1) Scarface One of my favorite actors, Al Pacino, in (in my opinion) his best role. A lot here criticize this movie as being "populist cinema." Whether you agree or disagree with this I do not think you can deny Pacino's brilliant performance. I still sometimes have trouble beliving that Al Pacino is playing Tony Montana. He's THAT convincing. It was also good to see a young Michelle Pfeiffer show Hollywood what she is capable of doing. And on a personal note, I know I'm the only person on this message board who thinks so, but I enjoyed the music of this movie.
2) The Usual Suspects A fellow co-worker of mine originally showed this to me at the time. He said it was great and after viewing it (a couple of more times to piece everything together), I agreed. The cast and the writing make this movie. Singer did his thing but it is just such a treat to watch Kevin Spacey, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne and Chazz Palminteri work together. Christopher McQuarrie wrote a terrific movie and I'm glad to hear that he won an Oscar for his screenplay.
3) The Big Lebowski I know I'll get crucified for this but I do enjoy
The Big Lebowski more than I enjoy
Fargo. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy
Fargo or that it's not a good movie (I own the DVD), but I enjoy this movie more. My favorite genre is comedy and it's very rare for me to find a movie that I can watch 100 times and still laugh at it as if I'm watching it for only the 10th time. I know the joke is coming but the performances are just so great that it gets me everytime. Jeff Bridges, John Goodman (this REALLY turned me into a fan of his), Steve Buscemi, Julianna Moore and Philip Seymour Hoffman did fantastic jobs. Yet again another movie with a terrific cast.
4) JFK In my opinion this is Oliver Stone's masterpiece. The directing, flashbacks, and quick editing are the things (other than the cast) that I love the most in this film. The story is truly compelling, as I am a subscriber to the 2nd gunman theory. This is 1 of the best, if not THE best cast I've ever seen assembled. Where to begin? Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones (probably my favorite character in this movie other than David Ferrie or Lee Harvey Oswald), Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Jack Lemmon, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, John Candy and a cameo from Walter Matthau.
5) Raging Bull My favorite Martin Scorsese movie. This is another movie that I never get tired of, as with both
Kill Bills Volumes 1 & 2. My favorite Robert De Niro movie of all time. I cannot put into words how great he was as Jake La Motta. I LOVE the music, writing, fighting scenes, the fact that the movie was black/white, the cast and the camera speed in this movie. Truly a masterpiece and the best movie of the 1980s. Unfortunately, Marty didn't win his Oscar for this.
6) Goodfellas My favorite mob movie along with
The Godfather Part I. Jimmy 'The Gent' Conway played by Robert De Niro is my 2nd favorite De Niro role. Other than perhaps
Field of Dreams this was the movie that made Ray Liotta and he, Joe Pesci and De Niro put in truly great performances. Pesci deserved his Oscar as did Marty (although it was again taken away from him).
However, for the role that he has, I always loved Frank Vincent as Billy Bates. One of my favorite mob characters.
7) Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2 It's well documented here how I feel about this movie. Easily my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie. Once again the cast is fantastic from Uma Thurman (she should have been nominated for an Oscar), Lucy Lui, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Sonny Chiba and David Carradine. The character of Bill is my favorite onscreen villian ever. This movie has had such an influence of me in terms of the Asian film market. As Don Vercetti said in reference to
Pulp Fiction, I will use this in reference to these movies. "Tarantino takes homages and brilliantly turns them into creative material. Excellent writing, soundtrack, humor, and it even works on a dramatic level."
8) The Godfather Part I Again I know I'll probably get ridiculed for having this movie so far down on my list but part of the reason is because I've seen it so many times I'm kind of tired of it. However, this along with
Goodfellas are my favorite mob movies ever. I was originally drawn to this (and still am) by Marlon Brando's performance of Vito Corleone. A fabulous cast with Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keeton, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Talia Shire. A great movie to see the cycle of the mafia continue.
9) Fight Club One of the few here who I believe has watched both the movie and read the book, I enjoyed the movie more. Again another movie dubbed "populist cinema" but I don't see how you can't fall in love with this movie. Aside from Brad Pitt and Edward Norton who put in fantastic performances, the story and action in this movie are just so intoxicating. This movie has so many loveable quotes such as "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f*cking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world" among others.
10) Memento This was the movie to introduce me to both Guy Pearce and Christopher Nolan. I'm not as big of a fan of Nolan's as others here but this is his masterpiece. Again like Don Vercetti, after watching it for the first time, I quickly continued to watch it days and weeks after to piece everything together. The writing, directing, storylines are truly powerful and I really commend Nolan for having the balls to show this movie from the end to the beginning. I don't think it would have had the same affect or been as powerful had it been shown in chronological order.
HONORABLE MENTIONSorry, I thought of another movie and already wrote this up so I'll just keep it if anyone wanted to read it.
The Boondock Saints The first and only movie Troy Duffy has released and I fell in love with it. Willem Dafoe is one of my favorite actors and this is my favorite role for him as Agent Smecker. Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus do a great job at playing the MacManus brothers. The story is very interesting for me as it's about 2 Irish brothers who feel they have been sent by God to rid Boston and the world of the "scum of the Earth" (sorta like Travis Bickle from
Taxi Driver). David Della Rocco also does a great job as Rocco who helps them in their quest by rubbing out the mob who have recently turned on him. He always adds humor when the movie needs it.
