel and Abba. No real, lasting harm done.

(Holly)Wooden Logos: G.I. Joe

Why, why in James T. Kirk's name would you spend money, time, meetings and everything else to develop this?


Instead of using this.


The top one means shit to me. It's a cow-pie, it's some generic store-brand knock of... it's a toy from the dollar store!

The bottom one says "Yo Joe!" So Paramount, if you're not Scrooge McDucking your way through the piles of Joe Money you may feel is due you come August. This is going to be one of the reasons why.

But, before you blame Paramount;

This;

Gets upgraded to this;

Favoritest Movies of 2002

Too many four way ties are going to make me look really indecisive. 2002 is ruled by Weakness and the words; "In Space"

Weakness:
The (in some ways) weaker installments of the two mega trilogies, allows for a tie with the LAST good Disney movie ever. Weaker than Atlantis in many respects, the pair was a non-musical sci-fi stride that I wished had some more gas in it. If you'd asked me in '02, it maybe MAYBE would have made the top 10 that year. Hell, I didn't even want to see it in the theater. I saw Treasure Planet, 2 years later. I know there's technically a couple Disney flick after that before they go CG, but I'll take this one as the end of the line. As for Minority Report, Damn, I remember thinking the film might never happen, when they were trying to squeeze Matt Damon into it, I think as the character that Colin Farell plays, it's an awesome, but weaker Blade Runner. A WEAK Blade Runner, can still kick your ass!
As for "In Space"... Could a Jason movie ever score so high without the words "In Space" in the plot description?

1. TIE: Minority Report
2. TIE: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
3. TIE: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. TIE: Treasure Planet
5. Die Another Day
6. Lilo & Stitch
7. Spider-Man
8. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
9. Millennium Actress
10. Eight Legged Freaks
11. Jason X
12. Catch Me If You Can
13. Austin Powers in Goldmember
14. The Count of Monte Cristo
15. XXX
16. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
17. Maid in Manhattan
18. Hero (Jet Li)
19. The Time Machine
20. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
21. Ghost Ship
22. Reign of Fire
23. Scooby-Doo
24. Gangs of New York
25. Spy Kids 2: Island Of Lost Dreams
26. The Scorpion King
27. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
28. Pokemon 4Ever
29. Ice Age
30. The Tuxedo
31. Bubba Ho-tep
32. Dragonfly
33. Road to Perdition
34. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
35. Men in Black II
36. Resident Evil
37. Auto Focus
38. K-19: The Widowmaker
39. Panic Room
40. Solaris
41. The Powerpuff Girls Movie
42. Blade II
43. The Sum of All Fears
44. The Mothman Prophecies
45. Star Trek Nemesis
46. The Ring
47. 8 Mile
48. Red Dragon
49. Better Luck Tomorrow
50. Chicago
51. Signs
52. The Master of Disguise
53. Bowling for Columbine*
54. Death to Smoochy

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. Did NOT enjoy!

*Where these Micheal Moore movies have been landing, are in no way a political statement, and I'm not going to comment on that. They're soooo low because; while I'm sure at least a handful, if not more, guys have gotten laid for having the DVD of a Micheal Moore movie sitting on their shelf, I'm equally sure that no one has ever, oh, said, "Hey, I hate to cut this short but, I was really looking forward to going home, kicking back and watching Bowling for Columbine! It's my Wednesday afternoon thing, I like to squeeze it in before Wheel comes on!" That's NEVER been said.