Crash! Landen’s Best 10 Movies of 1989

1989 was far from the best year of the 1980s, but still a fun year for moviegoers. It had the return of Indiana Jones, Marty McFly, Riggs & Murtaugh, James Bond (the best Timothy Dalton outing) and everyone was treated to Tim Burton’s Joker (sorry, I mean Batman). There were quite a few good movies that probably could’ve made this list: Field Of Dreams, Black Rain (a mediocre Ridley Scott film, but that still means that it’s better than most evrything else out there), and the Blake Edwards comedy Skin Deep.There were also some smaller movies that were fun such as ‘cult hit’ Heathers, How I Got Into College, Cousins,  and Spielberg’s ‘Always’ remake (that one wasn’t ‘smaller’).

Anyway, here’s my first ‘Best’ List of the 80s.

UPDATE: One I forgot to put on my list: The Big Picture starring Kevin Bacon among many others. It’s light, low key and quirky, but also maybe the best satire of the movie business ever made (and I’m including films like the Player and Barton Fink and others….). So sorry Spike. You’re now #11.

UPDATE #2: My Left Foot (I Had not seen it until now; the end of 2010. 1989 was a real good year in film.)

UPDATE #3: Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (Forgot all about this movie until I was looking at my Best of the 2000s and saw the remake on my list).

UPDATE #4: Valmont

Bumped: Do the Right Thing (Maybe Spike Lee’s 2nd best film. A bit abrasive at times, though.)

Dead Poets Society (Bumped… A little overly dramatic and VERY flawed, but still an enjoyable movie, especially if you grew up in that era.)

Lean on Me (Bumped… Morgan Freeman as ‘Batman’. There were lots of these high school dramas coming out around this time. This was one of the better ones).

Field of Dreams (Bumped. Costner’s Most Enjoyable Baseball movie. At least for me. I also loved the appearances of James Earle Jones and Burt Lancaster).

10 The Big Picture (Several guest appearances. Lots of great smaller parts and yet another good Kevin Bacon flick. I especially enjoyed Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance artist and Teri Hatcher is at the height of her powers in this).

9 The Fabulous Baker Boys (Ummm. Michelle Pfieffer was absolutely smokin’ in this one. The brothers Bridges were okay, too. No cookie cutter ending, either. Worth seeing).

8 Back to the Future Part II (Not as good as the original, but how could it be? It was still fun.)

7 Lethal Weapon 2 (Back when Action Movies ruled. Like my #5, this wasn’t as good as its predecessor. No matter. It was still a whole lot of fun, especially those parts with Patsy Kensit.)

6 Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (Much more serious than the 2003 film which was more slapstick comedy , but this is every bit as good if not better. The series of films inspired an American Rutger Hauer flick based on the character. It pales in comparison to this, though. Shintaro Katsu is brilliant as the title character.)

5 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Hmm. There’s a pattern forming. Like my #7 and #8 entries, the Last Crusade was not as good as the original, but still a WHOLE lot of fun. River Pheonix was great as the Young Indy. Of course, the 4th installment dropped a drastic degree in quality . With another sequel on the way, I’m beginning to fear George Lucas wants to crush the last vestiges of my childhood spirit by creating for Indiana Jones the equivalent of the 2nd Star Wars Trilogy. The Last Crusade had an outstanding/clever ending and maybe should’ve ended the franchise with that.)

4 My Left Foot (A great movie, but exceptional mostly for the two performances by Day-Lewis and O’Conor  portraying Christy Brown.

3 Valmont (The other,  BETTER version of Dangerous Liaisons…)

2 Dead Calm (Nicole Kidman in all of her glory… Plus it was a great movie. If you’ve never seen this, it’s best to watch this without finding out anything about it. Sam Neil was also great in this, especially when he and Kidman get separated in the film. An Aussie classic thriller.)

1 The Abyss (Director’s cut or otherwise. Doesn’t matter. Has one of the most dramatic sequences in cinematic history. Ed Harris attains new levels of AWESOME in this movie.)

Thoughts?

Crash! Landen’s 10 Worst Movies of 1989

It’s the 80s! A very enjoyable decade in film. Some of my absolute favorites are from this era, like the Indiana Jones movies, Blade Runner, The Dark Crystal, Time Bandits, the Star Wars sequels, the Goonies, Gremlins, ET, Back To The Future, Amadeus, Time Bandits…  I could go on and on… There are also a ton of (probably) great films that I’ve never seen such as Shoah, Moonlighting or Once Upon A Time In America (which I’ve never been able to sit through). But this isn’t about the good ones. This list is my Worst Movies of 1989, so I’ll get on with it.

There were a few more that probably could make my Bottom 10 without toomuch argument from me: K-9 (but who doesn’t love a movie about a German Shepard?)… The War of the Roses… Pink Cadillac… The ‘Burbs… Little Monsters… Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure… I can watch all of those without trying to pull my eyeballs out of their sockets. Hard to do with my Bottom 10. Here they are.

10 Kickboxer (Not the worst Van Damme film ever made as evidenced by Cyborg. Enjoyable somewhat if you lower all expectations and realize that you’re about to watch a Jean Claude Van Damme movie.)

9 The Experts (This one is not great, but it has a lot going for it, IMO. It was a light comedy and all of the actors and actresses in it were likeable enough. Watchable on cable.)

8 Deepstar Six (There were 2 really bad ‘deep sea’ monster flicks around this time. I thought Leviathan had a slightly higher level in quality).

7 A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (As what happens in all horror franchises, when the villain/monster becomes the ‘star’ then the films drop in quality and intelligence. Money grabs. Even the most ardent Freddy fan had to realize that no matter what happened in this film, Freddy would return for Part 6..and 7.. And…).

6 The Punisher (A bad movie that I always enjoyed for some reason, so I might be rating this one a little too high. Gaping lapses of logic throughout, but it’s Dolph Lungren for the Love of Alba. Even Van Damme laughs at Dolph’s acting skills.)

5 She’s Out of Control (An average sub-par  80s teen comedy. Not the worst ever made… Does it sound like I’m hedging on this one? Ami Dolenz was cute enough in this, so maybe I am… Still not a good film, though, even for this genre.)

4 Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (All of these are stupidly funny. This one put more emphasis on the stupid part and the series had already run out of steam as a franchise… In typing that out, I may have just doomed the populace to some idiot producer the idea for yet another worthless reboot.) 

3 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Not a big fan of this series, but this was a little more watchable than a few of the previous offerings. I like how they were trying to ‘stretch the boundaries’ of the series by taking Jason away from Crystal Lake. it still sucked as a film, though.)

2 Dream a Little Dream (It’s really painful to put a movie with Jason Robards on one of my Worst Lists, but this vehicle for the ‘Coreys’ earned the #2 spot. I still can’t figure out if Feldman was supposed to be doing some kind of Michael Jackson impression or not. Bizarre.)

1 Cyborg (Wow! Crap! This was an EPIC turd. EPIC, I say!… I like the idea of Jean Claude Vann-Damme, as long as that idea doesn’t appear in a appallingly mindless excuse for a ‘movie’ like this one. It’s also almost unfair to pick on a movie like this since the production budget was so low. Not one of his finer martial arts flicks. Watching it will make you yearn for the complexities found in most scripts written for Jackie Chan.)

Thoughts?

LOST Finally Ends For All Of The Poor Dumb Bastards That Watched It

I didn’t watch it. Well, not much, anyway. I was going to watch the Sunday news and realized that LOST (the Final Episode! Woohoo!) was running until 10:30 (whereas the local news usually starts at 10).  So I flipped back and forth between that and the Suns/Lakers Game until the news came on.

All I can say about what little I saw is: Wow.

Way back  when it began (after Hurricane Ivan blasted my hometown), I watched it occasionally with a relative or two, ‘just because’. I’m not a big TV watcher, but it was a way of being somewhat sociable while everyone was still recovering from the biggest, baddest storm to have come ashore in quite a few years. I watched. I’m not proud, but it was only for a few episodes scattered throughout the first season. I came to my senses.

I was dumbfounded by the lack of substance on Lost all the while it was being touted as ‘the best thing on TV’ (which is an indictment  more than anything that I can figure) . I thought maybe there were 2 shows on the air called ‘Lost’, because the TV ‘critics’ couldn’t possibly be talking about the same gigantic piece of turd that I was viewing each week. After just a couple of episodes, it was clear that the writers had no idea where the story was going. It was written in an open ended style, with some  ’mysterious’ clues dropped in each week (for which, they could try to tie some of them together later on).

In that first season, it took a couple of guys WEEKS to dig a stupid hole. A hole that they were keeping secret from the rest of the survivors of their plane crash. Then it took them WEEKS to open it. When they finally got the damn thing open they stared down the hole until the following season. They would drag everything out as long as they possibly could at an agonizingly slow pace.

Recently, a friend of mine  admitted he was watching Lost and loving it. After I questioned his competency, I tried to get an explanation or 2 out of him about the ‘answers’ that were supposed to be forthcoming as the show wrapped up. Polar bears. The numbers. The telekinetic kid that’s no longer on the show as far as I know. The miracles. Why the fat guy hadn’t lost any weight after being stranded on a tropical island for  years (at least in real time) (and my apologies Hugo Reyes. I was once a fat guy. It has to be asked). I managed to get one crap explanation about the smoke monster, but it took him about 7 minutes to cover all of the back story and none of it made any sense.

From the little that I saw, the Lost crew are still jerking everyone’s chain right down to the last. Apparently, the writers just wrote:”Okay, everyone stares at one another and they cry. A LOT. And they KEEP crying. And they act really tired… And hurt. And they just keep crying.  And staring at one another while tilting their heads to the side. Until the end. Then, they can let a smile or 2 out WHILE crying. There was a whoooooooole lotta’ crying.

And finally, it mercifully ended and… they’re all dead? When this thing started 37 seasons ago, the standard guesses for what was ‘really going on’ there on that TV island was inter-dimensional travel, aliens, time travel or they’re all dead and in limbo. I think they were trying to cover all the bases, because from what little I saw earlier, that ‘explanation’ (and I’m using that term as loosely as possible) covered at least 4 of those. And ,  from what I saw, one of the writers must have been high while watching either the Dark Crystal or the old kids’ show ‘Land of the Lost‘  and slipped a magic glowing crystal in there. Anyway, the actors finally stopped crying and Lost limped off into the night as maybe the most over-rated, over-hyped television shows to ever air on a major network (or any network) in my lifetime.

But the most hilarious part of the Lost death rattle is that after it ‘ended’, I pull  up an internet ‘story’ stating that the producers of (The Turd Called) Lost are promising that the answers to all of the mysteries will be answered in a little ‘bonus feature’ when you buy the Lost DVDs. Wasn’t that what was promised for the last episode?

Poor dumb bastards. Maybe you Lost fans better wait for the Special Edition DVDs’ with the Super Special Bonus Features that’s sure to follow to REALLY answer all of the mysteries that will be unsolved on the forthcoming Lost DVDs. The writers are probably working on that right now.

Poor, poor dumb bastards.

How To Train Your Dragon Review (4.5 of 5)

Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon, a boy meets dragon movie, is fun whether you’re a kid or just a kid at heart. I think I liked this even more than I liked  last year’s ‘Up’ (which I picked as my Best Movie of 2009). While Up was just a bit more serious in tone (and emotional resonance), ‘Dragon’ had more thrills a minute than that one did.

There are several majestically sweeping flying scenes that were done as well as anything in Avatar, maybe even better. I think the days of the ‘but it’s inferior to Pixar ‘ automated response is coming to an end. I enjoyed this (and Kung Fu Panda) more than a lot of Pixar movies. Not that I have anything against Pixar; maybe just their blindly loyal snob fans.

The story is that of Hiccup, a Viking boy voiced by the presently very busy Jay Baruchel, who can’t quite measure up to acceptable Viking standards. His father is a bit disappointed with him and is afraid to let him train to fight what plagues their home: dragons.

There has been a war going on for some time between Vikings and dragons, who regularly pillage the Viking village of Berk and their livestock.

Hiccup is relegated to being the apprentice/helper of the Viking Blacksmith Gobber (voiced enthusiastically by Craig Ferguson).

The trouble is, at this point, Hiccup would very much like to help ward off the dragons like everyone in town. He even has new ideas how to deal with the dragon menace and has even devised some new anti-dragon artillary which amuses some of the other Vikings.

He wants to help, that is, until he actually uses one of his contraptions to  take down a ‘Night Fury’ a legendary beast that has never been seen by Viking eyes.

Hiccup finds that he has indeed taken down the stealthy creature but doesn’t have the heart to kill it, so he lets it go.

This is where the movie became less predictable to me. In the trailers it makes it seem as though Hiccup frees the Dragon and they immediately become friends.

It’s not so easy in the actual film. Sure, you’ll probably have an idea how the movie works itself out by the end, but it has quite a few surprises before getting there. I don’t spoil good movies so I won’t say anything else about the plot.

There were a lot of things to like about this movie. It’s a beautiful movie to look at. There is a lot of creativity in the looks of the characters, especially the dragons.

There is also a lot of action happening in the film. The flying sequences were notable, especially in the middle of the film. The battle sequences were all well choreographed and inspired.

Above all else, the animators did an outstanding job of imbuing all of the characters (specifically Toothless, the Night Fury) with an extremely large range of refined emotions.

Toothless.

Tootless, but not 'toothless'.

The massive creature that turns up as the antagonistic force at the end of the film was spectacular.

When it reveals itself, it’s very impressive, more so than the massive creature in another film I saw around the same time: Clash of the Titans… And this was a cartoon.

Gerard Butler's character, deciding where they'll be dining tonight.

The voices were all well cast, despite the fact that the characters were Norseman (Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson are both Scottish aren’t they?).

All of the younger Vikings were voiced by American actors, but despite that, it still worked. I’m just glad there weren’t any pop culture references like Shrek. It never even tried to have a Norse tone; it was a contemporary tilted film, but that’s okay. I can’t get everything I want.

America Ferrara was lively as Astrid, Hiccup’s object of desire and Kirsten Dunst lookalike. Jonah Hill was funny as the Snotlout (and might’ve had the best name).

But, as good as everyone was, there was no one that was more perfectly matched to their character than the lead, Jay Baruchel.

His voice perfectly fit the spindly Hiccup’s slightly put upon attitude. That’s not a backhanded compliment, BTW. His deadpan delivery made  a lot of good moments in the film, great ones.

I hope there’s a sequel. 4.5 of 5 whatevers. And that’s a high 4.5 . My gripes with it are hardly worth mentioning, so I won’t.

Robin Hood Review (3.5 of 5)

Although Robin Hood will not be remembered as one of Ridley Scott’s or Russell Crowe’s best movies, it’s still pretty darn good.

It’s strengths far outreach it’s weaknesses and is one of those movies that deserves to be seen on a big screen. I would even go so far to say that some of its wishy-washy reviews stem from the personal prejudices of some critics, than anything that occurs onscreen.

Serving more as an origin story than anything else, this particular telling of the bandit of Sherwood Forest revolves around how Robin Hood came to be at odds with the Sheriff of Nottingham and King John (and his policies). The main difference in this telling and in most Robin Hood movies of the past (excluding ‘Robin & Marion’) is that King Richard the Lionheart doesn’t show up at the end to restore order.

In this version the King (played by ‘hit or miss’ actor Danny Huston) is killed very early on setting into motion the events seen in the film. Crowe’s Robin Hood, a common man who fought in the King’s army gets caught up in a political conspiracy involving a possible Norman invasion when he comes into the possession of the King’s crown.

He does this while making a promise to a dying knight that he will return the crown along with the Knight’s sword to their proper owners. He begins with the intention of making a fast buck for himself, but quickly finds himself at odds with the new laws of the land and becomes a reluctant hero (which Crowe does pretty well).

Crowe has been criticized (at least in England) over the authenticity of his accent, but anyone outside of the UK probably won’t be able to tell whether it’s a well done accent or not. His Robin Of tHe Hood is likable, heroic and humorous and I think that’s all an audience can hope for.

His repartees with Cate Blanchett’s Marion were fun. Cate Blanchett is a great actress, but I always enjoy seeing her in roles where she’s a bit sarcastic (like when she played Katherine Hepburne in The Aviator). She has a good sense of comedic timing.

It’s an overused phrase but she and Crowe have ‘good chemistry onscreen together.

Robin Of The Hood with 3 of the Merry Men: Allan A'Dayle, Will Scarlet, and Little John...

Speaking of which, along withe the aforementioned actors, this movie has an outstanding cast. Along with the actors I’ve already mentioned  there are many good supporting performances.

Robin and his Merry Men eschewing the horses for an easier ride.... Not in the film.

Most audiences will probably overlook the part of the venerable Eileen Atkins (as the mother of Richard and John), but I thought she did a great job in a mostly thankless role. Her part required only to really just move the story along, but I for one appreciated her attention to nuance.

Léa Seydoux as Isabella of Angoulême didn't do a whole lot in the film, but she's worth mentioning, too.

Max Von Sydow as the blind Sir Walter, William Hurt as the appropriately named William, Kevin Durand’s Little John, Scott Grimes, Alan Doyle and Mark Addy’s take on the slightly less than pious Friar Tuck all contributed positively. The core members of the ‘Merry Men’ who are never called that (although they get a nod), keep the movie at a lighter tone.

I think the major drawback of the film were the villains; not that they did a bad job. Prince/King John (played by Oscar Isaac) was for the most part played for laughs. So was the Sheriff of Nottingham (Mattew McFadyen) who was barely in the film.

The main villain in the movie was Godfrey played by actor Mark Strong who seems to be specializing as bad guys these days. He was entertaining as the ‘guy you love to hate’, but the problem was the same as the Sheriff. He wasn’t in the film enough. Ultimately, the real villains of the movie are the French, which may be the biggest problem. Who’s afraid of the French?

This was a pretty good movie. Having a better villain (one really good one) might have made this a truly great movie. As it is, I think most moviegoers will still be  entertained by this (Insert Russell Crowe’s “Are you not entertained?” line from Gladiator).

If you go to see it because you are a die hard Robin Hood fan, you’ll get enough of the old story to enjoy. It also has enough that’s new that makes for a decidely different  and ‘fresh’ (hate using that word)take on the characters. If you’re a Crowe fan, you’ll get what you expect which is a good actor who’s believable as an action star.

Blanchett and Crowe with Director Ridley Scott.

If you’re a Ridley Scott fan, you’ll get what you expect there, too.

An intelligent, well made film with a well told story by a director with maybe the best eye in the business for big screen cinematic visuals. He has a knack for illuminating interesting and thought provoking concepts in any given story. And lately , no matter what time period that the film’s set in, boiled down to their essence, his movies have relevance to today’s current events (especially events in the Middle East). Just look at  Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven and Body of Lies; all are remarkable films. Even Robin Hood has ties to that…

And Scott does war scenes as well as anyone. The Norman Invasion on beautiful day at the beach reminded me of a less gloomy Middle Ages version of the opening minutes of Saving Private Ryan. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.

How a lot of critics see Crowe, even when he's smiling.

Like I said, if you’re a fan of Scott’s intelligent epics you’ll probably enjoy this one. Best seen on the big screen (I’m a poet, don’t you know it) as Scott’s movies always are. 3.5 whatevers out of 5. It was more than worth the price of admission.

Iron Man 2 Review With Spoilers (3 of 5)

SPOILER ALERT: This is your warning.THERE ARE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS ‘REVIEW’. If you don’t wish to have the movie SPOILed for you than go no further. If you do, then it’s your own damn fault. Don’t blame me, blame your own weak will.

I have to say right up front that I had fun watching Iron Man 2, but I also have to post what Jeff Bridges was quoted as saying from the original:

“They had no script, man. They had an outline. We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn’t know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, ‘You got any ideas?’”

He's not in this movie.

He went on to say:

“You would think with a $200 million movie you’d have the shit together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script, ‘Oh, we’ll have the script before that time,’ and they don’t have their shit together.”

I’m not giving you EVERYTHING that he said. Do a search if you want to read the whole thing. But (paraphrasing) Bridges called it one of the most unprofessional movies  that he ever worked on and that he was surprised that it turned out as well as it did.

MY POINT is that I would be willing to bet that the sequel followed the same diagram of success. It was an enjoyable movie and it might make more money than the first one did, but at the same time it was very much apparent that they were just ‘winging it’. Characters came and went with no purpose. So did storylines and plot elements. There were pointless scenes. There are long stretches where people just stand around talking and nothing really happens. And it was very non-dramatic…. But I guess it was still fun. The more I continued to write about  it, the more I thought about the flaws, of which there are many.

The strength of the movie once again rests on the the shoulders of the film’s star Robert Downey Jr. He once again carries the film. Without him, the level of quality would probably be on the level of the recent GI Joe film. I do think that his character is much more of a buffoon in this one, where in the first film the audience laughs WITH him a lot more. But  Downey is one of those actors (like Jeff Bridges) that are pretty good in just about any part you give them.

This scene is not actually in the film. Only the trailer.

Pepper Potts isn’t in any of the Iron Man comics I had growing up, but she is the love interest in the films, so I have a hard time  understanding why Gwyneth Paltrow’s role was so severely diminished in the sequel. There’s a sub-plot which never amounts to anything that approaches being dramatic, which involves the power source that keeps Tony Stark alive is at the same time killing him. You would think you would want to show a little bit of dramatic tension by allowing the love interest to find out that her man’s dying and maybe have her take some action to help… or to put her in danger… Or something. In the few bits that she was in she did add a few humorous moments, but was mostly reduced to acting sullen towards Stark, even though it went against her behavior in the first film.

And on the subject of ‘dying, but not really’, can’t Tony Stark afford to go to a doctor? I guess he doesn’t have to, since besides being a genius in the fields of Physics, Mechanics, Electronics, Holography and all things related to computer technology; he’s also an expert in the field of medicine, able to… (deep breath ) to find the cure himself by creating a new element that his father had been ‘working on’ decades beforehand and luckily that new element will act as an energy source for the chest device that powers his suit of armor and keeps him alive and works to (I guess) reverse the effects of the techno-virus-like illness that he has developed from the ‘palladium’ that he had been using as a power source. I say that, but I’m not really sure. At one point, Stark is hanging out at a doughnut shop and Sam Jackson shows up with Scarlet in a leather catsuit. Jackson explains that they somehow know that he’s ill and that they have the cure, And they do. Or maybe it’s a temporary cure… I think that’s what the creation of a NEW ELEMENT was all about, but it served to let the nerds in the audience know that WITH THIS NEW ELEMENT IRON MAN IS MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER!  Stark announces that, even…As muddled as what I just said, I feel like that was a pretty clear depiction of what was presented. I don’t REALLY know if that was what cured him or what happened earlier… Wait… Let me go back a little.

At one point in the movie, Stark throws a house party. I believe he does this because Natalie (or Natasha) that Stark has just met answers his question of what she would do if she knew she were dying. Her answer is to do whatever she wanted with anyone she wanted… First, the scene would have had a MUCH larger impact if this had been posed to Pepper Potts, the ‘love interest’. It would have been meaningful. Second, it’s a stupidly irresponsible answer. Thirdly, the fact that I think that is the reason that he starts acting like a complete @$$ is really weak.  At the party he starts acting erratic while wearing the Iron Man suit and dancing a la Adam West doing the ‘Bat Dance’, when his Air Force pal Rhodey shows up to talk to Tony about turning over his ‘Iron Man’ technology to the… US government? The military?… Anyway, Stark disrespects Rhodes, so he does the logical thing (that’s sarcasm, there): he helps himself to one of Stark’s extra suits of armor. This suit of armor must be the most user-friendly technology ever devised because he immediately knows how to operate it (Didn’t Tony have to go through half a movie trying to work out how to operate the suit in the first film?). Anyway, the ‘logic’ continues and much like every single comic book I’ve ever read where there is a superhero ‘guest appearance’ in a superhero title; before the 2 heroes can team up against the villain, they are first obligated to fight one another senselessly. And they do. Not a well thought out fight, but it was adequate (that’s my inner nerd talking… Pay no attention). AND during this, they show us what happens when they ‘cross the streams’… Yes, they stole an idea that has been in a number of movies like Ghostbusters (and even Marvel’s Howard the Duck for that matter). I think it has always been a lame idea, except for that one time in Ghostbusters. They also stole a little from ‘here and there’, like the scene where Hammer technology is depicted as defective. Those clips were ripped straight from the first and second Robocop films with absolutely no shame.

The worst part of this entire scene is where Pepper Potts screams at the Johansson character Natalie Rushman (yes, I know what her real name is) that this all of her fault, because ever since she had arrived at Stark Industries everything has gone wrong. That’s the only time where that subplot is set up. Beforehand there is some snappy banter between Stark and Potts about the new assistant’s attractiveness that is nothing more than snappy banter. It goes from the snappy banter directly to the  angry accusation. Does this subplot develop after that? Nope. Stark shows up to see Potts (who now runs his company in a  GIRL POWER! subplot), and Paltrow and Johanson are getting along swimmingly. I think the Black Widow character is the most blatant example of Marvel forcing a character into one of their movies. She really has no purpose in the movie other than to look hot… Okay, I am the last person that would complain about Scarlet Johanson standing around looking hot, but really… Her part added nothing to the story. She had virtually no personality in the entire film. Not the fault of the actress.

This disappoints me to a very large degree, because one of my favorite Marvel comics characters is the Black Widow. I always enjoyed the Marvel Fanfare run drawn by George Perez, along with her role with Daredevil, the Champions, the Avengers, Spider-Man, etc. She’s wasted in this film.

There are a number of unnecessary subplots. One is a plot that involves Gary Shandling as a Senator that wants Tony Stark to turn over the ‘Iron Man’ technology to the government with no payoff. The Senator is pinning medals on Stark at the end of the film. Apparently all of the federal laws that Stark breaks during the film makes the Senator realize the error of his ways of trying to obtain the Iron Man technology and just drop the whole idea altogether.

Later, Scarlett and Stark’s chauffer (Favreau) are involved in an illogical, pointless action scene . It has no payoff. And  I know she’s playing the Black Widow, but unless I missed it, they never say that. They don’t speak the name of Whiplash. Or was he the Titanium Man at the end? I don’t know. Is it no longer considered ‘cool’ to let the audience know that “yes, this is Whiplash from the comics”? Or War Machine for that matter? You can name a character ‘Pepper Potts’ and that’s acceptable, but calling the villain his comic book name isn’t? Whatever. I digress.

Justin Hammer right before Stark makes him look like an idiot (again). An incompetent villain makes for a weaker story.

The villains were both pretty weak. I am a big Sam Rockwell fan and have been a fan of a lot of Mickey Rourke’s work, but here they aren’t given much to work with. Rockwell plays Justin Hammer, who I always remembered as being a pretty nasty guy (he once used his technology to take control of Stark’s suit and killed a politician during a photo op with Iron Man). Here Hammer is reduced to an emasculated ineffective idiot.

His coolest parts are in the trailer.

Hammer hires the GENIUS (aren’t they all) Russian physicist Ivan Vanko (played by Mickey Rourke), whose father apparently helped develop the technology that was the foundation of the Stark empire. Ivan  feels Stark is a thief of that technology, so after his father dies, he builds his own little arc reactor and makes himself some electro whips. Why whips and not frickin’ laser beams or a suit of armor like Iron Man, I don’t know. You’d think being a GENIUS that he would realize that he’s at a disadvantage wearing a harness and some electric whips going up against a heavily armed guy that flies around in a suit of techilogically advanced armor. On a side note, I’m betting there aren’t many Physics GENIUSes that are as large and tattooed as Vanko and spent 15 years in jail, either….

The most blatant example of how little time the writers thought about what they wrote (if there were writers), is Hammer ‘s relationship with Vanko after hiring him. Hammer never has any idea of what his employee is working on, what he’s planning, why, etc…. Hammer heads a multi-million dollar (if not billions) weapons-making corporation that competes with Stark, but apparently A) he’s incompetent and B) there isn’t anyone other than Vanko employed by Hammer who actually works on producing weapons. WHERE ARE ALL OF THE ENGINEERS? Hammer has a ‘fleet’ of unfinished  suits of armor, but who actually put them them together is never revealed. The only employees shown are security guards that are there to get their @$$e$ handed to them (pointlessly) by a 12o lb. woman and a chauffeur later in the film .

Anyway, Vanko shows up at the Indie Car racing track where Stark decides to be the driver for the team that he owns and attacks Stark where he stands on the track while the cars are driving a couple of hundred miles of hour and not hitting him. That’s not half as ridiculous as when Stark’s butler races to his employer’s aid, feels it necessary to drive AGAINST the flow of traffic on the raceway. That part is probably the hardest thing to swallow in the entire movie… Anyway, the chauffer manages to avoid  all of the oncoming CGI cars and runs into Whiplash, pinning him against a concrete wall and the car. You’d think that would have at least broken his spine or something, but I guess he has SUPER POWERS or something. He tears the car apart, but Stark as Iron Man quickly disarms his attacker.

You only get about 3 or 4 minutes of this.

That was another thing that was a bit disappointing… As much screen time that Rourke gets in the film (and how much was invested in him in the advertising), he’s dispatched at the end in about 15 seconds. He has a bigger fight with Iron Man in the Race Car scene. At the (anti)climax of the movie, and after Iron Man and War Machine take out a slew of robots (video game style), Rourke shows up in a helmet-less suit of armor, gets a couple of shots in before Iron Man and Rhodey ‘CROSS THE STREAMS’ and take him out. I guess at least he got that, though. Rockwell’s character just gets arrested.

Despite all of the problems that I had with it, I still thought that it was reasonably enjoyable, but mainly because of the humor delivered by Downey Jr. It wasn’t quite as funny as the original. It was poorly written and directed for such a big budget movie, but still managed to be fun. I have a very strong feeling that based on this and the Incredible Hulk movie, that the Avengers is going to be a monumental train wreck, but we’ll see. Overall, I give 3 out of 5 whatevers for  Iron Man 2. Take out Downey Jr and Johannson to look at and I’d half that. Hopefully, if there’s a third Iron Man movie before or after the Avengers film, that the producers will have a  (good) script in hand before going into production.

Cheer up, Rob. IM2 is still going to make 9 trazillion dollars.

Crash! Landen’s Best 100 Movies of the 1990s

The Top 100 Movies of the 90s…. I’ll admit right off the bat that Casino is probably going to get booted. I made a glaring error by not including the documentary ‘When We Were Kings’, so changes are afoot  even as I post this. Some fine films that didn’t quite cut the ketchup: 2 Eric Stoltz movies: Memphis belle and The Waterdance… Die Hard 2… Days of Thunder… The Big Lebowski. Bummer, man.

I actually continue my ‘Tops’ List all the way up to #200. After I add When We Were Kings to this list; Run, Lola, Run will be sitting in the coveted #200 spot. Why do I post these? Mostly for myself, but maybe if someone out in intra-net land (and yes, I spelled that wrong on purpose) can look at this list and see that maybe they agree with most of these, then maybe that person might try renting one of the movies on the list that they haven’t seen. I’ll admit it’s much more mainstream than my ‘Best of the 2000s’ list, but there are a few nuggets on the list that I’m betting that your average movie goer hasn’t seen. Smoke Signals… The Girl On The Bridge… A Midnight Clear… Waking Ned Divine… The Dreamlife Of Angels… The Emperor And The Assassin… All somewhat obscure movies. All worth seeing.

Update: Inserting a movie… The aforementioned When We Were Kings didn’t quite make it, after all but LA Confidential made it into my Top 20. Please remember these aren’t my favorites, just the ones that I thought were THE BEST….

Update 2: The Madness Of King George

Update 3: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape

Anyway, here’s my Top 100 Films of the 90s.

Casino ( Bumped… You may be wondering why this one didn’t make my list. A story where every character is deeply flawed can make things interesting. Make every character in your movie unlikeable, and it’s not. Plus it was a bit predictable at times or maybe I’m just too attuned to Scorsese’s bag of tricks.. Still a pretty good film, though with Scorsese’s style of minimal narrative.)

American History X (Another update bumps AHX from my Top 100. It’s a smart movie about ignorant people. I appreciate the fact that they don’t shy away from the hard edges that are usually avoided in movies about race, prejudice, etc… It’s a fairly hard core flick. Norton was deserving of winning Best Actor that year. Instead they gave it to Roberto Begnini in a role that’s pretty typical for him. Has a similar central character arc to Spike Lee’s Malcolm X.)

Smoke Signals (Bumped, but a movie worth seeing. Native Americans/American Indians on and off the ‘res’. An entertaining indie film that I’ve seen multiple times.)

Dark City (And bumped… A visually impressive film with ideas. I like the original version and the director’s cut. Also worthy of note is the commentary by film critic Roger Ebert. It’s worth listening to.)

Circle of Friends (And bumped… A ‘smaller’ film that’s well written, directed and acted. Has a wieghty subject or 2 hidden amongst the mostly light dramatic fare.)

(Bumped) Die Hard with a Vengeance (The 2nd best of the series. Not my favorite-that would be Die Hard 2, but a fantastic action movie.)

(Bumped)  The Girl On The Bridge (One of the most beautiful black and white movies I’ve seen, but that may have a lot to do with one of the film’s stars, Vanessa Paradis, who is lovingly depicted thoughout. I hate to use a word like ‘radiant’, but she is in this. ‘Stunning’ would be another good word.)

100 Quick Change (Bill Murray’s directorial debut… The ONLY time he’s directed a movie, come to think of it. I really enjoyed this one.  I wish he would direct again, as long as he acts in it, too, like he did here. Jason Robards was also great in this.)

99 Ghost (Cue ‘Unchained Melody’. A chick flick with broad appeal… Did I just make a joke there? Sorry about that. Anyway, the movie was enormously successful at the box office and for the careers of its 3 main stars, Swayze, Goldberg, and Moore.)

98 Two Days in the Valley (One of the first and better imitators of Pulp Fiction’s narrative style. Much lighter in tone and meaning, though.)

97 Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (Can bio-pics be fun? This one is. Jason Lee captures my perception of Bruce Lee’s spirit. You really get an idea of what drove Bruce to success in this. A bit of license is taken along with it being artsy at times, but again; it’s fun for a bio-pic.)

96 There’s Something About Mary (A raunch comedy palatable for a mainstream audience. The Farrelly brothers seemed like they grabbed the torch from Mel Brooks and are running with it. Not the same kind of humor, necessarily, but they do have the willingness to be politically incorrect.)

95 Stir of Echoes (A good film that came out at almost the same time of The Sixth Sense if I remember right. I think this had a similar story and maybe a better story, but The Sixth Sense had that very well executed gimmick going for it.)

94 Dogfight (A very offbeat romantic comedy. River Pheonix continued to show what a great actor he was.)

93 The Secret Garden (A very well made adaptation of a children’s novel. Melancholy at times without being too downbeat.)

92 A Midnight Clear (An overlooked war film. Better than the attention it garners, which is very little.)

91 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (Slightly better than I remembered).

90 Lord of the Flies (Another well done adaptation of one of those damn books that I had to read in high school. This had a moderately creepy story, though. I really would have like to have seen the talking pig’s head on a stick, though. The abrupt ending captures the meaning of the book fairly well.)

89 Fight Club (A pretty good movie that suffered from one gaping lapse of logic. Almost the EXACT same lapse of logic found in Haute Tension. )

88 Swingers (Forgot about this one. A fairly honest look at relationships…)

87 The Green Mile (One of the better film versions of Stephen King source material. That King guy can write, can’t he?)

86 When We Were Kings (Probably WAY too low for this one, but I haven’t seen it in a while. Maybe I need to re-view it…)

85 Ridicule (Took some points away for the unnecessarily gratuitous opening scene, but a GREAT movie notwithstanding. Was a beautiful movie to watch other than that, especially the very, um… robust Judith Godreche.)

84  Go (Another imitator of Pulp Fiction, but with a younger cast and lighter material. I might be rating this one far lower than it deserves. It’s very well thought out… To an impressive degree even. It’s an enjoyable couple of hours in any case.)

83 Man on the Moon ( Jim Carrey tackles another comedy icon, the late Andy Kaufmann. A rather serious movie for a bio-pic about a comedian. Also starngely moving at times. Yet another film where Carrey got the shaft by the Academy Awards. By my count he’s gotten the finger from them 4 times, twice during the nineties.)

82 Magnolia (The first of 2 Paul Thomas Anderson films on my list of the 90s. There were some ‘weak links’ in this one, but they’re not worth mentioning.)

81 The Straight Story (I don’t know. Maybe this should be higher on my list. Probably my favorite David Lynch film. It stars my favorite former stuntman turned character actor Richard Farnsworth and has one of my all time favorite endings to movie. It’s a movie about a man named Straight who takes a trip on a lawn mower to visit his long estranged brother. A beautiful movie.)

80 Office Space (Mike Judge is a comedy genius. This movie proves that. One of my favorites. Off the top of my noggin’, it’s also probably the best film that Jennifer Aniston’s ever been in.)

79 Absolute Power ( One of 2 that stars Hackman and Eastwood. I wish they had made thirty more together.)

78 As Good As It Gets (Not quite ‘As good as it gets’, but still pretty good. The best part of the film for me was Jack at his piano crying over the dog. Great stuff.)

77 Breakdown (A simple setup creating a fairly suspenseful movie. The final third is outstanding, but then I’m a sucker for movies with 18 wheelers demolishing things.)

76 Back to the Future Part III (Last entry in one of the better trilogies ever made. Sustained a high level of quality right to the end. Never runs out of steam and leaves you wanting more when it ends).

75 The Sweet Hereafter (The 2nd movie on my list that features 90s ‘it’ girl Sarah Polley. Tough subject matter, but worth seeing.

74 Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino’s  directing debut.  A little too talkie in parts for my own tastes, but arguably a more ‘important’ film than his second film on my list: Pulp Fiction.)

73 Patriot Games (Mainstream, and made with much less artfulness than its predecessor, but still a Clancy action flick that will hold your interest throughout starring arguably Hollywood’s greatest action star, Harrison Ford.)

72 The Matrix  (A fun ride even if it takes itself a little too seriously at times, but the action and FX scenes make up for any major flaws, like the appearance of ‘The Oracle’ in the film. Finishes well. Maybe, tried too hard to be clever in the sequels.)

71 Four Weddings and a Funeral (At times predictable with an ending that doesn’t measure up to the rest of the story, but keeps the chuckles going with its many eccentric characters and plot lines.)

70 The Madness Of King George

69 Heavenly Creatures (One of Peter Jackson’s best and is deceptively hard-core… No, I don’t mean porn, Matt.)

68 True Lies (Jim Cameron plus Arnold Schwarzenegger equals fun movie. Loved the Chuck Heston appearance more than anything else.)

67 White Hunter, Black Heart  (An Eastwood movie that isn’t often mentioned with his other great films. Maybe his best ‘inhabitation’ of a character which is claerly a thinly veiled version of John Huston.

66 Edward Scissorhands (I find most Tim Burton movies have something that feels like soullessness; all style, not much substance. This one seemed to have a little more heart than usual. Goofy, but well done.)

65 Cape Fear (Scorsese’s remake of a noir pic. Kind of like Casino, this movie is filled with lots of unlikeable characters and moral ambiguity. Scorsese rarely focuses on a character that knows right from wrong. Despite that and Deniro’s atrocious southern accent, I think this is still a great film. I also think it’s better than Scorsese’s  latest take on noir: Shutter Island.

64 Total Recall (Shwarzenegger had the Midas Touch for a while and he continued to get bigger budgets and better written films. Based on Phillip K. Dick’s material and directed by Paul Verhooven, this might be Arnie’s smartest movie and has a bit of a head trip aspect to it. Great fun.)

63 Apollo 13 (One of Ron Howard’s better movie’s. There’s some artistic license taken at times, but it’s a fun for a movie about a significant historical moment in America’s Space Program.)

62 Babe (“That’ll do pig”. A shockingly enjoyable movie. It was the Little Movie That Could…)

61 Joe Versus the Volcano (I’m probably  the only person that would put this on a ‘Best Of’ list, but I still say it’s one of the better films from the 90s. It’s  ’low key zaniness’ at times and poignant in others. The scene with Ossie Davis and the ‘full moon’ scene are 2 of many that make it memorable… At least to me.)

60 Tremors  (As well made as you can make a horror-comedy about ravenous giant man-eating worms.)

59 Chinese Box (A movie about a love triangle set when Great Britain turned Hong Kong over to China. Interesting movie.)

58 Shine  (Based on the true story… A very good film about expectations, failures, madness and redemption.)

57 The Firm (One of Cruise’s best and one of the better movies about being a lawyer, also. Plus… Wilford Brimley. ‘Nuff said.)

56 Darkman (The first of Sam Raimi’s films on my list. Sure, it’s B-Movie material, but it’s treated as if it’s A-material.)

55 Rudy (Another film based on a true story… Being a college football fan, I knew the story before I saw the movie, but it didn’t take away from the film’s root for the underdog appeal. One of the best sports films out there.)

54 Titanic (Overhyped after the fact, Titanic was an extraordinarily made film with groundbreaking FX. There were a lot of people that were rooting for Cameron to fail on this one… Probably the same people who rooted against ‘Waterworld because of that one’s enormous production budget…and after a less than stellar first week box office, it looked as though the naysayers would win out, but the movie just kept gaining steam. Good reviews, word of mouth, 13 year old female DiCaprio fans, and a very smart release date where there was uninspired competition for the #1 box office spot each week all factored in to make this the biggest moneymaking movie ever at the time. There was backlash before the movie opened and then a little bit since the movie’s thaetrical run, but it’s a very good movie based on true events with subject matter that everyone can relate to.)

53 Three Kings (I don’t know if I wouldn’t place this one higher. It’s entertaining and was surprisingly imaginitive and unpredictable thoughout. I loved the film, but have very personal memories associated with the last time I saw this one, so I have trouble watching it anymore. Don’t let that stop you from seeing it, though.)

52 Cop Land (One of Sylvester Stallone’s best. He went back to being an actor on this one. Proves once again that he’s more than capable with the right part.)

51 Damage (A bit more predictable than other movies that I have this high on the list… you kind of know where the movies going after a while… This would not have worked without the great actors involved.)

50The Remains of the Day (A wonderfully tragic movie about characters that movies aren’t usually about: servants, a butler in particular. This one gets me every time I’ve watched it. Anthony Hopkins and  Emma Thompson both deliver very nuanced  work.)

49 Misery (The second movie based on King’s stories. Doesn’t hold back on the sadism. Here’s something I’m saying for the 2nd time, but: That King guy can write, can’t he?)

48 Glengarry Glen Ross (Quoted often. Much like Reservoir Dogs this is  a very talkie film, but UNlike that one, the dialogue doesn’t just talk in circles at times. This one’s never boring.)

47 The Player (One of Robert Altman’s best and he has a lot of great ones.)

46 Waking Ned Divine (Quirky. Intelligent. And really funny. David Kelly is awesome in this.)

45 One False Move (Understated with a realistically violent tone. One of the better crime dramas I’ve seen. Billy Bob plays a dumb guy, so you know it’s a great movie.)

44 Hamlet (Mel Gibson making Shakespeare understandable to dolts like me.)

43 Dave (Light but meaningful. Features nearly every player in Washington DC from the 90s.)

42  The Fugitive (This is the second time I’m saying something for the 2nd time, but: A great action movie starring arguably Hollywood’s greatest action star, Harrison Ford.

41 The Truman Show (The 3rd time I’m saying something for the 2nd time: Yet another film where Carrey got the shaft by the Academy Awards. He should’ve at least been NOMINATED for this, which he wasn’t.)

40 A Simple Plan (Almost a complete departure for Sam Raimi.  Here’s the 4th time I’ve said something for the 2nd time. Billy Bob plays a dumb guy, so you know it’s a great movie.)

39 Payback (One movie where the director’s cut is good, but still VASTLY inferior to what the studio decided to do with it. I will say the director’s cut looks better, but it tries a little too hard to be off-putting.)

38 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (The 5th time I’m saying something for the 2nd time: Jim Cameron plus Arnold Schwarzenegger equals fun movie. The third Cameron movie on the list.)

37 The Dreamlife of Angels (French film filled with subtlety and details that seem to have nothing to do with anything until the last few minutes of the film.)

36 Pi (Darren Aronofsky’s low budget debut. Looks better and bigger than some movies that have budgets a hundred times bigger than this one. Well written and thought provoking.)

35 Fargo ( A Coen brothers classic deserving of all the awards it got. I don’t think it’s their best film, as many do, though.)

34 Trainspotting  (Very under-rated and  I think not quite fully understood. Awsome dialogue delivered by actors with great timing. Some people might find this depressing, but for me, it’s epic.)

33 Sling Blade ( The first time I’m saying something for the 3rd time: Billy Bob plays a dumb guy, so you know it’s a great movie. It’s not humanly possible to watch this film and not talk like Karl afterwards.. Or during. Tough subject matter…)

32 Twelve Monkeys (Dark subject matter, but with Bruce Willis. Not the best Gilliam movie, but a fun movie to watch. I even liked Madeline Stowe in this.)

31 The Silence of the Lambs (Who knew you could have so much fun watching a movie about serial killers?)

30 Malcolm X ( Spike Lee’s epic movie about Malcolm X. Why this was made before a Martin Luther King, Jr. movie doesn’t add up properly, though. It’s like that Howard the Duck movie before getting the Spider-MAn or Hulk movies. Maybe a poor analogy, but you get the idea.)

29 Grand Canyon ( Maybe it’s the title and subject, but this movie always leaves me feeling very peaceful after viewing it. Uses the same kind of narrative as Pulp Fiction with a large number of characters with interwoven stories. Tarantino didn’t invent that style of narrative, he just influenced a number of imitators. )

28 Pulp Fiction (Wasn’t I just writing about this. Not the best film of the 90s and not even Tarantino’s best of the 90s, but maybe the most influential movie made in that decade.)

27 Hoop Dreams (The second of two documentaries on my list. There might be a few more that I could put on this list: When We Were Kings, Crumb and Paradise Lost, with ‘Kings’ being the most deserving. I think I actually forgot about that one. I’ll leave it off for now, but I may need to correct this list and one of my other lists (1996). Unlike the other 2 that I just mentioned, Hoop Dreams doesn’t leave you feeling like you just got raped.)

26 Toy Story (Innovative. Well made. Well written. And dare I say “a game changer”? Yeah, I dare.)

25 Toy Story 2 ( Even better than the original.)

24 The Iron Giant ( A very enjoyable film using old school and new school methods of animation. The best boy meets robot movie ever made.)

23 The Sixth Sense ( A gimmick film, but a tremendously well done gimmick.)

22  Boogie Nights (Another film that may or may not be influenced by Pulp Fiction, but for me, a better film. Like watching a train collide with a trailer park… In a good way. No offense to denizens of trailer parks. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there is sometimes truth found in stereotypes.)

21 LA Confidential ( Aload of great actors… I don’t think this movie is perfect and has some flaws, but still pretty well made with complicated but easily understood story.)

20 The Ice Storm ( One of Ang Lee’s great movies. The highlight for me was the way comic books are worked into the subject matter. Has a great cast of child and adult actors. Another movie with some tough subject matter.))

19 Gattaca (It’s a very slow paced film, but I don’t mind that. Things still happen and it’s one of the more thought provoking sci fi movies of the 90s or any other time. I love the last line or 2 of the film. And Uma Thurman is just so darn cute in this.)

18 The Emperor and the Assassin (An epic movie in every sense of the word. Right off the bat it hits you with brutal war scenes and continues that with implied brutality throughout. I’m betting it was a seriously hard era to live in. The singing log with the blood on the wall is something that comes to mind about this film.)

17 Apt Pupil (The third movie based on Stephen King material on my list. Here’s the 2nd time I’ve said something for the 3rd time: That King guy can write, can’t he?)

16 Quiz Show ( Another slow paced film, but an intelligent movie. All of the leads are great in this, especially Turturro, who excels as characters that connive and feel that they’re ‘put upon, and Ralph Fiennes always does a professional job even in a crap movie like the Avengers.

15 Forrest Gump (One of the most quoted movies of the 90s. Technically brilliant as well as artistically.)

14 Goodfellas (Scorsese’s best movie of the 90s.)

13 Red Rock West (A late addition to my list. I’m still really surprised that I’ve missed this one for so long. Very unpredictable and fun. Had a new revelation in every scene.)

12 Groundhog Day (Voted at one point as the most Spiritual movie ever made. I would agree that it transcends its comedy roots. Bill Murray is at his best and is as capable of portraying a complete range of emotions in the film as he is funny. Evokes emotion and thought.)

11 Se7en (This is the 5th time I’ve said something for the 2nd time: Who knew you could have so much fun watching a movie about serial killers? David Fincher’s first movie depicting the subject of  the psychology of mass murderers and his 2nd best film on that subject.)

10  Braveheart (Mel Gibson’s directing debut and one of his best acting jobs as well. Intense from beginning to end, with great ideas and themes.)

9 The Hunt for Red October (This made me a fan of ‘military’ movies. It wasn’t one of my favorite genres until this film came along. I’ve said this several times on my blog, but it’s worth saying again,. Alec Baldwin was made for this role. He was a FOOL for not coming back for the sequels… Or maybe I feel cheated even with Mr. Ford taking over. But this whole movie was a revolving door of great acting performances…. Scott Glenn… Sam Neill… James Earl Jones… Tim Curry… Jeff Jones before I knew he like the kiddie porn… Courtney Vance… Fred Thomson… Richard Jordan… and of course sean Connery. )

8 Jurassic Park (Right up there with Spielberg’s best adventure films… And who doesn’t love dinosaurs?)

7 Jackie Brown (Tarantino’s best movie. Not his most influential, but his best.)

6 Rushmore (A movie that never gets old. Highly detailed in the Wes Anderson style filled with eccentric characters from the leads to the extras.)

5 Saving Private Ryan ( The 2nd Spielberg film in my 90s top 10. I probably wactch this from beginning to end at least once a year. CLEARLY a better movie than Shakespeare in Love, which the Academy Awards  gave Best Picture to instead of ‘Ryan’.

4 Unforgiven (The complete deconstruction of the Western as well as the characters Eastwood’s career was built on. I don’t love the movie for that, just that it was such a well made movie.)

3 Barton Fink (A smart movie about screenwriting. Would make a great double bill with Adaptation.)

2 The Shawshank Redemption ( Here’s the 3rd time I’ve said something for the 4th time: That King guy must’ve done a whole lotta’ blow to write all the shit he’s written. Crazy.)

1  Schindler’s List ( Easily my best film of the decade. Important subject matter aside, this movie should be used a teaching aid for film classes everywhere. Imaginative in the number of techniques to tell the story. Spielberg’s long list of top notch films just continues to grow. I think he could’ve stopped with Schindler’s List and he should be regarded as the best director in the history of cinema. His movies are substantive, artistic, accessible and commercially successful. What else do you want from a director? He’s better than Fellini, Murnau, Truffaut, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Lang, Capra, all of them.)

Thoughts?

And if you want more Top 100s, here’s my Best Of the 2000s. And the Best Of the 1980s.

Crash! Landen’s Worst 10 of the 1990s

It’s funny that when I tried to compile a Bottom 10 of the 90s, the REALLY bad films seemed to be concentrated in particular years, especially in the first half of the 90s. There were certain years that had 10 films that could stand in for the Worst 10 of the decade, but since I wanted to spread it around, I tried hard to get a true representation of the entire 90s era. That was hard to do, and 8 of the 10 come from 1990-1994. Only 2 movies make my list from the latter part of the 90s; both being from 1999.

If you’re a masochist I highly recommend any one (or a combination) of these fine examples of cinematic ineptitude.  I do admire the fact that there were probably people that were behind these that believed they would be making celluloid art; perhaps everyone that was on board from Producer to the last extra… I really do admire the attempt at the film-making process…. but I also admire the epic failure made in all of these specific cases; disasters, all of them.

I find I may be picking on some of the ‘smaller’ films of the 1990s. It’s probably a bit unfair. I almost feel there needs to be a list of the bigger budget crapfests, also, that featured deserving movies like Batman & Robin, Spawn, Judge Dredd, Godzilla, Tank Girl… Wow… It would encompass a lot of terribly written ‘comic book’ fare, wouldn’t it? I’ll think about that one. In the meantime, here’s the list:

10 Blue Steel

9 eXistenZ

8 Dr. Giggles

7 Cool As Ice

6 Exit to Eden

5 Bats

4 Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

3 Cop and a Half

2 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

1 Meet the Applegates

Thoughts?

Crash! Landen’s Best 10 Movies of 1990

Lats of the 90s. Never thought I’d get here…  Maybe it was because it was the start of a new decade, but 1990 had more than its share of great movies. I’m sure a good chunk of the ones that don’t make it on my Top 10 will still make my ’100 Best Movies of the 90s’ list.

This is probably one of more mainstream lists. I guess the farther I go back the more mainstream they will be, with some exceptions. Probably, anyway…

Some of the many well made movies that didn’t make my Top 10: Back To The Future Part III (Robert Zemeckis sustained quality throughout the trilogy)… Lord of the Flies… Ghost… Quick Change (Bill Murray’s directorial debut if I’m not mistaken)… Memphis Belle (a really fun WW II flick ‘based on the true story’. Took a lot of artistic license, though)… Metropolitan ( a very surprising film about New York debutantes from a first time writer/director. Nothing but dialogue, but more interesting as it goes.) Die Hard 2 (decent follow uop to one of the best action flicks of all time)… Days Of Thunder… Dances With Wolves (nope, not in my Top 10)… Presumed Innocent (Was a great movie with a slightly hokie resolution…).

La Femme Nikita (Not in my Top 10. Just had to post one of my favorite movie one-sheets.)… The Grifters… And many, many more. On to my Top 10:

10 White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood does an outstanding John Huston impression throughout the movie.)

9 Edward Scissorhands ( One of Burton’s better movies.)

8 Total Recall (A great sci fi/Scwarzenegger vehicle using Phillip K. Dick source material. Thought provoking while just being fun.)

7 Joe Versus the Volcano (Very under-rated in my opinion. Had many very beautiful moments throughout. And Meg Ryan is great in several roles.)

6 Tremors (Another under-rated movie in my opinion about fast moving man eating slugs. Awesome premise… It really is a great movie, though. It’s intelligently written and logical within its own world of quirky characters. Like Darkman, an first rate movie with B-movie material.)

5 Darkman (When Sam finally got a big budget. A great mad scientist/crime/sci fi/action movie… Very entertaining movie.)

4 Misery (King’s take on obsessed fans. Or is it just fans in general?)

3 Hamlet (Mel Gibson drew criticism for his portrayal, but really was the first time where I understood Shakespeare. Same dialogue, but it was HOW he delivered the lines. A really good adaptation.)

2 Good Fellas (One of Scorsese’s best. He throws the 3 act structure out the window.)

1 The Hunt for Red October (A very well made movie in a number of regards. It’s a fictional story, but being a Tom Clancy movie, you get the idea that it could be non fiction. The detailing is beyond typical movies of this ilk. The characters and the actors are closer to their real world counterparts. There are many opportunities where actors have the chance to go ‘over the top’ and they reel themselves in. Scott Glenn’s performance as the American Sub captain is representative of the entire production. Sean Connery is at his coolest as the Russian Captain Ramius and Alec Baldwin is for me in his best role as Jack Ryan. He should have come back for the sequels.)

Thoughts?

Crash! Landen’s Worst 10 Movies of 1990

Finally. The Last of the 90s. 1991 was a bumper crop for awful movies that still managed to be watchable. There are some movies that would cause me permanent mental and physical damage if I had to sit through them again. Haute Tension, Meet The Applegates, November, Girl Interrupted and a number of others come to mind. For the most part, my 1990 list doesn’t contain any movies like that. As bad as these movies are, they do have redeemable moments like the ‘flying CD of Death’ in ‘I Come In Peace’. It had memorable lines, too, such as when the alien spouts the title line and Dolph Lundgren responds with something like “But you’ll go in pieces.” It’s not Shakespeare, but I haven’t seen that movie since the early 90s and I still remember that line.

Movies that could have joined the 1990 ‘Worst’ party include Fire Birds (a Nic Cage Top Gun, but with helicopters), Cadillac Man, Clive Barker’s Nightbreed (which was a setup for a movie series, not an actual movie), the bad but very entertaining movie The Guyver, Mr. Destiny, Look Who’s Talking Too, and even the disappointing sequel to one of my favorite films growing up: Predator 2.

Here are the Worst of 1990:

(Bumped) The Godfather Part III (A ridiculous follow-up to 2 really good films… That helicopter ‘whack’ comes to mind.)

10 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Actually enjoyed this one to some degree and I’m not a fan of this series and never really have been. I think they were trying to get creative taking Jason away from the Crystal Lake setting. It was kind of like the Loch Ness Monster in Idaho.  Still not a good film.)

9 I Come in Peace (“I must break you”. Whoops. Sorry. Wrong movie.)

8 The First Power (I really wanted to like this one. I was hoping for Lou Diamond Phillip’s to make a bigger splash than he did. He wasn’t the typical Hollywood lead, obviously.)

7 Frankenstein Unbound (Way too low budget for its own good.)

6 Captain America (Hooo00000…. This should probably be my #1. It really deserves it. Surprising that it had some well known actors in it.)

5 Cry-Baby (It was on HBO and there was nothing else on. John Waters films are  not for me.)

4 Spaced Invaders (I lied about all of these still being watchable. I remember this one being pretty obnoxious, and I usually like this sort of thing. A zany comedy without the laughs.)

3 Robot Jox (I had friends that loved this movie. Didn’t change my opinion of it.)

2 Wild At Heart (David Lynch channels John Waters directing a violent film. The results are to be expected….)

1 Blue Steel (Just a funny movie. Poor career choice for Jamie Lee Curtis. She should’ve stuck to great horror flicks.)

Thoughts?