My Favorite Movies

Nothing's scarier than unadulterated evil.

Carpenter knows atmosphere. He knows how to build and build tension until it just explodes.

Halloween scares the shit out of me. And it looks so damn good, too.

Storytelling at it's absolute finest.

Cameron Crowe is in love with himself. Fortunately, he's also in love with Billy Wilder, To Kill A Mockingbird, Simon and Garfunkel, Paul McCartney and scenes where characters sing aloud in cars. And therefore, I'm in love with this movie. I highly reccommend the two and a half hour director's cut, and the director's commentary (performed with his mother).

Without question, this is a personal rating more than anything. This is a film nostalgic for a tumultuous time I could never ben nostalgic for, but it also works very well as a coming-of-age story. The obvious autobiographical material feels incredibly authentic, and the more grandiose period scenes work only because they reflect what I know of the scene, not what was experienced. But it works.

I understand the backlash toward Almost Famous. For many, the climax could be quite lacking. And perhaps the fact that there seem to be more than one climaxes and resolution

The first post-9/11 film to address the event head-on. Lee handles it with maturity and confidence. Great performances all around, especially Hoffman.

My favourite Coen Bros. film. Dark, moody with poetic dialogue. Heavily inspired by Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler.

70s conspiracy thriller that gets so quiet it's eerie. Pakula just lets the story unfold rather than lay everything out, which only heightens the tension. The assasination on the Space Needle is one of the most memorable opening scenes of the decade.

This is one terrific movie. It works as a journalism film, part-bio-pic, and tense thriller. What's most amazing about Shattered glass is how perfectly detailed and accurate it is. Dialogue in some scenes is taken verbatim from tape recordings made during the actual events, and those scenes are some of the most compelling in the film.

This is easily Peter Sarsgaard's breakthrough performance, and he carries whatever Christensen can't (though the Stephen Glass role would take real work to fuck up). It's a brilliantly subtle performance, one that builds and builds in every scene until the climactic moment when Sarsgaard must make a moral stand. Then it explodes.

For those that live in Montreal, the one outdoor scene shot in "Bethesda" is very clearly Atwater and Ste. Catherine. You can make out Calories just behind Sarsgaard.

Incredibly uncomfortable to watch. I've seen Ordinary People at least seven times, and not one of those viewings have ended without tears.

This movie is full of dialogue, but no one actually talks to anyone. Every plot point is inevitable, and the audience knows it. It doesn't matter. This is movie isn't so much about family but about emotional honesty and the courage to express it - something that people don't do enough.

It breaks my heart with every viewing, but it's too truthful to stop watching.

Mary Tyler Moore is particularly amazing, as many people have said. But Sutherland is quite good as well. And what the hell happened to Timothy Hutton? His Oscar-winning performance is a revelation, yet his work beyond this has been in such lacklustre films.

Easily one of the best films I've ever seen.

What could be better than a film with Dan Aykroyd AND Sydney Poitier? And a living River Phoenix? And an evil Ben Kingsley? Nothing. Despite all the 90s technological babble, Sneakers plays out more like a classic heist movie.

Shockingly earnest without ever feeling manipulative. Jeff Daniels is absolutely incredible.

Positively bizzare adaptation of Walter Tevis novel. Bowie is terrific and dreamlike tone permeates throughout. Only downside: Rip Torn's penis.

Graphic and disturbing, with an incredibly bizzare turn to humour near the end due largely to a delightfully over-the-top William Hurt. Still, the bleak ending is pitch perfect. Teriffic score by James Horner.