America is being hobbled by this Abstinence Only bullshit and fear of homosexuals and people who are even remotely off the beaten path sexually. Truth is we’re careening towards more freedom, variety, and acceptance as regards sex in our country. That’s where it’s going and that’s a good thing. Freedom, variety, and acceptance are inherently good things. Always. Still, there’s this very loud obnoxious contingent that gets into political office and passes legislation and makes speeches and is trying desperately to hold us all back. It boggles my damn mind. On top of that the sensible people (including myself) don’t speak loud enough, organize large enough, and stick to their guns. It’s easy for the nuts to push absurd Abstinence programs when those of us who know they’re bullshit keep voting them into office or keep supporting people who offer no real opposition.

This kind of leads me to thinking of politics. People have a lot of wrong ideas about how to fix the political system in America. Generally, people want to put a band aid on a gaping wound. The root of the problem with the government in our country is what we let happen politically. We tolerate liars, bigots, and spineless pussies. The “fringe” candidates in our Presidential Election are still pretty mainstream. They’re still members of the two party system (AKA the root of evil). We’ve allowed for a pair of private clubs that represent pretty much exactly the same constituency (i.e. not the best interests of the American people) to take complete control of our government. The Democrats and Republicans do everything they can to stifle democracy in our country. Any independent or third party candidate has to jump through so many absurd hoops just to get on the ballot that it effectively eliminates them as competition. On top of that they spend government money and resources to organize their “primary elections,” which effectively turns them into the state sponsored political parties. State sponsored political parties doesn’t sound much like democracy to me. The way to fix this is to open up politics in this country. Let’s the out of date two party system,  set up rules that are fair to anyone seeking political office regardless of socio-economic status or sanity.

So, similarly the rich and famous sure have it awful nice in this country don’t they? They get their very own special status that means the rules don’t count for them and the rest of us don’t even pay it any mind. Jamie Lynn Spears gets knocked up, almost definitely by some rich old producer and I bet not one damn person is even going to get arrested for statutory rape (she ain’t legal). Paris Hilton gets released from being incarcerated because it was so terribly hard on her skinny obnoxious rich bitch ass. Lindsay Lohan and lord knows how many others are pretty well documented as drunks. They go to clubs and get plastered in public. Where are the repercussions for them and the clubs that are so publicly violating the law? Why are we letting this stuff slide? The rules and laws are there for everyone and if these people are supposed to be damn role models they should be responsible and do their time. That’s what role models do: the right thing. So, as to set an example for the wee ones.

In addition to all this, I’m a member of one of the most universally maligned groups in this country. I’m an Atheist. I’m not one of the ones who hems and haws either. There’s no proof for God, an afterlife or any of that New Age bullshit either. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. I’ll believe it when you show me some evidence I can’t think of other explanations. In addition, I refuse to accept that the wonders of our Universe, which are truly magnificent, could be explained with such dull notions as are proposed by religion and those New Age hippies. The Universe is fantastic and complex, please stop trying to dumb it down with your half-assed notions and over-simplifications. Now, this isn’t to say that you’re stupid for buying into religion or that New Age bullshit. You’re not stupid. What you believe is stupid. Oops, shit am I not being a polite Atheist who just sits quietly in the corner and lets you blame me for the problems of the world? Sorry. My bad.

So, I’m kind of annoyed tonight. It seems like our country, if not the world, could do with a kick in the ass. It’s time to move forward. Changes are in order people. It’s time we stopped putting up with the bullshit of the rich and famous, time we started embracing sex as being a healthy normal part of being human, and gave up on the dull notions proposed by the religious and spiritual communities and started exploring the wonders of the universe as it exists. As I indicate in the title I’m thinking there needs to be a bit of a revolution. Wasn’t it Jefferson who said a country ought to have one every few decades? Nothing violent mind you, but can we at least all agree that anyone who votes in the Primary Election should be arrested for treason? It just feels like we need a surge against the bullshit we’ve allowed to go on in this country. Something comparable (but again not violent) to the storming of the Bastille. A statement that it’s time for the clinging geriatrics to step aside, so we can move on to the future.

Funny, as I finish this post I have just poured myself a glass of Wrath from the Midnight Sun Brewery. It’s a tasty Belgian-style Double IPA.

24. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993 dir. Henry Selick) – The only reason this isn’t higher is because I tend to think of it more as a Halloween movie and less of a Christmas movie. My girlfriend disagrees with me. It makes me sad to live with someone who is so often so very very wrong. Anyway, I love this movie, it’s clever and fun and just damn well made.

23. Ernest Saves Christmas (1988 dir. John R. Cherry III) – Yes, Ernest. Ernest, the lovable buffoon saves Christmas. What’s not to love about that. Quit rolling your eyes, they will get stuck that way. I recall enjoying this film as a kid, as I enjoyed many Ernest movies. Yeah the humor was stupid and the plot was obvious, but it was a sweet movie and Jim Varney was a funny funny man.

22. The Santa Clause (1994 dir. John Pasquin) – I’m not a huge Tim Allen fan. Didn’t watch Home Improvement, and haven’t seen too many movies I liked him in. Except for this movie and Galaxy Quest. The Santa Clause was a pretty standard: regular guy has to save Christmas because Santa is out of commission with the nice twist of him now permanently being bound to the job. Actually, I think the end of the movie was good. They didn’t cheat. There was no loophole or out that he exploits or is introduced at the end that he uses to live happily ever after as a normal guy.

21. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992 dir. Chris Columbus) – I remember seeing this in the theater as a kid. The worst parents in the world leave their kid in New York City on “accident.” Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern did a good job as the pair of goons out to get the kid, though really the main difference between this movie and the original was the setting. It’s a fun holiday movie, but not a particularly good one.

20. Lethal Weapon (1987 dir. Richard Donner) – This is the first of three movies you may have forgotten have Christmas associated with them. Christmas doesn’t really have a lot of importance to the plot of Riggs and Murtaugh’s first outing, but the first of four quality action movies, the highlight of the buddy cop genre, and the movie that brought us “I am too old for this shit” deserves a place on the list because it’s at Christmas dinner in the final scene of the movie that we see that Riggs and Murtaugh have really bonded. It’s a stretch, but it’s enough to be number 20.

19. Die Hard (1988 dir. John McTiernan) – “Ho, Ho, Ho now I have a machine gun.” I love Die Hard, and though that it happens to be Christmas isn’t vital, it allows for some nice gags and sets a nice backdrop for my favorite action movie. Plus, in the end we learn the true meaning of Christmas: “Yippee-ki-ay Mother Fucker.”

18. Gremlins (1984 dir. Joe Dante) – I just rewatched this the other week and discovered my girlfriend’s entire personality seems to be derived from Gizmo. It’s creepy. Still, this is a damn fine movie. It spans many many genres being a parody, a Christmas movie, a horror movie, a sci-fi/fantasy movie, a family movie (sort of), and a “don’t buy foreign products or they will kill you and destroy your pristine small town” propaganda film. That’s the spirit of Christmas.

17. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962 dir. Abe Levitow) – It’s Mr. Magoo as Scrooge! This is our first listing of a Christmas Carol for this list, but it will not be the last. This one earns it’s place for having both the lovable Mr. Magoo and being a fun take on the Classic Christmas tale. You cannot go wrong with that.

16. Home Alone (1990 dir. Chris Columbus) – I wouldn’t list the sequel without listing the original movie about the worst parents ever “accidentally” abandoning their brat over Christmas. I really did enjoy this movie and watched it many times as a kid and actually distinctly remember the music for it, which I still think was good. The movie is also a nice release for kids who have fantasies about creating elaborate traps to injure adults. Not that I knew any kids like that. I’ll bet the kids who loved this movie grew up to be big fans of the Saw series.

15. Love Actually (2003 dir. Richard Curtis) – I quite liked this movie. Bill Nighy doing a character very much like the one he did in Still Crazy was charming for me. I didn’t go and see it when it first came out and didn’t get around to watching it until the girlfriend pretty much forced me too last year. I’m glad she did, it’s a sweet movie with a lot of actors I like … and Keira Knightly, who, amazingly, I didn’t hate in this movie.

14. The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974 dir. Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr.) – The Snow Miser and the Heat Miser. I don’t remember the movie well, but all those elements stuck with me, plus the way they did the claymation is kind of classic Christmas now. If you see Rankin/Bass work it’s almost guaranteed to make you start thinking of Christmas.

13. Elf (2003 dir. Jon Favreau) – This is one of the best Christmas movies to come out for a long while. It’s a perfect balance of syrupy sweet and utterly goofy. Jon Favreau found a way to harness the goofiness of Will Ferrell and funnel it and shape it perfectly in this movie so it didn’t seem ridiculous or bizarre but perfectly natural. Also, Bob Newhart as Buddy’s adopted Elf father was a nice touch.

12. Scrooged (1988 dir. Richard Donner) – Probably the best adaptation of a Christmas Carol that is an update. It seems like with other attempts to update the story they don’t stray too much from the source material. Scrooged builds something a bit more around the basic story that helps develop the character beyond being just your average horrible bastard. You sympathize with him and there are times you can even see why he may have made the choices he made. The movie’s better than you probably remember it being.

11. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964 dir. Kizo Nagashima and Larry Roemer) – From the same folks who brought us The Year Without a Santa Claus it’s everyone’s favorite Christmas under-dog, or under-reindeer, I guess. The classic tale in that classic Christmas style. It’s wonderful and sweet.

10. Frosty the Snowman (1969 dir. Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr.) – Happy Birthday! Who didn’t want their snowman to come alive when they were a kid? How cool would that be? Build an army of snowmen, who can apparently conduct legal marriage ceremonies. It’s a sweet movie based around a well-loved song (one of my favorite Christmas songs from when I was a kid).

9. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 dir. Bill Melendez) – Good grief! Only 8 more to go! It’s Charlie Brown, it’s Christmas how can you go wrong. The saddest little bald boy on the block and all his pals gather round a twig with a single ornament on it.

8. Christmas Vacation (1989 dir. Jeremiah S. Chechik) – I don’t generally find Chevy Chase funny. With other people I don’t find that funny, I can see why others find them funny. Not Chevy Chase. I genuinely don’t get people thinking he’s funny. Christmas Vacation, though, is probably the only time I’ve found him funny. It’s a good fun movie about a dysfunctional family trying desperately to seem perfectly normal. Good, clean-ish holiday fun.

7. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992 dir. Brian Henson) – Our third instance of A Christmas Carol, can you tell I’m fond of the story? This one is a musical with the Muppets. It’s like taking something good, like an Oreo cookie for example, and making it better, like frying it for example. Muppet’s Christmas Carol is the deep fried Oreo of Christmas movies. Michael Caine is delightful as Scrooge, and the songs stick with me for a good week after I watch the movie.

6. A Christmas Story (1983 dir. Bob Clark) – “You’ll put your eye out!” This movie is filled with quotable moments. I will concede, though, that I have only watched all the way through one time. Still, that one time left enough of an impression for the movie to be my number 6.

5. A Christmas Carol (1999 dir. David Hugh Jones) – When I was a kid the Public Radio station would play Stewart’s reading of A Christmas Carol ever Christmas eve. For a few years my family actually gathered around the radio and listened to it. That’s highly unusual for my family. We’re not really too big on the family time gather around stuff. So, this TV movie version starring Stewart will always have a special place, since it reminds me of sitting in the living room with my family with the radio on listening to the story.

4. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966 dir. Chuck Jones and Ben Washam) – Boris Karloff reads and sings songs in this Chuck Jones directed adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ book. It’s got all kinds of good stuff going for it. Someday, I hope my heart will also grow three sizes.

3. Bad Santa (2003 dir. Terry Zwigoff) – Bad Santa is kind of an anti-Christmas movie, yet at the end it manages to still pull off being kind of sweet and endearing. A naive little boy actually teaches a truly vile man the “meaning of Christmas.” Plus Lauren Graham repeatedly panting “Fuck me Santa” fueled many a fantasy for me.

2. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946 dir. Frank Capra) – Y’know what? Shut up. I know this is an obvious choice, but there is a good reason for it. This is a really sweet and very well done film. Sure the bits about what life would be like without George and his subsequent joyous run home clutching Zuzu’s petals is nice, but my favorite part is George wooing Mary. The bit about roping the moon and pulling it down for her is really sweet and Jimmy Stewart is, as always, incredibly endearing.

1. A Christmas Carol (1951 dir. Brian Desmond Hurst) – Alistair Sim does the definitive version of Scrooge in this version of the classic Dickens tale. Sim’s portrayal of Scrooge has informed pretty much every other on-screen portrayal since. Patrick Stewart is one of my favorite actors, forget Trek and X-Men, he’s by far one of the best actors out there, and his version of Scrooge is the only time I would ever call one of his performances derivative. Not that that’s entirely bad, Sim’s Scrooge is delightfully spiteful at the film’s opening and absolutely heart-warming at the film’s close as the damn near boyish and giddy reformed Scrooge. It’s about as good as it get as far as A Christmas Carol and Christmas Movies go.

Let me tell you, coming up with 24 movies was a pain in the ass, so some of those may have been a bit of a stretch. I’m surely missing something you love or placed your favorite movie somewhere you think is wrong. Tell me so, that’s what comments are for.

Are you alone? Of course, by alone I don’t mean totally and completely without anyone else in your life. Chances are you have co-workers, people who convincingly pretend to be your friends, neighbors, and probably one or two family members that still speak with you. I mean alone in the sense of not having what folks call “that special someone.” Someone who has a particular relationship with you, which may involve certain privileges and confidences. I mean a girlfriend, boyfriend, or otherfriend. If you are currently without, do you often think about how nice it would be to have someone? Do you see other couples and how happy they are and wish for the same? Do you lie awake at night, touching yourself and crying and wishing you had someone special to comfort you, someone special to make you feel special? Well, if that’s the case you don’t need to be in relationship right now.

Relationships and being in a relationship are great. Not having someone sucks. I know this. I’ve been one of those guys. The single guy in the group populated by couples and people who are spoken for. It sucks.  Everything seems to be so much better with other folks and the weight of the world seems like it would be so much lighter if you just had someone else to shoulder the load. Still, a relationship is not a solution to your problems, it’s a whole new set of problems layered on top of them. When you’re thinking about how great it would be to have someone and how good it would make you feel to have someone to lean on, do you ever think about what you’d be doing for that person and what their needs might be? Don’t start. I don’t want to hear your justifications, excuses, or outright lies (because I can see you … I know you’re a liar … you … lying liar person). You’re not thinking about that other person, and how the hell can you? Chances are you don’t know who that person is, so how can you know what they might need? You’re just thinking of what you need, which, while perfectly natural, makes you a bad person and a poor candidate for a relationship.

I think I once heard someone say once that relationships require sacrifice. It’s possible I was drunk and watching a horror movie that involved a nude woman being sacrificed and somehow remember it as a discussion about relationships. These things happen to me sometimes. I don’t believe that relationships require sacrifice. You shouldn’t sacrifice part of yourself and what you want for someone else, and likewise they shouldn’t sacrifice for you. Relationships should be about compromise and finding ways to meet the needs of all parties. Why should either of you have to give up what you want so the other can have what they want? That doesn’t seem remotely fair or constructive. Especially when there are bound to be ways where you can meet in the middle and everyone can be happy. I also vaguely recall something about in any good negotiated solution all parties should feel like they gave up something. It may have just been a sneeze. This relates in that if you are looking to fulfill your own current needs for companionship or ego-boosting of some description or another you’re not ready for someone else because you’re not ready to compromise and help meet the needs of another while helping yourself.

You need to find ways to help yourself. If you’re stressed and need someone to talk to, call up a friend, go get a drink and the two of you can bullshit together. If you don’t have any friends, pop in a movie that cheers you up, go to the gym and pump some iron, or start a blog on the internet and write up everything there. If you feel lonely, go out and meet new people. Join a local organized sports team of some kind or another, attend open mike nights at nearby bars/coffeehouses, checkout local art scene stuff, get into politics, volunteer at the good cause of your preference, or take a class at the local college. If you need sex, try new masturbation techniques, there’s no shame in the occasional one night stand, and remember that there are places prostitution is legal. Once you’ve got your bases covered and don’t feel like you need one person to help fulfill those needs, you’re going to be in a much better headspace to be able to be with someone when you find someone. This is beside the point that most of the things I’m suggesting here could be good ways to meet a new special someone.

You’re not ready to have a relationship, and people can probably smell that on you. The chances that someone who will actually be good for you will jump at the chance to be with you when you’re needy are pretty slim.  If you’re needy you don’t need a nurturer, you need to not be needy. I need to find another way to work the words need or needy into that sentence. A nurturer will only allow you to continue your current patterns, you won’t grow at all and eventually you’ll either overwhelm the nurturer and they will bail on you, or they are a truly sick individual who will attempt to try and keep you needing them and you don’t need that. The key here is that when you’re needy you need to stop needing, because the neediness is apparent and a turn off to most folks.

If you feel like you need to be with someone, then chances are you’re not yet ready and you need to find ways to grow as a person before you’ll really be ready to be in a nice healthy relationship with lots of love and sex and other good stuff. Most of us have been in the position your in, and it sucks, but it won’t last forever (probably, I’m not entirely sure about that. You might be such a loser that no one will ever love you and you’ll be alone forever. Just something to think about on those cold lonely nights). There are lots of ways to fulfill the needs you have without relying on an individual you happen to be in a relationship with to do it for you.  Plus the other ways to fulfill those needs can be ways to meet someone new and special who will be completely turned on by your lack of neediness. Now, please shut up, because not being in a relationship isn’t that bad and you can certainly manage outside of one.

Today, Karl Urban joined the cast as Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy and Chris Pine signed on to play the much debated role of Captain Kirk. They join Zachary Quinto, Heroes’ Sylar, as Mr. Spock; John Cho, Harold from Harold and Kumar and the guy who ID’d Stifler’s mom as a MILF in American Pie, as Sulu; Zoe Saldana of … okay she’s been in a lot, but I don’t remember her, as Uhura; Anton Yelchin, again don’t know him, as Pavel Chekov; and my favorite casting choice thus far Simon Pegg, Shaun of Shaun of the Dead, Nick Angel from Hot Fuzz, and The Editor from the Doctor Who episode The Long Game, as Montgomery Scott. Eric Bana will also be joining the cast as a villain named Nero (a Romulan, maybe? I’m hoping so). Also, Leonard Nimoy is confirmed as playing an older version of Spock and everyone is being coy about Shatner’s involvement.

Alright, the core people are set, now let’s just get this movie shot and as much possible leaked onto the internet so I can pre-judge the movie weeks if not months before it arrives in my theater to make me wet my pants because I’m so thrilled that the string of shitty Next Gen. movies is finally over (no offense intended to the people who worked on Next Gen., it really was the best of the TV series, the movies just didn’t measure up. Maybe give it another shot in 5 or 6 years?).

After not really getting into the ideas we had for “Season 2″ of Rant Alaska a new concept was cooked up for a different podcast, The Drive-In Podcast with Uncle Sean and Sam. The show is about movies, and common episodes will be reviews of new movies or alternate audio commentary tracks you can listen to while you watch more off-the-beaten-path type movies. For our first episode, recorded late last night, Sam and I watched The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and talked about it in between talking about women and body image, philosophy, science, and metaphysics. You don’t have to watch the movie while listening to the show, but it couldn’t hurt.

Episode 1 post.

Episode 1 download link.

Before he was instructing William Shatner on the nuances of screaming “Khan!” into a communicator or having Christopher Plummer recite Hamlet in Klingon, Nicholas Meyer directed Time After Time. Time After Time stars Malcolm McDowell and David Warner as H. G. Wells and Jack the Ripper respectively. The film starts in London of 1893. H. G. Wells is unveiling his new invention, a Time Machine, to a group of colleagues including his close friend Dr. John Leslie Stevenson. Wells unveils his Time Machine and explains the ins and outs and plot points to come to the gathering. Sometimes having your characters explain how the device unfamiliar to your audience is supposed to work works really well and other times it doesn’t. This is one of the times it works. Wells almost giddily explains the workings of his device to the group and then the police show up looking for Jack the Ripper and they find him, at least they find his bag, and this is when we discover that Wells long time friend John Stevenson is in fact Jack the Ripper. Jack, however has disappeared and no one can quite figure out where he’s gone until after everyone leaves and Wells remembers he has a time machine in his basement. Jack the Ripper has stolen his time Machine and gone forward in time to 1979. Wells resolves to follow him and stop him and the adventure begins.

The premise the movie is based on is an interesting one: what if H. G. Wells had actually built a time machine and what if Jack the Ripper stole it to evade capture? The plot isn’t bad. The movie can be predictable, but not in a way that ruins the movie. There are plenty of exciting confrontations between Wells and Jack through the course of the story with sensible enough motivations for them to be after each other: Wells to stop Jack’s reign of terror and Jack to retrieve a key to the time machine to prevent it from returning to the past so he can continue to use it. Even the reason for the time machine, which unlike Doctor Who’s TARDIS only moves through time and not space, being in San Francisco instead of London where Wells left from almost makes sense.  He went 86 years and 8 hours into the future, so if the Time Machine is stationary it should actually be in a time zone +8 hours GMT. So, in general, the movie sets up some reasonable rules and follows them.

Underneath the plot you also have something of a philosophical debate, the idealism of Wells vs. the violence of the Ripper. Wells begins the movie discussing the wonderous socialist Utopia which will inevitably exist within 3 generations. Instead, when he goes 80 years into the future, he discovers a world that is on the surface horrible and violent a world that makes Jack look like “an amateur.”  Still, we see hints of the Utopia Wells hoped for in the young woman, Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen) whom Wells meets and falls in love with. There are pieces of Jack and pieces of Wells in the 20th Century. Wonderful social reforms and terrible violence. In the end the film seems to be saying that we don’t live in a Utopia or even a Dystopia but rather something in between.

The acting is good. Young Malcolm McDowell always reminds me of Ewan McGregor and I sometimes forget that I’m watching McDowell. Still, he does an excellent job of playing the man out of his time an unsure hero in a place far different from the world he knows. David Warner is always excellent. From Evil Genius in Time Bandits to Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI or the photographer in The Omen his lines are always delivered in a way that makes the character seem like a man who measures his words. It works quite well for the methodical genius of Jack the Ripper in this film. Mary Steenburgen is always charming.

Time After Time has a solid plot, thoughtful philosophical undertones, and quality acting. I can’t think of any specific complaints I had about it, so I will give it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

Fistful of Dollars, the first of the “Man with No Name” trilogy and the film that popularized what came to be known as the “Spaghetti Western” lives up to its legacy. From the opening scene with the Man with No Name riding into San Miguel to the bloody ending the film is incredible. San Miguel is the town where the only way to get respect is by killing so the only men who work anymore are the undertaker and the unsuccessful Cantina owner. Everyone else works for the Baxters or the Rojos with Eastwood in the middle. The Man with no Name plays one family against the other protecting the few innocent people and eliminating the towns two ruling families.
The movie is beautifully made from Leone’s signature scenic shots to Ennio Morricone’s haunting score . I particularly enjoyed the shot when the Baxters are crossing San Miguel to meet with the Rojos. A long shot of the Rojos house from about where the Baxter’s house is. The Baxters cross into the shot and walk away from us across town towards their enemies. The score sets the mood to match Leone’s shots and builds the tension in the right moments. It does what any good score should do. The movie’s theme music is great and the hook is haunting.
Eastwood’s Man with No Name is appropriately frightening and charming when he plays the families against one another. The other actors aren’t all that much to watch. They’re not bad, but none of them really compare to Eastwood’s performance. Even Gian Maria Volontè as the main villain Ramón Rojo isn’t really all that impressive. He pulls off the ruthless monster well, but there’s not much else to it. Not that that’s entirely his fault, the script doesn’t give the character all that much depth. The script isn’t bad but it’s not great either. Pretty standard for westerns of the time with the slightly corny dialog, but honestly not nearly as bad as other westerns I’ve seen. What will probably get most people who’ve never seen a Spaghetti Western before is the dubbing. The dialog comes off a little bit more awkward when the only lips the words match are Eastwood’s.
Overall, the film is great. Beautifully shot with a great score, solid characters, a good plot, and a good performance by Eastwood. If you’re looking to watch a western, then you will not be disappointed by this movie. I’d give it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

You know you’d want to see it.

Anyway, I’ll leave all the old posts up, except the fiction tagged ones (took those down for reasons I don’t yet understand myself).

The plot is simple enough. Christian Bale is a rancher trying to save his land from being sold to the Railroad and Russell Crowe is an outlaw whom he volunteers to help escort to the train that will take him to prison for enough money that he can save his land.  The characters are familiar. Bale’s Dan Evans is a family man who leans on trying to keep his family with a roof over their head and food in their mouths to the point where his attempts may prevent him from doing just that. Crowe’s Ben Wade is his foil, a man who does what he wants, takes what he wants, and shoots anyone who tries to stop him. The two men, brought together by circumstance, form something like a friendship, because they are as similar as they are different. The characters push the story forward and the growth of their relationship seems inevitable. Crowe and Bale play off each other well. Still, Crowe doesn’t seem all that different to me. He plays a charismatic tortured soul, something that seems to be almost too familiar for him.

The supporting actors do an excellent job as well. Peter Fonda takes on the role of a Pinkerton man who seems just as bad as Crowe’s Ben Wade, except he hides behind a badge. Alan Tudyk was a welcome bit of mild comic relief as the Veterinarian who ends up part of Wade’s escort, Doc Potter. Ben Foster, who I am used to seeing as more of the frightened kid Dave in the Punisher or as as the withdrawn Warren Worthington from X-Men: The Last Stand, is chilling as a member of Wade’s gang, Charlie Prince. Foster’s performance rivals Bale’s for my favorite in the film.

The film progresses at a good pace. Enough time is given to properly build character and nothing really feels glossed over. I could feel the anticipation build as we waited with  Dan Evans and Ben Wade for their final trip from the hotel to the train station, something that could have been skipped to get straight into the action, but thankfully wasn’t. The end of the film leaves some welcome questions. Things to debate while walking out of the theater with your friends. The sort of things that will keep people talking about the movie.

Overall, 3:10 to Yuma is worth seeing. It has good performances, good action, a solid plot, and it’s quite well paced. If I were to rate it I would give it 3 out of a possible 4 stars. It’s worth the a full price admission ticket.

One of the first things I downloaded off of iTunes when we got the Apple TV was Hill Street Blues Season 1. I had never seen it before, but had always heard good things about it. I tend to like cop dramas, most of the time, and at that particular time was in the sort of mood to watch a cop drama. Hill Street Blues was better than I was expecting. A bit odd at points, but overall a pretty good program. I haven’t finished Season 1 yet as I got caught up in watching some other things, so I guess it hasn’t held my attention that well, but still watching it is always interesting. Plus, Veronica Hamel was damn hot. Damn hot.

Last month we broke down and finally started watching Lost. Hadn’t seen a single episode of it before last month. I’d been hearing about it and hearing what a great show it is, so I downloaded it off iTunes. We plowed through all three existing seasons in less than three weeks. Pretty damn good show. Wondering how the hell Season 4 is supposed to pick up after the end of Season 3.

After watching Lost, I thought I’d try another show that’s been on for a few years that everyone raves about, 24. I bought Season 1 off iTunes. Have to say, not totally thrilled by it at this point. I think I’ve watched three or four episodes and some of it is kind of cool, but it hasn’t really grabbed me yet. I like the concept of it being a realtime show with each hour of the season being an hour in the day, but the show just doesn’t thrill me, yet. I’ll finish the first season, but unless it gets a lot better soon. I probably won’t be back for the second.

From Netflix I started getting Dennis Leary’s short lived cop comedy The Job. It wasn’t bad. It had potential to be a really good show that combined office drama and comedy with a group of dysfunctional cops. Unfortunately, the first season premiered the spring of 2001 and the second season showed up the spring of 2002. So, I don’t think it really fit with what people were looking for at the time. Still it made me want to check out the other recent Dennis Leary series, Rescue Me.

So, I got Rescue Me Season 1 Disc 1 from Netflis earlier this week. It was pretty damn good. It was fantastic. A good balance of the serious drama of a New York Fireman coping with being a Fireman post 9/11 (and having been at ground zero) and Leary’s brand of humor. I’m eager to catch up on the first three seasons, then buy the fourth off iTunes.

I also started getting the V miniseries and TV series off Netflix recently. The miniseries wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great either. The acting was pretty terrible and the dialog laughable. Still, the plot was solid and the special effects were good for the 80s. The rest is still coming in from Netflix, I’ll be interested to see where the thing goes.

Finally, this week I started getting The Young Ones, an 80s BBC comedy about youth culture. It is one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen. It’s like someone took Monty Python and focused it on four characters. I demand to know what drugs were used in the writing of the show so that I may use them for my own writing.

On a similar note, a friend is letting me borrow their seasons of Arrested Development. Holy hell that is a funny show. I’m disappointed I missed it, but still with the way it was broadcast I suspect watching it during it’s run it may not have seemed as funny. Fantastic show, if you’ve been hearing about it, believe all the good things you’ve heard and run out and buy the seasons on DVD.

These days, if Rian Romoli accidentally bumps into a child, he quickly raises his hands above his shoulders. “I don’t want to give even the slightest indication that any inadvertent touching occurred,” says Mr. Romoli, an economist in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.
Ted Wallis, a doctor in Austin, Texas, recently came upon a lost child in tears in a mall. His first instinct was to help, but he feared people might consider him a predator. He walked away. “Being male,” he explains, “I am guilty until proven innocent.”

I think that men feel like this, and I know I’ve been nervous for similar reasons in the past, is a pretty sad commentary on the state of our society. I mean, yes protecting kids from predators is important, but turning every male into a potential predator doesn’t help anyone. It breeds unhealthy paranoid attitudes in children and in the community at large. Ultimately it leads to false accusations (intentional or not) that can tear apart families and ruin the lives and careers of people who didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a bit like the attitude towards sexual harassment in the workplace. Both are very real problems that need to be taken seriously, but the way to solve the problem has been to make every man a suspected offender. And it is every man not everyone. It’s evidence of inherent sexism in our culture toward both women and men. Men in that it assumes all men are potentially violent or otherwise criminal and need strict boundaries to prevent them from becoming the foaming beasts that they surely must be when rules are not in place. Women in that it assumes women to be primarily docile and non-threatening and there is no reason to be concerned that she might be victimizing anyone because she is a woman and therefore must be a victim. The fetishism of the violent or dominant woman in the form of dominatrixes is evidence of this underlying cultural attitude. An attitude which makes every man feel like a criminal just for waking up in the morning. It’s an attitude harmful to everyone.

In 15 years you know what games kids will be playing at school? None, because teachers and parents want to avoid kids feeling bad because of the competitive nature of games. Instead kids will sit inside their tiny little hard plastic bubbles roll outside and stand around for 20 minutes for recess, then roll back inside where they will receive an education that is at the best schools only 20 years out of date. They will all weigh 250lbs at age 9 and every parent in America will be part of a class action lawsuit with McDonald’s because their kids are fat and it has to be someone else’s fault. Couldn’t possibly be that parents banned every single entertaining outdoor or otherwise physical activity for these kids and stuffed them inside protective bubbles to save them from the dangers of the world. The children of the future will be fat, lazy, poorly educated, with weak immune systems due to lack of exposure, and no interpersonal skills whatsoever, because of parents and teachers so obsessed with making kids feel “safe” and “special” that they have ensured the death of the human species.

If a kid is getting chased around and doesn’t want to be they need to stand up for them damn selves. Learn how to say “I don’t want to play and walk away.” Learn when to engage an authority figure to help solve the problem. I got hassled in elementary school by kids from time to time. I dealt with it and I’m not too bad off if I do say so myself. Kids need to learn how to deal with pricks and getting hassled, because the world outside of school is filled with those same people and if you don’t have experience with them and know how to walk away from the situation or how to ask for help if it escalates to that point, you’re more or less fucked for the rest of your life.

Still I just made a little bit of money off of my writing, I think I may do that some more. RSS feed for my content on Associated Content is here, in case you’re interested.

So, yeah … I just made money off my writing … which feels weird as I am usually just writing into thin air and hoping someone reads and finds it interesting. It’s not a lot of money, but they do have a sliding scale and what I got is just slightly higher than the minimum (runs from $3 to $20 I believe) so maybe I’ll make a little more next time. Time to start mining old blog posts.

Yes, you should read the whole thing, Uncle Sean is very insightful.

After I figured out the financial viability I talked to a few of the more techie people I know. Smart folks who have their fingers on the pulse and actually understand how the devices work and know all the fancy words. They all thought that it would be a good idea especially if it turned out to be financially a better option.

So, on July 5th we went to Costco and picked up an Apple TV. Set up was easy. Plug it in, connect it to the TV, pick the language, connect to the home wireless network, then authorize both mine and Dollface’s computers to connect to it and bam we’re watching shows I downloaded on iTunes on the TV, we’re listenting to anything from our music libraries on our TV, we’re listenting/watching podcasts, and (after updating the device’s software) we’re surfing YouTube on the TV. After trying it out over the weekend I called up the Satellite provider and had our service shut off.

What’s Good about the Apple TV

1. Easy setup. It took about 5 minutes to get it up and going.
2. Control. I am the programming director. What’s on TV? Only the things I want to watch. When is it on TV? Whenever I want to watch it.
3. Diversity. With the video podcasts that are out there and the ability to surf YouTube my television choices have just gotten a bit more diverse. I can watch items produced by smaller publishers or creative individuals on my television.
4. Availability. Pretty much all the shows Dollface and I watched on Satellite are available on iTunes. There were a few exceptions, but no deal breakers. We can still watch our Battlestar Galactica and Heroes and hey, maybe we’ll finally start watching Lost and 24.
5. Simplicity. My Satellite remote had 49 buttons, the Apple TV remote has 6 buttons.

What’s Bad about the Apple TV

1. On screen keyboards. They’re a bit of a pain in the ass, so searching YouTube is less fun.
2. Not enough videos on YouTube. Okay, that’s a weird statement. What I mean is I don’t feel like enough of the videos on YouTube have been converted to H.264 so they can play on the Apple TV. I understand that part of this probably has to do with quality concerns, but right now, it just doesn’t feel robust enough.
3. No HD programming on iTunes. The AppleTV is an HD product but none of the Television Shows or Movies that can be purchased on iTunes are available in HD.
4. No way to watch local programming (like local news). Well, okay, if local news would just put out a video podcast of their program this wouldn’t be an issue and it’s not really the fault of the Apple TV. I don’t really watch news much anyway, but if I did this would be a drawback.
5. Sports. Again this isn’t something that’s a drawback for me personally as I don’t watch sports, but being able to watch sporting events on the Apple TV would make it a much more attractive product to a lot of people.

I would recommend the Apple TV to anyone looking for long term savings versus Cable or Satellite costs who has got the bandwidth through their ISP so that downloading all their television won’t be a problem and who doesn’t have a particular interest in watching sports games or local news.

Live Free or Die Hard

I really wanted to like this movie. I love the Die Hard franchise. The Die Hard movies, even the weaker second film, are better than your typical action movie. They are the high end of the genre. Like how the man with no name trilogy is thehigh end of the western genre, the Die Hard films transcend your typical action movie. At least they did until this year’s Live Free or Die Hard.

Now, the new Die Hard movie isn’t all bad. In fact, there is plenty of things that are really good about the movie. First of all the casting of our heroes is great. Justin Long and Bruce Willis have a solid chemistry, the characters are pretty much polar opposites, but we don’t get a ridiculous odd couple scenario, we get a believable interaction between a middle-aged traditional cop and a mid-twenties computer nerd. The nerd, Matt Farrell,  is completely out of place in McClane’s world and McClane never has any clue as to what Farrell is talking about. That relationship works and is really well done in the movie. Also, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is perfect as Lucy McClane and I love the character they built here. In fact, if the franchise is continued I would like to see it continued with Lucy McClane (played by Winstead) as the lead. The problems with the movie outweigh those positives, unfortunately.

First, the plot is weakly executed. We’re having a national crisis, and are really only getting very vague hints as to how bad things are. Power and communications have been shut down across much of the country and it’s treated as an occasional aside. It comes up as “oh, yeah you remember how the terrorists were shutting down the entire country? Yeah. Just wanted to throw in a reminder.” It also fails as a Die Hard movie because it does things that are supposed to look cool that really aren’t well tied to the plot. It was obvious the writers were just sitting around a table trying to flesh out some extra cool scenes and said: “Dude! John McClane needs to fight a jet!” Then, they wrote the scene and just inserted it into the movie. It very loosely ties into the overall film and in the end is pretty dull.  Fighting a jet was cool 13 years ago when James Cameron did it in True Lies.

Second, the villain is weak. Timothy Olyphant doesn’t do a bad job in the movie. The problem is his character isn’t menacing. When he says “you have no idea what I am capable of” it comes off more like some guy being pissed off while playing World of Warcraft, than someone who just shutdown the entire country and who is willing to kill anyone in his way. He sounds pretty pathetic. Now, he would’ve made a great second-in-command type character. We’ve had those in the other Die Hard movies, solid second-in-command villains who McClane has to get through before taking on the mastermind. Also, I just didn’t believe Olyphant’s Thomas Gabriel was the mastermind, I kept expecting an actor who can convey real menace to emerge from the shadows, a Ben Kingsley or an Anthony Hopkins. Someone who had manipulated or somehow recruited Gabriel into his cause. In the end the Die Hard Movies (at least the first and third) had really solid villains played by actors who know how to do a great villain (Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons) and this film falls short.

Live Free or Die Hard is disappointing because despite plenty of positives it falls flat in the areas the Die Hard movies have always managed to be stronger than most Action flicks. If you haven’t gone to see it yet, wait until it hits a cheap second-run theater or wait for DVD.

Transformers 

Transformers is the first good summer movie we’ve had this season. It is the first movie that I saw this summer that I will tell people to pay full price to go and see. It is a beautifully made movie.

First,  we should talk about the special effects. That’s what the movie is is a special effect treat and the movie is incredible, the effects are about as seamless as you can get and after a few minutes of watching the robots in disguise duke it out in the streets you aren’t thinking about this as a great special effects movie or that these are great special effects shots. You’re just enjoying a really well shot movie with effects seamless enough that you may have to remind yourself later that so much of the movie was done with CGI.

Second, let’s review the plot. There is one. I didn’t even expect that they would spend the time on building a plot for this movie. I figured we would get something weakly cobbled together that would ignore important points, completely change the history of the characters, or would explain too much and just be a silly kids movie. They did the right thing with this movie. They made it about the people and they made it about how human beings end up dealing with meeting giant robots from space. The movie is mostly following Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky as he discovers that his new car is a transforming alien robot and that his great grandfather discovered one such robot in the arctic and was given a map to a power source being pursued by both the good robots, like his new car, and the bad robots, like the one found in the arctic. It’s the focus on the people that makes this movie work. You can relate to Sam and his quirky family and I certainly could never fault him for his love of Megan Fox’s, Mikaela (she looks a bit like a younger tanner Jennifer Connelly). The movie was in danger of falling into predictable patterns and characters more than once, but it managed to stay just above it. It dipped it’s toe in the obvious just enough to give us a sense of the characters but not so much as to overwhelm us with the same old same old.

In addition to the live actors I have to commend the producers for bringing in Peter Cullen to voice Optimus Prime again, the voice is so distinctive I don’t think the movie would have worked without him. On the same note I’d like to admonish them for not bringing in Frank Welker to do Megatron, because as good as Hugo Weaving is, he just didn’t sound right. Still, the movie is worth full price on a big screen and has earned every dollar it’s made. If you haven’t see it, get to it, and if you have seen it, go see it again.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The fifth installment in the Harry Potter film series is definitely my favorite thus far. I haven’t read the books, so when it comes to the movies I don’t have that background. I don’t know what they left out or what they changed and frankly, I don’t care. As movies they need to stand up on their own, and as far as I’m concerned, they don’t.

The second through fourth Harry Potter movies were pretty much rehashes of the plot of the first film. There is a new teacher with a secret, someone is out to get Harry, and we get hints at a plot to revive the evil Voldemort. Yawn.  Not bad, but come on, time to get to the interesting part, which is what the Order of the Phoenix finally does. It is arguably the first real sequel of the movies in that it follows up and builds on the plot threads from the previous movie. Voldemort is loose and out to get Harry and is doing it in a way that is actually rather clever.

I particularly enjoyed that the plot of this film seems to center on the dangers of fear-mongering and bureaucracy gone mad. It points out the inherent paranoia of those who gain power and fear losing it and what they do to try and protect their position without beating you over the head with it. In fact, I was particularly impressed with how the movie’s visuals helped convey this. The banner in the Ministry of Magic with Minister Fudge on it was eerily reminiscent of the sort of thing you would expect to see in some form of fascist state.

Overall, the movie is by far the most solid of the films, I didn’t feel like they’d dropped any parts of the story, nor did I feel that the story was just a rehash of what we’d already seen. Finally, I feel like the movies have picked up and we’re going somewhere with the plot rather than just doing the same thing over and over again. This is another that is worth a full-price ticket.

1. Teachers work long hours (well beyond school day hours) and bring work home.
2. Teachers have high stress jobs.
3. Teachers inspire our children and are helping them learn and achieve and find themselves.

My response:

1. So does everyone else in a job requiring a similar level of education.  I’ve worked 12 hour days in several jobs I’ve had. I’ve had weeks and months where I was consistently working well beyond my normal hours. In fact, and I wish I could find the article to reference here, but I was reading an article about a year ago which stated that American Professional work longer hours and are more productive today than ever before because of access to email and devices like Blackberries. In fact, many American professionals work remotely during their vacations. I can personally vouch for having received emails and phone calls from superiors and clients who were supposed to be on vacation. So, working long hours beyond your regularly scheduled workday is nothing unique.
   Now, on the same point let’s talk briefly about vacation time. I am aware and acknowledge the work that teachers do during their designated vacation times in the winter, spring and summer. Still, Teachers don’t end up having consistent work days for at least 2 weeks in the winter, 1 week in the spring, and approximately 3 months for the summer. Some of that time is spent in extended education classes, some is spent doing prep work, some is spent finishing up grading, and so on. Some teachers get second jobs in the summer. None of this changes that if we went and counted up the time spent doing work during these vacation periods and calculated the free time Teachers end up having during these periods that it wouldn’t turn out to be quite a bit more than the average American professional.
   Not that I’m using this as an argument that Teachers should get paid less or have less vacation time. Not saying that at all. What I’m saying is their workload and the time they spend working is not unique many professionals work at least as much.
2. I’m not going to just dismiss this one because Teachers decided to be Teachers, though damn that’s tempting. Many a job is stressful. Just different stressors. Being a prison guard is stressful. Being an air traffic controller is stressful. Being a small business owner is stressful. Hell my job as tech support/project assistant is stressful. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to sit across the table or on the phone with someone, whose business my company needs to stay afloat, who changes his mind 9 times in a week about what he wants, doesn’t understand why it’s taking so long to get what he wants, blames me for just being incompetent and not telling him something he should’ve known, and wants our product to jerk him off while frying him bacon, doesn’t understand why it doesn’t already do that and thinks he shouldn’t have to pay for those features to be added while I just smile, look thoughtful, say “you know I can see where you’re coming from about that” and try to stop myself from getting my boot lodged up his ass. Happens all the goddamn time. Work is stressful for most folks. What causes the stress is different. That Teachers have a stressful job isn’t remotely unique.
3. No … no not all Teachers are doing that. No, some Teachers are doing that. Like any profession you have 1% that are the top people who go well above and beyond the call of duty. An additional 9% that are truly great and try to do their best and really throw themselves into it. Another 10% who are innovative and inspiring. Then, then you have the other 80% who range from good to mediocre to total shit. Not all Teachers are great. It’s just not the case. Sorry. I had plenty of good teachers, plenty of mediocre teachers, and a handful of really good ones, but no change my life incredible human beings.

There … I have said my piece. Yes, Teachers are great but could the people who dismiss them as worthless shut up and the people who insist they are the finest example of human beings also shut up? You’re both wrong, and by the way if you’re looking for a profession to defend from persecution try Defense Attorneys. Specifically, people who work as a public defender. Those guys don’t get paid much and have a heavy caseload. Defense Attorneys are generally seen as slimy horrible human being who defend society’s trash. Is that at all fair? Really? These people put themselves out there to argue against the resources of the government that a person or persons did not commit the crime of which they have been accused. Even if they feel like the person should be locked away forever it’s their job to argue for the person anyway and do the best job they are able. You want to talk about a hard job argue and try to be convincing that a man who raped an 11 year old girl shouldn’t go to jail. Try it and then shut up about Defense Attorney’s too.

1. It’s not available in Alaska. This is expected, though, still disappointing. AT&T doesn’t offer cellular service in the Last Frontier anymore and as I said when I talked about getting my new Krzr phone, we’re always a bit behind up here. So, that’s the practical reason I’m not getting it. I can’t.
2. I tend to wait on new tech a little bit. Hell, I only just got my first iPod this past Christmas. I wait because with so much new stuff coming out you never really know what’s going to take off and what’s going to flop. Sure, you can listen to the speculation, but that’s all it is: speculation. The reason I wait to see what will take off is because I don’t want to end up with something that ends up getting dropped by the company with only a handful of peripherals available (kind of like how my LifeDrive Mobile Manager seems to have turned out). Plus, it always takes awhile for them to work out bugs and figure out which features are worth keeping around, what they really should add to the product, and other such improvements. Getting the iPhone now would be great, but if I wait, let’s say 2 years for the Generation 2 or 3 version, what new features will be available? What will Apple add? How much smaller and more awesome will it be? Will they have a fancy new display? Will it have a deathray? Oooh! I want one with a deathray!

As hot as I am over the iPhone prospect, and as much as I will inevitably drool should I come across an actual physical model. I’m going to wait on it. That’s worked out well for me when it’s come to my HDTV and my iPod, I suspect this situation will be much the same.

Please do keep in mind that these are selected from my personal favorite movies. Some might seem a bit out of place in a list of The Greatest Films of All Time, but if you don’t like it write your own list.

#24 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998, dir. Terry Gilliam): The film takes the viewer on a bizarre trip into what is arguably the true heart of America, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, the city of lights and spectacle with a sordid past. The city that makes some men kings and sends others to the poor house. The book is about America and I think this is one of those film adaptations that really does a great job of showing off why the book it’s based on is so well regarded.

#23 The Dreamers (2003, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci): Of all the coming of age movies I have ever seen, this one feels the most honest to me. Set in Paris in 1968 it doesn’t beat us over the head with the era, instead the political and social upheavals, and specifically Paris student riots serve as the backdrop to the story of young man on his own who finds friendship and love. He learns and grows and things don’t really turn out in the end. It’s a step on the way to the rest of his life. The movie is beautifully filmed, the characters are written very naturally and three lead actors seem very natural and comfortable in their roles, which I think is rather unique considering the degree of nudity and blatant sexuality in the film. With more time I think this movie will rise much much higher in my list.

#22 Superman: The Movie (1978, dir. Richard Donner): I love Superman, and I have loved this movie most of my life. There are plenty of flaws when you dive into the plot and there is an abundance of corny dialog, but that has a lot to do with the source material. The movie captures all the fun of the source material and takes you through the motions of the classic hero’s journey as you watch young Kal-el grow into the champion of truth, justice, and the American way that has been marveling children in the funny books for almost 70 years now. I would rank this movie higher, except I have to fast forward past the “Can you read my mind?” scene, as it makes me want to throw things at the TV.

#21 Hellraiser (1987, dir. Clive Barker): Hellraiser is the best horror film of the last 20 years. Some of you may scoff about that not saying much. Horror movies get a bad rap, yet they are arguably the most effective movies produced. Horror movies are designed to make you uncomfortable and great horror movies challenge the mind, there is a mythology to them, and the true horror comes not from monsters hiding behind the walls but from the person who seems to be harmless and normal. Helraiser has that. Yes, there are the monsters (Pinhead and his ilk), but unlike most of the sequels, they aren’t really the antagonists. Human lust and greed are the real threats, Pinhead is just there to take you to hell once you’ve given in. One of the reasons I love this movie is Andrew Robinson, he’s one of those character actors who is consistently a joy to watch. From the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry to the Cardassian tailor Garak on Deep Space Nine.

#20 Layer Cake (2004, dir. Matthew Vaugh): I am convinced this movie will gain more appreciation with time. It’s a stylish noir story about a young man who might be too smart for his own good. If for no other reason I love watching this movie to watch Colm Meaney discuss the zen of handgun maintenance then later beat Daniel Craig’s head into an ice box. The script is well done. The plot isn’t perfect, but it works and nothing is really clean at the end, resolved, but not necessarily cleanly, which is exactly how it should be.

#19 Planet of the Apes (1968, dir. Franklin J. Schaffner): Planet of the Apes is the movie every other science fiction movie wishes it could be. It shows some of the best and worst aspects of what it means to be human through the lens of an alien culture as viewed by a man who had given up hope in humanity. It’s a grand adventure, a cautionary tale, and a thoughtful philosophical piece all rolled into one.

#18 The Dirty Dozen (1967, dir. Robert Aldrich): Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas and Donad Sutherland fight the Nazis. Well, they fight the Nazis at the end of the movie. What’s fun is watching these actors come together and the group of convicts slowly congealing into a cohesive team. As good as the climax of the film is I prefer the War Games scenes where the group really does come together in the way you’ve been hoping since Lee Marvin gathered them. While not a particularly deep movie it is a satisfying film with a solid plot and a great cast.

#17 Tombstone (1993, dir. George P. Cosmatos): Tombstone is my favorite western. The plot is solid, all of the cast are great, the script has the kind of spoken through gritting teeth lines that every great western should have, but the reason to love this movie is Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday. I’ve seen a few Doc Hollidays on screen but none of them ever made me feel for the man the way Kilmer’s did.

#16 Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood): Unforgiven is the best western film ever made. Say what you will about The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, name any other western, it’s not as good as Unforgiven. “The West” as depicted in film is really America’s mythic age. The Ancient Greeks had stories of Troy and Odysseus’ journey home, in America we have the Alamo and colorful characters like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Unforgiven is a hard look at the mythology of America. Gene Hackman’s Little Bill relates the truth behind the tales English Bob has been helping popularize. He pulls the myth out from under the mythology and shows that these men being held in high esteem as great gunfighters of the frontier are, for the most part, a bunch of drunks and lucky shots. Then, there’s Eastwood’s Bill Munny the bad man who gave it all up to raise his family. A great story, well directed by Eastwood.

#15 Office Space (1999, dir. Mike Judge): I’m always surprised when I see the date on this movie. It feels a bit older. I’m not sure if that makes it “timeless” or dated, but this movie speaks to every person who has ever worked in an office. Herding people into small places to perform menial work and interact with people who they would much rather toss out the window seems unnatural. Office Space is a record of the shared experience of the insanity that is the modern workspace. Like Dilbert, it’s not really a comedy, it’s just the way things actually and it’s terrifying.

#14 Dirty Harry (1971, dir. Don Siegel): There are plenty of dirty cop or cop that does anything in the pursuit of justice movies, but none truly embodies the genre like Dirty Harry. Every bad ass cop in every movie since this one has just been shades of Harry Callahan. The movie’s solid, good characters, decent plot, and the aforementioned Andrew Robinson as the creepy Scorpio Killer.

#13 Serpico (1973, dir. Sidney Lumet): While we’re on cop movies let’s talk about Serpico, the model only honest cop in a dirty city movie. This is also the first of many Al Pacino movies that populate the top of this list. Based on a true story, Frank Serpico rises through the ranks of the New York police force, avoiding corruption and ultimately blowing the whistle on it. It’s the story of a man trying to do the right thing even if it means his job and maybe even his life. It’s a great gripping movie.

#12 Strangers on a Train (1951, dir. Alfred Hitchcock): Easily one of my favorite Hitchcock films Strangers on a Train is classic Hitchcock: an innocent man gets pulled into an impossible situation and ends up having to save himself and the ones he loves. The idea of the “perfect murder” in this movie is also clever. That two men who meet on a train could kill someone the other would like to see dead is interesting but what’s better is that one man takes the idle chatter on the train to be just that and the other takes it completely seriously, then expects reciprocation. The murder scene as shown in the reflection of a pair of glasses is a work of genius.

#11 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, dir. Don Siegel): This is classic 50s sci-fi communist hysteria at it’s best. This is one of those movies I have watched so many times I couldn’t count off how many times I’ve seen it. It gets you with that fear that one day you’ll wake up and the whole world will be different and no one will believe you, then one day you’ll wake up and you won’t be you anymore. Okay, it’s possible I am the only one with that fear and that that comes from having seen this movie so many times. They have remade the movie twice already and we’ll be seeing a third remake this year starring Nicole Kidman.

#10 Payback (1999, dir. Brian Helgeland): I have a soft spot in my heart (or maybe it’s my head) for revenge movies. Movies in which those who’ve wronged others get their bloody comeuppance. This movie is my favorite of those kinds of movies. Mel Gibson ends up more or less shutting down an entire criminal syndicate over $70,000 he’s owed, his percentage from a payroll job. He just wants his cut and is exasperated in scene after scene as no one seems to get that all he wants is his $70,000 and he’ll just go away. Great performances from Gibson, Kris Kristofferson, Lucy Liu, Maria Bello, Gregg Henry, and James Coburn.

#9 Die Hard (1988, dir. John McTiernan): The first Die Hard movie is probably the best action movie ever made. At least, it’s the highest ranked action movie on this list. Die Hard had quality action sequences, a plethora of quotable lines, and a hero you can not help but root for. He’s running around a building filled with terrorists in bare feet and a wife beater. You want him to make it because it seems so impossible. On top of that you get Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, and it’s the back and forth between Willis and Rickman that makes the movie work in a way it probably never could have with different actors in the roles. In addition, the movie used some techniques not seen in America (according to the DVD commentary) that are now commonplace in American film.

#8 Star Wars (1977, dir. George Lucas): Star Wars helped define a generation of young geeks. I cannot list the number of people who have told me of the experience of seeing Star Wars in the theater for the first time. It had an impact on a generation and the movie continues to grab new fans. That aside Star Wars came at a time after most Studios shut down their special effects divisions. Star Wars changed the way motion pictures were made. For better or worse Star Wars ended the previous era of film making and made going to the movies what it is today.

#7 The Exorcist (1973, dir. William Friedkin): While Hellraiser is the best horror film of the last 20 years, The Exorcist is the best horror film ever made. No horror movie has managed to top this one for scares, for it’s solid plot and striking characters.

#6 Touch of Evil (1958, dir. Orson Welles): Orson Welles as a dirty cop in a U.S. border town framing a Mexican National for a car explosion while Charlton Heston as a Mexican narcotics cop tries to find out the truth. Putting aside that Heston really doesn’t seem remotely Mexican, this film is really quite incredible. It’s dark and sad and angry and everything a great noir picture should be. It’s got solid performances by Welles and Heston, who are quite fun to watch together on screen as they butt heads.

#5 Rear Window (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock): How can a movie where the majority of the story takes place in one small room be so interesting? I don’t know, it’s the magic of Hitchcock. A great thriller with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly that even if you’ve never seen the movie you’ve seen the movie. It has been spoofed and the basic plot has been appropriated for sitcoms and movies for decades.

#4 The Godfather (1972, dir. Francis Ford Coppola): Okay, on the surface the Gofather is a great mob movie, but underneath that, it’s also a movie about family and obligations and about giving up what you want, giving up part of your soul for the obligations of family. The Godfather is about a man who doesn’t do what he wants to do and he doesn’t do the “right thing,” he does what he has to do. That is the beauty of the movie.

#3 The Godfather: Part II (1974, dir. Francis Ford Coppola): This is the best sequel ever made and one of the few sequels that is a true sequel and not just a rehash of the original film. In this movie Pacino’s Michael has given up so much to do what needed to be done, he’s brought peace for his family, and he’s embraced his role. In this movie he gives up his soul. He gives up all the things that made him who he was in order to preserve what his father built. It’s that last shot at the very end, after Fredo is dead and we see Michael sitting out in the snow, just staring. There’s nothing left of the man he was at the start of the first film. Unlike so many sequels it’s a true progression of the story and characters.

#2 …And Justice for All (1979, dir. Norman Jewison): The last Pacino movie on this list and probably my favorite movie. Pacino as a defense lawyer having to defend a judge he hates from rape and assault charges. The movie criticizes the justice system and emphasizes something you don’t get to see as often, the humanity of defense attorneys. Attorneys who have to watch innocent people go to jail over technicalities while the rich are able to walk in and out of the court house. Attorneys who have to deal with having won a case on the behalf of someone who is later caught with irrefutable evidence that they committed the same crime again and the reason they were out to do it again in the first place is because the attorney did his job. It is an incredible film.

#1 Casablanca (1942, dir. Michael Curtiz): I grew up watching Casablanca. I have seen the movie so many times I could probably quote the entire film. My selection of it is partly sentimental. Still, it is a great film a film with a lot of subtlety a great cast and a great plot. It’s got everything a great movie should have: comedy, suspense, romance, and Nazis. Okay, that last one was a joke. You don’t need Nazis for a great film, but it helps, they make such good villains. Still, when I started thinking about this list this was the first movie that came to mind and the only movie I saw as number one.

Honorable Mentions: Sin City, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Desperado, Back to the Future, Lethal Weapon, Fight Club, Scanners, The Untouchables, Dog Day Afternoon, Midnight Cowboy, The Hunt for Red October, Rain Man, The Empire Strikes Back, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Pulp Fiction.

Now, you go do your own list and link back here, because damn it I want to see your list now.