Top Twelve: My Favorite Movies of All Time

I love movies, I am a movie buff, its my stress reliever, its my anti-drug or something. I vividly remember before the internet offered me free movie downloads via the torrent, there was a thing called movie rental, in Betamax format. In our neighborhood, my favorite video rental store is quite convenient, wherein just dial their number, browse to their list of available tapes and their delivery guy will immediate brings you the Betamax via a bike, oh sweet memories.

Anyway, here are my top twelve favorite movies of all time, well so far. Some of the popular movies for extreme movie buffs like Shawshank Redemption and others are not included in this list since I have not watched those movies. The list is strictly that comes first on my mind and fond memories from it.

12. Toy Story
The very first full CGI movie and I fell in love with it for its sheer beauty. The premise was simple, kiddie yet awesome. Everyone can relate since one way or another we had experiences playing with toys. The story is clever and every toy in Andy’s room is oozing with life and personality, even the little toys are well animated and looks like the real thing.

Not the real thing I am talking about

The voice actors are top-notch and for being the first full CGI movie, they did a great job. Even it has reruns on Disney Channel I am never sick of it. I love both sequels but the first one was my favorite CGI animated movie of all time.

11. Batman Mask of the Phantasm
Next to Superman, Batman is my second favorite comic character of all time, but I think Combatron will still kick both their asses good. Anyway, I am a big fan of Batman the Animated Series and sometimes I watched some of the episodes via Youtube. I like the way they combine some elements from the sought after Year One and Year Two graphic novels into one stylized adult oriented animation. If you close your eyes, the animated movie sounds like a live action movie.

Batusi not included

Explosions, blood and realistic violence pounds the screen, and I think the only missing is someone from the movie actually say an appropriate swear word.

10. Back to the Future
My favorite Science Fiction of all time and I absolutely love the Delorian Time Machine. The whole trilogy was memorable but just like the Toy Story trilogy, the first one is still the best in my opinion. The film blew my mind and I remember repeatedly watching it over and over, via of course, a rented Betamax tape. The whole time traveling concept from top to bottom was well executed even at first I had trouble figuring all the time line continuum mishaps. The chemistry between Doc and Marty are top-notch and I just love how same actors and actresses portray different roles in different time lines. When I was a kid, I wish our old Mitsubishi Lambda is a real Delorian Time Machine so I can go back to the past and to the future.

If you squint, it does look like the Delorian Time Machine

Lastly, Einstein the dog, the first living creäture to experience time travel, is plain awesome, yes you are, yes you are.

9. Jurassic Park
Another epic masterpiece of Steven Spielberg where everything he touches turn gold. Good casting and the dinosaurs (both CGI and animatronics) are convincingly awesome. The T-Rex and the velociraptor duo gave me nightmares back then. The sequels were kind of hit and miss especially the third one when the dinosaurs became genius in some way.

Genius Dinosaur = Terrifying

The action scenes involving the dinosaurs were realistically terrifying, and who can forget that guy that was bite off by a T-Rex while hiding inside of a mini bathroom? This is my second favorite Science Fiction movie of all time.

8. Hot Shots Part Deux
My favorite kind of comedy is the one relies purely on slapstick. Both the first and second Hot Shots film were comedic gold but Part Deux takes the cake for absolutely the funniest movie of all time, well in my opinion of course. The movie also boasts the most number of body count in a movie ever, at that time, an astounding 249 bodies which died in tons of hilarious fashion, beating Robocop and Total Recall’s combined body count.

MTRCB is not amused

I miss this kind of comedies since a plethora of current comedies relies more with shock and a bit of gore in the side. Also, using a chicken as your arrow is also effective in killing enemies.

7. Goodfellas
Next to comedies, my most favorite movie genre is more on with action, with guns, violence and more guns. Goodfellas is one the best mafia movies and every one in the cast delivered authentic and awesome acting. Ray Liotta’s portrayal of a real gangster Henry Hill is frighteningly amusing. On the other hand Joe Pesci’s character has intense fetish of saying the word fuck all the time.

Can you pack this sheet for me,
I need  your fax machine, I need to fax her later

The violence aspect is over the top, realistic and gritty. Some others say the film it is like a realistic mafia violence porn, beating the equally violent Godfather trilogy. The movie is known for its violence yet the story is still good and you can actually see the main character Henry Hill growing up before our eyes, dealing with police, his mafia BFFs, his wife and his other wife, its like a condensed local soap opera, but more blood and more Pesci’s F-bomb shenanigans

6. Scarface
Of course, who can forget Al Pacino’s memorable psychotic portrayal of one cocaine powered Tony Montana. One of the grandeur movies in the 80s and one of the rare aspects presented in the movies back then is the sheer rawness and in your face approach of all the characters, including that guy that has his face sliced off like cheese via a cheese grater presented in a form of a chainsaw.

Cheese grater

They say the movie is like the junior son of the Godfather trilogy wherein Don Corleone is the calm daddy and Tony Montana is your typical problem child that raises hell in school. Definitely one of the best gangster movies ever produced.

5. Terminator 2
The movie that defines that 90s, well except futuristic time traveling death bringer cyborgs from the future. The first Terminator was one the landmarks in cinema history with its special effects and brain farting inducing time travel concept but Terminator 2 pushed it further with more explosive actions, impressive CGI effects and of course, a great storyline. I just wished they did not show in the trailers that Arnie will be the good guy in this film. The enemy, however, is one big bad scary guy who can do a lot of things with his hands like it turns into stainless blade that can make you slice and dice. He is scary in everything, his stare, his stance, his gesture, even asking you if you know the guy in the photo he is showing is scary.

Him: Do you know this person in the picture? Me: Aahh!

If you want to know more about the 90s, watch this, if you like 2 cyborg death machines from the future destroying some parts of LA, like a local mall and a foundry, watch this. Like the other movies in this list, if it shows locally in movie channels, I still watch and enjoy it.

4. Black Hawk Down
Based from the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, this is one of the rare movies that there is no definite lead protagonist which is a great breather from the usual war movies that has its own lead good guy. We got a few minutes of movie opening and then bam, lots of lots shootout and real casualties for the good guys.

NES renditions of 2 Black Hawk Helicopters before being shot down

The film is one of the most intense war movies ever produced because us, the viewers, are on the edge of the seat watching every single war scene, its like we are in a real war zone where in we are the camera guys following and documenting the rangers and marines fighting their way in Mogadishu just to capture a few guys but ended up fighting for whole freaking day, adding the unforeseen crash of two Black Hawk helicopters, another addition to already stressful battle with angry Somalian mob. Definitely a must watch for war and action movie buffs.

3. The Dark Knight
My favorite Superhero based movie so far. Nolan, the director, impressed the Batman fans with his earlier film, Batman Begins, the much-needed reboot of the franchise after the last Bat film that was obviously Batman on Ice complete with ice skating. The sequel, is definite the cream of the crop of superhero movies. Bales’ performance is superb but the villains outshines everyone in the film, Aaron Ekhart as Two-Face and Heath Ledger, Heath effin Ledger was effin outstanding.

Guy in prison suit: not Heath Effin Ledger

I feel the movie is something like my number one choice in this list but with comic book characters. I love Nolan’s stand on using realistic stunts instead of relying it completely on CGI, giving us a lot of holy shit moments, like that truck flipping scene, that shit was insane, I need to calm down.

2. Saving Private Ryan
The innovator of shaky cam complimented with lots and lots of freshly machine-gunned dead bodies. One of the most realistically terrifying war movies ever made. The first 20 minutes is one of the must unforgettable intro ever, because I see lots of machines gun shredding allied soldiers while Tom Hanks becoming Omega Tom Hanks leading his men to victory.

Omega Tom Hanks also dominates the fighting game world

Like Black Hawk Down, all the war sequences are terrifyingly realistic but in bigger scale, this is World War 2 after all. You can feel for the characters risking their lives just to find a certain Private Ryan. Lots of explosions, world war 2 authentic weaponry including the scene hilarious backfiring of sticky bomb and gruesome gore that you don’t want to see in life.

1. Heat
My absolute favorite movie all time and it stars two of Hollywood’s greatest actors, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. The movie is best remembered for the Los Angeles street shoot out but aside from that, the whole movie is well written and packaged.

Figure 1.1 An Angry De Niro

A very good crime drama and I love Michael Mann, the director and writer of the film, treated both Al and Robert as not your ordinary protagonist and antagonist. If you watch it its like watching two separate movies, one focus on Pacino’s character dealing his messed up family at the same time trying to stop De Niro’s reign of “heisting” terror. The other one is De Niro’s straight to the point attitude in planning and implementing his next heist and at the same time still maintaining his humanity like having a somewhat decent relationship with his girlfriend and making sure keeping his men on the line.

When two finally meet, epic showdown and unforgettable quotes starts throwing toward the viewers.

They are currently throwing unforgettable quotes to you.

This movie is one of the reasons why I love action movies and one of my overall main inspirations of the novel that I am writing, which is still not finished (damn it).

That’s my list of my top twelve favorite movies of a time, I hope you enjoyed wasting your time reading this list.

From Paris With Love: A Humble Movie Review

I am an obvious sucker for action movies, especially mindless action movies that has more plotholes than bullet holes. I am not a typical plothole nitpicker to action movies, but I definitely love Luc Besson’s new juggernaut masterpiece, “From Paris with Love”.

The film’s protagonists James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is your low-level CIA operative who is the personal aide of the US ambassador to France. Throughout the movie, he is learning the ropes of being an in your face CIA operative under the guidance of Charlie Wax (John Travolta), who delivered one of the best anti-hero performance of all time, which consists of kicking asses, knowing 10 steps ahead from his enemies and his extreme obsession with “Royale with Cheese”. There is something about a bald Travolta that exceeds his villain bad-assery in the film Swordfish. He is like a combination of Chev Chelios (Crank) and Brian Mills (Taken), with Meyer’s character greatly reminds me of Ethan Hawke’s character in the Training Day.

As expected, the contradicting duos shown a lot of action mixed with humor, sick humor, especially when Reese gone nuts to retrieve his stolen ring. The major twist near the end caught me off-guard and all the bad guy’s plan went full circle flawlessly, which ended by this unlikely duos of course.

The action sequence were top-notch, the dialogues were witty and overall, the movie is one of those you want to view the action sequences over Youtube over and over again. The professional critics hate this movie because of excessive amount of plotholes, especially the one with a suicide vest and a metal detector. Still, like what I always mention, if it entertains a common movie addict, like me, I absolutely enjoyed it and I personally highly recommend it. The director  Luc Besson is a genius and I can’t wait to see another of his movie soon. I give “From Paris with Love” a 4 over 5 stars.

Edge of Darkness: A Humble Movie Review

It is one of those movies that I only found out a few days ago and I did not even once watched the trailer. We originally wanted to watch Valentines Day movie but me and Rein finally decided to watch a somewhat comeback movie of Mel Gibson entitled the Edge of Darkness.

The title is kind of like a horror film but it contradict on the poster that heavily reminds me of my other old favorite movie Payback, which also starred Gibson.  The movie is basically a slow rollercoaster ride of finding who is the main culprit of his daughter’s weird poisoning and the subsequent death. Gibson, a horribly aged detective named Thomas Kraven, seeks justice by tracing and kicking asses throughout the movie. Along the way he meets a hitman intended to kill him, but I cannot understand 70% of this guy’s dialogue, it’s a mixture of pure english accent with mumblings. I missed a lot of key plots  from the hitman because all I hear is muzzled mumblings, like a grumpy old man telling his neighbor kids to get off his lawn. The movie has more drama than the action we usually expect from this kind of film.

In the end Kraven finally found the main culprit, a lot of them, got poisoned, shoot some guys, kick more asses and shoot some guys in a calculated Clint Eastwood of mannerism. Unfortunately, he died due to his gun wounds and extreme dosage of the poison, but the presentation of his death was heartwarming as his soul reunites with his daughter while walking slowly out of the hospital room and to the light.

The movie is somewhat slow in the first quarter of the movie but it is understandable since we can see Gibson’s portrayal of a father who has nothing to lose but to get justice of his daughter’s death is well portrayed. He investigates, gets leads, rear end guys and finally reached to the climax of the movie. The movie reminds me of his portrayal of Porter in Payback, but a mix of Brian Mill’s (Taken) mentality. I enjoyed the film and the only major complain that I have is that hitman, a major character,  has speaking problems. Only I understand his dialogue after reading some of his lines online, he is also the one muttered the line Edge of Darkness.

If you like a hard-boiled detective like story, with a string of Taken’s in your face hand to hand action, I highly recommend this film. I say watch it and I hope you can easily understand on what the heck hitman’s is rambling about.