My Favorite Movies!

The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa
An almost perfect movie ~ visually lush, with an excellent script and first rate performances. Inspired an endless succession of imitators, like The Magnificent Seven, Battle Beyond The Stars and so on.

My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki
One of the best films from the best visual storyteller now working in film. This film is available in English, but the Japanese version (without subtitles) is far superior. It can be enjoyed and followed entirely in Japanese, without knowing the language! Features the bus-stop scene which is about as perfect a moment of film as can be seen.

Lone Star by John Sayles
A gripping family and crime drama set in West Texas in the modern day. The finest American film of the year when it came out. Just about perfect ~ with some truly stunning cinematography. Plus it has Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Pena in great performances.

The Quick and the Dead by Sam Raimi
An excellent Western from the director of Evil Dead. Got hammered by the critics, but it's shot near Tucson, has a fabulous cast and (I think) some depth in it. Most people were put off by Sharon Stone's gunfighter, but I loved it. Part of the inspiration for the character of Thyatis in OATH OF EMPIRE.

Bladerunner by Ridley Scott
You've seen BladeRunner even if you haven't seen it... This film, a box-office failure when it came out, has stamped its visual style on our image of the future. The kick-off of the Cyberpunk future then explicated in print by William Gibson. Unfortunately it loses an enormous amount when seen on the small screen. Buy a bigger TV!

The Big Sleep (starring Bogart & Bacal, written by Henry Faulkner and Leigh Brackett)
A film noir classic, but I love it most for the snapshot it gives of late-1940's America ~ a society where men and women, under the enormous manpower pressure of WW2, had achieved a startling equality. If you watch the society in the background of this movie, you'll realize what a disaster the 1950's were to America.

The Thing by John Carpenter
A gruesome little film that fuses the pre-modern horror of H.P. Lovecraft to the paranoia of the X-Files. Stunning visual effects (though not for the squeamish!) and Kurt Russel's best performance ever. Often imitated by subsequent horror films. And... I think this one is far superior to Howard Hawk's original version (which was not a bad film either!).

Fobidden Planet from Disney
Want to see what directly inspired Star Trek and Lost In Space? See this movie ~ a rare foray into live action big-budget SF by Disney in the 1950's. This movie gave us concepts of the future that you still watch each week (on the ST franchise and Babylon Five). Oh, and the original story is by some English hack named Shakespeare...

Zulu with Michael Caine
A great historical war movie set in South Africa. The classic "small band of men besieged by tens of thousands of natives" movie. Michael Caine's first (and best) film. Makes me root for both sides, which is pretty good film-making, I think.

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo
The visual and stylistic successor to Blade Runner. This is the second best of the Japanese anime (with Miyazaki's films coming first) and a great action film. Unfortunately, you can't really understand everything that's going on without reading the 60-volume manga the movie is based on.

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn by Sam Raimi
The best horror-comedy film ever made. Gruesome, hysterical and just plain weird. Stars Bruce Campbell as the fabulous Ash and brings (like The Thing) the H. P. Lovecraft oeuvre into the mainstream with a heavy helping of gore.

Quatermass and the Pit by Nigel Kneale
A classic of British Hammer Films SF -- excavations in London unearth an ancient ship. Features Prof. Quatermass - a daring rocket scientist - who unravels the mystery. Was cribbed by Steven King as The Tommyknockers.

Lifeforce by Tobe Hooper
Now, quit laughing! Besides the cool special effects, the naked girl (Mathilda May), the SAS and the destruction of London by zombie vampires - this homage to the Hammer SF films of the 50's and 60's is very entertaining and super-campy. A mismash of both the first Quatermass movie and Colin Campbell's novel "The Space Vampires".

Kelly's Heroes (Eastwood, Savalas, Southerland)
One of the best WW2 movies ever made, and a very funny film to boot. An all-star cast, great tanks and battles, a bank full of gold, and - of course - some catchy singing numbers. Notorious for being the first movie shown in each Fall semester at the University of Arizona's Gallagher Theatre.

Thunderbolt by Jackie Chan
The biggest budget Chan film and my favorite, though I can't really say why. A racing movie with the usual hijinks. Really, I aught to like Drunken Master II better, but this is always the one I think of first.

High and Low by Akira Kurosawa
A gem of a police procedural thriller. Toshiro Mifune and a fine Japanese cast. Perfect pacing with great views of common Japanese life in the 1950's on the poor side of the tracks.