Drama/Action/Adventure/Romance:

• Dead Poet's Society (Robin Williams in a powerful saga) Poster
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Jack Nicholson vs. Louise Fletcher) Poster
• The Fisher King (Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges) Poster
• Awakenings (Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro)
• JFK (Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Jack Lemmon, Ed Asner, Donald Sutherland, Walter Mathau, John Candy, Joe Pesci; the epitome of "Docudrama")
• Field of Dreams (Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones; If you film it, they will watch. But seriously, see it again. It's less confusing and more enjoyable the second time around!) Poster
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Humphrey Bogart in one of his best - this movie needs "no stinking badges" to alert people just how good it is. Poster)
• The African Queen (Humphrey Bogart & Katherine Hepburn. Poster A great movie - Bogie gets his only oscar. Other great Bogart movies include
  • The Petrified Forest - it made his career;
  • To Have & Have Not - Bogart paired with Lauren Bacall for the first time Poster;
  • Key Largo Edward G. Robinson reverses roles with Bogie in the Petrified Forest Poster;
  • Casablanca Poster (with Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre & Sydney Greenstreet);
  • Dark Passage Poster
  • and more listed below in the film noir section.)
• Die Hard (Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman - For a movie about pointless violence with a lot of explosions, it is very good. Other films with pointless violence with lots of explosions use it as a measuring stick.) Poster
• The Mask of Zorro (Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones. I happen to really like this version of the Zorro story, where an aging Zorro (Hopkins) trains an angry, bubmling desperado (Banderas) until he is worthy of the title 'Zorro'. Plenty of action shots, great special effects, and a romantic sub-plot between Banderas and Zeta-Jones who plays the adopted daughter of one of the evil baron-lords. It's even easy to overlook the cheesy, almost incestuous plot twist when it turns out that Zeta-Jones' real father is none other than the older Zorro (Hopkins.) I believe this film was Zeta-Jones debut, and it is a marvelous performance. She was nearly, but not quite as good playing opposite Sean Connery in Entrapment, but hasn't done much lately. And that includes the over-rated Traffic.)
• The Sixth Sense (Bruce Willis. An intelligent ghost story.)
• Chocolat (Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp. Great film about the opening up of the narrow minds of the inhabitants of a parochial town in the French countryside in the 1950's.)
• Titanic (Great story. Great Romance. Great Special effects. a job well-done - except the unbelieveable part where the star tosses the 56-carat diamond into the sea. I don't care what a rebel she was, I don't care if the only value the stone had to her was symbolic. I don't care that she rejected the riches the stone offered and never turned in the stone for 84 years. Imagine the way it could have changed the life of someone, say, her granddaughter, had she given it to them instead of wasting it!) Poster

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Peter Jackson has done the impossible: make a believeable movie out the labyrinth of detail present in the Tolkien masterpiece. Naturally, in the interests of time compression, much must be skipped. I'll always wonder how the visit to Tom Bombadil would have been handled, for example. (A great idea: bonus footage for the DVD?) And there are some plot deviations, but they are tolerable. For example, it is Arwen, not Glorfindel, who meets Aragorn and the hobbits near Weathertop after Frodo has been stabbed by the ringwraiths. Seeing that Glorfindel plays no further role in the story, but Arwen does (Aragorn's love-interest), and is played by a major actress (Liv Tyler), this is totally agreeable. But overall, and against all odds, I have to give the movie a big thumbs-up! It is perhaps my favorite movie to emerge in a number of years. Of course, I was always a big Tolkien fan myself.
  Here are some more details on how I rate some of the characters and some of the scenes:

  • Characters:
    • Frodo - a bit naive/childlike, but I'm assuming massive character development in the next two installments.
    • Gandalf - Excellent!
    • Aragorn - Excellent, and even very much like I imagined from the books.
    • Boromir - Ditto!
    • Sam - Good. True to the book so far, if a bit of a cliche.
    • Merry & Pippin - Fair. Portrayed as much too mischievous and childlike.
    • Legolas - Excellent, and very much like I imagined from the books.
    • Gimli - Very good. Probably true to the text, although for some reason I had always given him a bit more dignity in my imagination.
    • Elrond - very good. A bit more 'down to earth' than I imagined.
    • Arwen - Excellent!
    • Galadriel - Excellent, if a bit spooky.
    • Bilbo - Very good.
    • Saruman - Excellent! Interesting that the movie spends much more time with him than do the books.
    • Black Riders (ringwraiths) - Very good. This was a tough act to pull off. I'm looking forward to the flying versions (Nazgul) in the future installments.
    • Orcs - Very good, especially the Uruk-Hai. This was necessary to make the film convincing.
    • Balrog - Excellent!

  • Scenes:
    • Historical setup - The last alliance and Isildur's taking the ring from Sauron - Excellent!
    • Bilbo's birthday party - Excellent!
    • Gandalf with Saruman - Excellent!
    • Frodo's flight to Bree - Pretty Good, except Farmer Maggot & Tom Bombadil are skipped.
    • Bree - Very Good.
    • Weathertop - Excellent! The special effects used when Frodo puts on the ring are effective and close to what I imagined from the books. Great job!
    • Flight to Rivendell - Excellent, especially when Arwn crosses the river with the injured Frodo. Good attention to detail, including the shapes of the white horses in the flood that overran the ringwraiths.
    • Rivendell - Great job on the scenery. The Council of Elrond is rushed, however, and seems less of a pivotal event than in the books. This is partly because many things explained at the council are already done in the movie (the story of the last alliance/Sauron, and the reason for Gandalf's delay - the treachery of Saruman.) Still, something should have been done to ensure the enormous importance of the Council deliberations.
    • The Snows of Caradhras - Good, but I expected more special effects/fireworks from Gandalf.
    • The Mines of Moria - Excellent in all respects! The pool by the gate, the scenery, the events taking place within the mines, including the attack of the orcs, the cave troll who spears Frodo, and the Balrog/Gandalf's stand on the Bridge of Kazad-Dum are all excellent. Perhaps the high point of the movie. Minor complaint: again, I expected more fireworks from Gandalf in the battle scenes.
    • Lothlorien - Very good for the most part. Except the whole scene had a menacing air about it, as did Galadriel herself. My impressions from the books are a bit more wholsome in feeling. Lothlorien is supposed to be the center of good in Middle Earth, Mordor's most formidable enemy. Also, while enchanting, the scenery seemed less impressive than that of Rivendell. Of the two, I would have thought that Lothlorien would have been the more impressive, and the more beautiful. On the other hand, they did a great job on Galadriel's ability to question the soul of each member of the fellowship by merely looking at them, and also the Mirror of Galadriel was well-done. The whole thing was a bit rushed, though. For example, at the end they only mention Galadriel's phial as a gift to Frodo, although in the book, she gave parting gifts to all the fellowship.
    • The Breaking of the Fellowship - Very Good. Some slight plot changes, but very minor. The scenes with Boromir are very good.

  Can't wait for the next installment!

  Most Over-rated: Gone With The Wind (Frankly, My Dear, I just don't give a damn about this movie.)