MY FIVE FAVORITE FILMS OF THE LAST TWENTY YEARS

Everyone who reads my blog knows I love my top five lists, and this is the first entry in a 7 part series of my five favorite movies. I am doing it by decade. For this first article, I am doing my five favorite movies of 1992 through 2012. In my opinion, the quality of movies have truly suffered in the last decade. Special effects and CGI graphics have made movies exciting but not necessarily good. So here are my five favorite movies of the last two decades:

5. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006)
This little independent movie is the most recent movie on my list, but it is definitely a future classic. The film is about this dysfunctional family lead by a delusional father played by Greg Kinnear. The funny thing about the movie is is that by the end the family realizes by the end of the movie that they are not that dysfunctional at all. Alan Arkin deservedly won a Best Supporting Actor award for his scene stealing role as Kinnear’s aging father. Steve Carell is excellent as well, in a more reserved role, as Kinnear’s suicidal brother in law. A great little movie that proves that a good movie can be made in this modern digital era.


4. GLENGARY GLEN ROSS (1992)
This movie barely made the cut since it turns twenty years old this year. The movie has a small cast of about six male actors – but what a cast: Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, and Ed Harris. The whole cast should have been nominated for an Oscar – but only Pacino was and he lost. The film is a truly realistic look and real estate brokers and how cut throat they were. In my opinion this is one of Jack Lemmon’s best roles, and his role as Shelley Levene, a truly poor soul, is one of my favorite roles. The movie did not do much business at the box office, but it is a cult favorite now.

3. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994)
Adapted from the Stephen King novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, the movie starred Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins. The film tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a banker who spends nearly two decades in Shawshank State Prison for the murder of his wife and her lover despite his claims of innocence. During his time at the prison, he befriends a fellow inmate, Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, and finds himself protected by the guards after the warden begins using him in his money laundering operation. Despite a lukewarm box office reception that barely recouped its budget, the film received favorable reviews from critics, multiple award nominations, and has since enjoyed a remarkable life on DVD and cable.


2. THE GREEN MILE (1999)
This is another adaptation of a Stephen King novel, and like The Shawshank Redemption it proves that King can write more than horror novels. The film starred Tom Hanks and the late Michael Clark Duncan, and it was about prisoners and prison guards in a 1930s jail for death row inmates. Duncan is an inmate accused of murdering two children but in actuality he had a special gift where he could he people. When he was caught with the dying children in his arms, he was in fact trying to save them. Unfortunately, in the 1930s a backwards and uneducated black man did not have much luck for a fair and balanced trial, and he was placed on death row. Tom Hanks played one of the kind guards that realizes that the backwards prisoners had a gift. It is a great movie, and one of the few movies that was as good as the book...if not better.

1.  BIG FISH (2003)
Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors, and not because he makes great films. He really makes fun films, even though in recent years he has become the remake king. This movie was a really big departure for the quirky director. The movie is about a son (Billy Crudup) who all his life has felt distant from his father (Albert Finney). He only remembered the tall tales his father used to tell. In the end while his father is dying the son realizes all of those tall tales had truth behind them. In addition to Crudup and Finney, the cast included Ewan McGregor, Jessica Lange, Danny Devito, and Helen Bonham Carter. On a personal note, the movie came out at a time when a lot of my favorite people in my family were passing away, and for awhile I could not watch the movie. The film is not only a great fable, but it is a fun movie to watch, and I think by far it is the best movie of the last twenty years...


I received a lot of grief from my brother in law for not having a list with Goodfellas (1990) on it. However, my list is for the last twenty years. Here are some honorable mentions though: Forrest Gump (1994), Being John Malkovich (1999), Beyond The Sea (2004), Crash (2005), and Sweeney Todd (2007).

MY FIVE FAVORITE FILMS OF ALL-TIME

I am starting a new series talking about my five favorites in a particular genre. Hopefully this will spark some interest, as well as cause spirited discussion amongst the blog readers. For this first post in the series, I wanted to go big and spotlight my five favorite films of all-time. I have watched many movies from the earliest silent films to today's overbudgeted hits. I don't really consider myself an expert as much as I do a film lover, and these favorite films of mine I can never get tired or watching. If I could only watch five movies, these are the ones I would want to watch:

5. BIG FISH (2003)
Director Tim Burton is mostly known for his overblown remakes. I enjoy his movies though. The movie Big Fish was one of his original masterpieces. The movie centered around a dying father (Albert Finney) who told tall tales to his son. Even though he told tall tales there were truth and lessons in every story he told. I think the reason why this movie touches me everytime I see it is because my father in law died the year this movie came out. It is one of the few movies that can make my wife cry.

4. ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944)
Because Cary Grant was so good looking, I think his acting ability was largely overlooked. He could do it all from drama to comedy, and the movie Arsenic And Old Lace is the best example of his comedy. As he discovers his loving aunts are really murderers his own life is turned upside down, and you can see the change in Cary Grant just by looking at the craziness he conveys in his eyes. Raymond Massey also gives the best performance of his long career as well.

3. WHITE HEAT (1949)
Like Cary Grant, James Cagney could play any role. However, Cagney's best role was as ruthless gangsters. There was no one more crazed and ruthless than the character of Cody Jarrett. The character had it all - a mother complex, mental illness, and a thirst to kill. The ending of the movie with Cagney screaming "top of the world, ma" is one of the best scenes ever filmed in Hollywood.

2. GOODFELLAS (1990)
It seems like Goodfellas is on television all of the time now. It is one of the movies that when it is on, I have to watch it. The film is nearly perfect especially Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta as mobsters. Liotta plays mobster turned rat Henry Hill. I got to see what the real Henry Hill looked like, and he was no Ray Liotta but the film was great. The movie makes me wish I was more than 25% percent Italian so I could be "made" as well.

1. JAWS (1975)
Yes, this movie is my favorite film of all-time. I have seen it a total of 70 times now. When I first saw Jaws as a child, I was afraid to let my legs dangle over my bed at night for fear that a shark would come around and bite my feet. I grew to love this film, and the best part of the movie is not seeing the shark. The shark was broken so much for young director Steven Speilberg that he had to rewrite most of the film. It made for a different movie, and probably made the film as suspenseful as it was. As for the acting, you can not get much better than Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. The film continues to remind me to never go back into the water!