My Favorite Movies

What an indelible character is Max Fischer. He's like a midlife crisis before he's even lost his virginity: all early promise that turns to nothing when the rubber meets the road. This film is wonderfully balanced and masterfully made. It's hilarious, inspiring, tragic by turns. It makes me laugh and cry and cheer and shake my head, sometimes all at once. The soundtrack is also amazing.

A beautiful film with a beautiful cast and a beautiful score. Humorous, sensual, sinister, passionate, tragic... It's also that rare case where the film is better than the book.

This film blew away casual filmgoers' expectations and managed to meet the impossibly high expectations of the book fans. The series faltered a little in part 2 but this first installment is faithfully-adapted to the screen and a pleasure to watch. In many ways Fellowship was the best story in the trilogy, and it got a royal treatment from Jackson and co. Too many technical successes to list. The cast shone. Sean Bean above all was pitch perfect for the role and brought it some complexity and humanity. Hugo Weaving as Elrond was a bit of a head-scratcher casting choice, on the other hand.

My favorite one of all.

A lot more interesting if you are familiar with the writers involved. Being a fan of Anais Nin and Henry Miller, I love this movie. It's true to them and stands as a subtle, sensual piece of art unto itself.

When I have kids they will watch this movie over and over. It's got a great core set of character and a very strong environmentalist message. It's also got shades of grey in it. Some of the "bad guys" are not just "bad guys," they actually have real motivations. I think it's incredibly important to teach kids that you can't solve the world's problems just by putting a bullet to the villain.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this film is not about love. I don't really think it was. It was more about a elderly woman who'd lived freely and fully passing her love of life on to a young man desperately in need of a few pointers. I think at the end it's pretty clear that she wants him to love the world she loved, not love her. How beautiful.

Better than City of Lost Children and every bit as good as Amelie if not better! This film has a great way of propelling the larger plot arc with tiny visual gags - it's entertaining in every frame and it all adds up to a true charmer of a flick. Hilarious, dark, beautiful, bizarre, this film is top 5 for me.

This movie is an epic work of awesome proportions with enough depth and complexity to inspire generations of derivatives. This film had me rapt in fascination like a little boy listening to stories like David & Goliath or the adventures of Ulysses. Despite its theatrical skin, it has dated well and still evokes the full range of human emotion: humor, love, rage, devotion, despair, courage, forgiveness and pathos. See this movie before you die.

Constantly surprising and beautiful. Full of indelible imagery.

Around the butt, and up over the groin area. It's self-contained and fairly explanatory.

Coen Bro's at the top of their game.

Personality goes a long way. 1/2 a star off for some belabored dialogue (particularly Uma Thurman's). It's unfortunate that a single moment of this utter classic should be tainted with the masturbatory over-hipness that pervades all of Tarntino's dialogue these days, but unfortunately you could see the cracks beginning to form even in Pulp Fiction. Still, the good outweighs the bad by far (and the amazing outweighs the good, too).

I did my 35 shows.

Awesome for its time and has held up well since then.

Absolutely wonderful. The visuals are a seamless blend of puppet art and CG, with fantastic art direction throughout. The story is well paced and perfectly round with a few surprises and good dialogue. Seeing it in IMAX 3D was just the icing on the cake. Suitable for children or adults, though there are a few mild "wicked baddie" scares.

This is one of my all time favorites. If I could give it 6 stars I would.

This has held up really well over time. The writing's good, the cast pitch-perfect, and the effects are still impressive, 28 years later.

Wow - what a great surprise this film was for me. A really fresh story with lots of twists plus some great historical slices of magician culture and the advent of electricity. If you like Hugh Jackman or Christian Bale, you'll love it. Can you spot David Bowie?