Regardless of the character he played, Paul Newman made it very hard for anyone not to like him. If there is one exception it’s probably Hud. Especially during this period of time, Newman played flawed and rebellious characters that were usually deep down good people. That’s not really the case here. Hud Bannon is the meanest and most selfish man Newman ever brought to the big screen. Read the rest of this entry »
The Last Detail is the first of three Jack Nicholson movies from the 70’s to make this list. There were a 
couple more that probably just missed. He was on a role that decade and I guess has been ever since. The movie was directed by Hal Ashby who while not having a particularly long resume as a director; has a very distinguished one. He directed such classics as Harold and Maude, Shampoo, Being There and this movie The Last Detail. Read the rest of this entry »
With a lesser actor than Paul Newman, The Verdict would be a solid court room drama rather than a great one. What makes it great is that the movie is more a character study of Newman’s character Frank Galvin than a thriller. This movie was made by some of the best on the business. Aside from Newman, it was directed by Sidney Lumet and written by David Mamet. Not a bad list of A-teamers. Read the rest of this entry »
Peter Bogdanovich had a nice run of movies in the early seventies with Paper Moon, What’s up, Doc? and this movie, The Last Picture Show. Since then it’s sort of hard to read what happened to him. He directed some bombs, some TV episodes and has acted a bit. I would assume that now people know him best as Dr. Melfi’s shrink on The Soprano’s. None the less, he made a classic with The Last Picture Show. It was nominated for everything, including Best Picture. It won both supporting actor awards and gave Jeff Bridges his breakout role. Read the rest of this entry »
There is something to be said for a movie that is so out there and surreal that you can just zone out and get lost in it. Even if the movie has shortcomings; if it has the ability to completely fill your head and temporarily make you forget where you are those shortcomings can easily be forgiven. This is the case with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. This is the first of three movies that Terry Gilliam directed that cracked my top 100. Gilliam is one of the few the directors out there that can consistently either take you on some fantastic storybook adventure or weird you out in a good way or do both at the same time with great success. Read the rest of this entry »
Back when I was in college and started taking film classes I began to gain an appreciation for the classic movies of the past. I started renting older movies and while many of my friends didn’t have much interest in watching them with me, I couldn’t get enough. One of the first movies I rented during this period was The Hustler, which is now ranked way up toward the top of my all time favorite movies. The Hustler of course starred Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson. The movie mesmerized me. In fact, it along with a couple of other movies are what really forced me to keep going and watch as many of these old movies as possible. I had never seen anyone on the screen as cool as him. The way that he effortlessly went from owning that pool table and the room to a completely broken shell of person in one scene was astonishing. From there, I went to Hud and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, then to Cool Hand Luke. Then the two classics he did with Redford; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. In 1966 he starred in one of my all time favorite private eye movies Harper, where the tagline was, “This is a different kind of cat named Harper… and excitement clings to him like a dame!” These characters were cool, they were rebellious and most important they were all flawed and completely human. Writers can only write a character so well, the actor needs to bring these elements with them to the set and Newman never mailed it in. All in all, Newman has seven movies in my top 100. Read the rest of this entry »
I wish they would stop giving Dane Cook more chances. Employee of the Month, Good Luck Chuck and now My Best Friend’s Girl comes out this weekend. I am yet to see any of his movies, but I still feel like I can say without hesitation that they are all terrible and if I did see them they would all be top 25 material for my Worst 100 Movies list. Watch five minutes of his standup and you’ll know why I avoid his movies. He isn’t funny. Can you get a job as a fireman if you don’t know how to turn on a hose? How does he keep landing movies? Apparently, he plays a guy who gets hired by nice guys who get dumped to get their girlfriends, to help get their girlfriends back. He does this by dating the girls and being such an ass that the girls go running back to their nice guy ex-boyfriends. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a worse premise for a movie. I can say that with all honesty. And since when was Dane Cook a stud? Does he really get the ladies smitten? This co-stars Jason Biggs and Kate Hudson. Sorry, Jason Biggs is not going to save this one. Is his resume worse than Dane’s? Read the rest of this entry »
Before you start to think that I made a goof and rated two movies #94 in a row, there has been an addition made to the list. So while at one point this was #93, it has been moved to #94 and The Departed (which was #100) has been officially knocked off of the list. Sorry Marty, although I am sure that you aren’t too insulted. Now on to the review…
You probably aren’t going to find too many sappy love stories in my top 100, and this may actually be the only one. For whatever reason, Love with the Proper Stranger is one of my all time favorites. I suppose that much if it has to do with the lead actors, Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen. To this day I say that Natalie Wood is the hottest actress ever. She may not have been the best actress out there but she charms the pants off of you in every role she plays. Twenty eight years after his death, McQueen is still considered the model of what cool is and actors continue to attempt and mostly fail to copy his persona. Read the rest of this entry »
I have been completely slacking on these. If I am going to count all the way down to number one before the apocalypse I better get cracking. Anyway, here is the first Woody Allen movie on my list, Zelig. You will see quite a bit of Woody Allen on my list. I saw the majority of his movies at roughly the same period in my life. I was about a year out of college and my sister and her then boyfriend (now husband) lived just a few blocks from me in San Francisco. I had seen just a few of Woody’s really famous late 70’s/ early 80’s movies and loved them. My brother in law either had just gotten into Woody himself or was sort of rediscovering and re-watching his movies at the same time. He was more familiar with some of the “early funny ones” and we started renting them together. I would usually go over to their place and my sister would occasionally make dinner and then sit unamused on the couch as my b-n-law and I laughed our asses off. During this period we watched almost the entire Woody Allen collection and for better or worse were hooked. Movie #94 was one of the first I remember watching with him. Read the rest of this entry »
The next movie on my list is one that shows up on most, if not all Top 100 lists. Usually it’s a lot higher than it is here, but again it’s my list and I call them how I see them. Without question Raging Bull is an all time classic, directed by an all time great with one of the all time performances. What De Niro did in this movie is amazing; gaining and losing weight like that.
You all know what the movie is about so I’ll make this quick. De Niro plays boxer Jake La Motta. He was a Middle Weight champion in the 40’s. He’s best known for being the first guy to ever beat the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson. Aside from being about his boxing career, the film is about Jake’s relationship with his wife and the rage that consumed him. These sort of end up being one in the same. The film takes us through his boxing career and post boxing career as a hack stand up comedian. I think the most interesting part of this movie is the relationship he has with his wife Vickie played by Cathy Moriarty. He never trusts that she is being faithful and this usually causes him to blow up and beat the hell out of someone. What ever happened to Cathy Moriarty by the way? This was her first movie and if you look her up on IMDB.com she has done nothing but absolute crap since. She was nominated for an Oscar and usually after that you get some sort of big time follow up. Instead she got Neighbors which was the Belushi/ Aykroyd movie that wasn’t funny. She was 21, hot and coming out the best movie of 1980. She was last seen in a 2005 episode Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She couldn’t even get on the original and more popular version of Law & Order. Oh well, such is life in Hollywood I guess.
This is considered by many to be Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece. It’s not my favorite from him, but it’s hard to argue. He got so much out of his actors. Thematically and style wise it really capped off the 1970’s for him. He started diving in to some new territories after this. In fact his next two films King of Comedy and After Hours are different, but great. You want to see a whacked out movie, definitely check out After Hours. None the less Raging Bull is one of the all time greats and deserves all of the accolades it gets.