My Top 20 Favorite Movies(Watched on Numerous Occasions)

1. Raiders will always be a classic adventure movie in my eyes, also my favorite Spielberg movie. Don't get me wrong, Schindler's List, Jaws, and Saving Private Ryan are great films, but I have probably watched Raiders more times than any of them.

2. Shawshank: great cast, heartfelt acting, poignant script, beautiful cinematography. I think this movie should have taken home the Oscar for Best Picture of 1994 rather than Forrest Gump.

3. This one did take home the Oscar for Picture, Director, and Acting and then some. It deserved all-three. A realistic, gritty cop drama (well realistic except for the chase scene, but it's still one helluva chase scene, ain't it?!!) The documentary feel to the movie with the subtle but vivid character studies of the three leading characters (Doyle, Russo, and Charnier)gives it a pretty unmatched quality for a cop drama. (unless you want to count Law and Order, but that's Television) Trivia: The Guy who Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle was based on, Eddy "Popeye" Egan, played the two detectives' Leutenaint in the movie. "Are you still picking your feet in Poughkeepsy?"

4. Fun and hilarious gangster film. Smooth cast. cool soundtrack. Catchy dialogue. The technical aspects from Guy Ritchie and his team are crafty and skillful. I just wish he would stop trying to make sappy romance vehicles for Madonna, but give him a break, he is married to her. How long would he have slept on the couch if he had said no to her on that one?

5. Great suspenseful city drama that makes voyeurism look almost heroic. Perfect exhibition in the mastery and cleverness of Hitch. Plus, Grace Kelly looks delicious for a screen siren from yesteryear.

6. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach. Great Western action, blistering cinematography, awesome score, need I say more?

7. Brilliant and gripping war story with a bitter irony that shows the dark side of stoicism, bravado, and hardheadedness under fire. Alec Guinness and William Holden are superb in this movie. Recommend watching Stalag 17 with Holden.

8. "No One calls me Lebowski, I'm the Dude, dude, or el duderino, or his duderness, if you prefer." Hilarious spoof on the pulp fiction, L.A. detective story. Found an admiration for Jeff Bridges through this movie. I know Oh, Brother Where Art Thou is a better in the technical aspect, but I laughed harder during this movie. The Coen Brothers will always be film masters in my eyes. Hint: A director tends to use the same actors in his or her movies, so if two or more of these people are in it, chances are it's a Coen Brothers movie: Jon Polito, John Tuttorro, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, or Frances McDormand. Also reoccuring Coen Brother cast members are Holly Hunter and Peter Stromare.

9. Considering the shoe-string budget George Romero had to work with, this is still a haunting, gruesome film. I believe it is one of the influential films that changed film horror from Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price to Freddy Kruger and Michael Meyers. Trivia: In the original script, Barbara (Judith O'Dea) was suppose to survive the night. Question: who was hotter as Barbara: Judith O'Dea or Patricia Tillman?

10. I know Clint Eastwood took the idea of the movie anti-hero to an cool, ballsy level with his Man-With-No-Name character from the Spaghetti Westerns, but Humphrey Bogart defined the idea with his hard-as-nails portrayl of the amoral gumshoe Sam Spade. Kind of Like Marx and Lenin. Marx defined and started the idea of Communism; Lenin took the ball and ran with it. Just an example, not politics. Also one of the best film noir movies ever. Bogart slapping Peter Lorre and Elijah Cook around is the best. Didn't really think Mary Astor was that much of a babe, but she had some appeal. Sidney Greenstreet as the odiously jolly Casper Guttman made him a interesting rival to Bogart's Sam Spade. I think he might have been an inspiration for Pizza the Hut....I mean Jabba the Hutt. Sorry, got my Spaceballs mixed with my Star Wars.

11. Citizen Kane may be the best movie on a directorial aspect, this is the best movie screenplay ever. You got a mercenary town in the middle of the North African desert. You got a world torn in the early stages of World War 2. You got old passions between ex-lovers. You got Nazis and Corrupt Viche officials conniving with each other about how to bring down the good guys. You got underground resistance fighters. You got Patriotic song singing drowning out Aryan military music. And in the middle of it all, you got a cynical loner with a mysterious past whose glowing ex-flame picks his saloon out of all the gin-joints in all the towns in all the world to come looking for an escape from the Nazis.

12. The godfather of sci-fi blockbuster movies. Probably the best directorial effort from George Lucas. American Graffiti was a wonderful journey into the youthful yesteryear of the early 1960's, but the special effects granduer of Star Wars blasts past Graffiti. Came out in 1977, nominated for Best Picture along with Jaws and Annie Hall, some excellent movies to be competing with. SOmetimes when I am driving down a narrow street I sometimes hear Alec Guinness' voice saying "Use the Force, Luke. Let go, Luke." Either it's Guinness or the guy behind me honking his horn for me to ease up on the brake. ALthough sometimes i like to go into hyperspace also.

13. Hilarious king of mockumentaries with a rocking soundtrack. Rob Reiner's best endeavor. Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer are a stomache muscle-pulling trio. Any fan of Heavy Metal Rock should watch this film at least once.

14. My favorite Stanley Kubrick film, the best satire I've ever seen. Kudos to Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, and Sterling Hayden as the insane General Jack D. Ripper. Have you ridden the bomb lately?

15. Me and My family spent almost a whole, rain-swept summer watching the Godfather movies. This one is my favorite. I like Marlon Brando and he was superb as Vito Corleone, but in this one we see Pacino and DeNiro in the same film. Let's face it, most people went to see Michael Mann's Heat (1995) because Pacino and DeNiro were squaring off in that film. The scene where young Vito and his two partners in crime plan to kill the Black Hand in Little Italy while eating deep-dish spaghetti was so cool that it made me hungry for Italian food other than your usual pizza. Pacino has Michael COrleone at his most cold-blooded in this film.

16. I love historical films that remain exciting and enlightening at the same time. This movie is an important example. Jeff Daniels is great as Gen. George Washington who leads his ragtag Continental troops across the ice-choked Delware River on Christmas Eve and onto the daring surprise attack at Trenton, New jersey on Christmas Day, 1776. The guy playing the acerbic Col. John Glover is good. The Patriot was a good action film, but if you want an entertaining and enlightening movie about the Revolutionary War, watch The Crossing. Based on the novel by Howard Fast, who was blacklisted in 1950s during McCarthyism. Better yet read the book, and then read the Howard Fast novel Bunker Hill, and then see this movie. Fast wrote a third revolutionary war book called April Morning, about the Lexington-Concord incident.

17. "Carpe Diem! Sieze the day, boys."

18. This movie actually made me want to go have a catch with my dad.

19. A stylish and classy detective story. I admire Carl Bernstein for his fervor in breaking the Watergate story, but I admire Bob Woodward more for his equal determination to crack the Watergate story against Nixon despite Woodward being a Republican. Jason Robards won a perfectly deserved Oscar for his portrayl of Ben Bradlee. The teamwork between Hoffman and Redford as the dogged reporters makes them one of the most memorable duos in film history, at least in my book.

20. Based on a Pulitzer prize winning book about the leading officers who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg, this grand military epic can get lethargic and long-winded at times. But with some rousing battle scenes, good historical authenticity, and several great performances, it actually can be quite enjoyable if you can sit through all three hours of it. The best performances are from Jeff Daniels as the idealistic college professor-turned-soldier Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Martin Sheen as a rather sagacious and grandfatherly Robert E. Lee, Sam Elliot as the daring calvary commander Brig. Gen. John Buford, and the late-great Richard Jordan in a heartrendering last performance as the bealeaguered Confederate General Lewis Armistead who leads one of the brigades into the slaughter of Pickett's Charge. THe best battle scene in the whole movie goes to the rousing and nail-biting Battle for Little Round Top fought between Chamberlain's Maine Regiment and almost unstoppable Confederate troops from the 15th Alabama. Not the best civil war movie, but one I have seen countless times.