Top Ten Best Movies of All Time

#10 Strictly Ballroom: The Men In Tight Black Pants Award for Best Dance Movie Ever
This movie is totally camp. As long as you accept that this movie is Dirty Dancing on acid, you’ll love the tale of plain Jane Fran (no last name) and sexy Latin Champion Scott Hastings as they prepare for the upcoming Pan-Pacific Grand Championships. Hairspray, platinum blond, and fake tans are abundant, as is love, passion and accepting who you were born to be.

#9 The Usual Suspects: Best Thriller
Who Is Keyser Soze? The camaraderie between the leads makes the already excellent dialogue in this film nearly zing with excitement. I could watch this film a couple dozen times and never get tired of seeing the way the pieces of this story come together or laughing at how the guys joke and banter.

#8 The Breakfast Club: Best Teen Movie
This iconic eighties teen flick makes the list for one reason: five kids spend a couple of hours sitting on hard little chairs in an empty room and manage to make a journey of self-discovery and reconciliation that will change them forever. I love the tight writing, the fact that it could be performed on a tiny stage with no set changes and still depicts the powerful coming-of-age experiences of many wildly different people who start out believing they hate each other and end up recognizing the truth in each person.

#7 Almost Famous: Best Coming of Age Tale
Dorky talented aspiring rock journalist get his big break when Rolling Stone hires him to follow tragically brilliant rock band Stillwater for a summer. I didn’t even live through the seventies (well, only two years) and this film made me feel nostalgic. I guess it transcends the experience of teens in the seventies to speak to the tiny crusted-over wounds we all suffered in adolescence, the futile hope for acceptance, for someone to see the special something, the way a cool kid’s grin made you feel you might suddenly have arrived and then the next day you make your special “inside joke” and they stare at you like you grew a third head. I think I had a particularly gentle adolescence, being in a school that celebrated difference, but I still recognized these moments in an immediate visceral way. Magical.

#6 L.A. Confidential: Best Suspense Film
This is the gnarled complex little tale of a few almost forgotten murders and the detectives who are convinced that there’s more to a midnight shoot-up at a local diner than meets the eye. Outstanding writing, phenomenal acting, completely authentic set design, exceptional lighting and costumes evoke all the heart-pounding suspense of L.A.’s seedy fifties underbelly. This is one of those films that you wish you’d written yourself.

#5 Rushmore: Best High School Loser Movie
This movie was a complete surprise. I rented it on a whim one day and totally fell in love with Max Fisher’s goofy devotion to his beloved high school, where he is flunking out of all his classes but rules the extra-curricular club circuit. When he and his mentor, eccentric millionaire Herman Blume, both fall for the same girl, Max channels all of his considerable energies into an all-out hilarious pursuit of his “Rushmore,” the girl of his dreams.

#4 Wonder Boys: The Richard Pryor Award For Funniest Movie About A Man Whose Life Is Falling Apart
Another brilliant script. I can’t say it any better than this review from IMDB user J.D. Lafrance: “Wonder Boys is a kind of small, oddball little film with a definite, quirky, dark sense of humour and a cast of eccentric characters that are never colourful for the sake of it.” Excellent rich writing bursting with warmth and intelligence.

#3 Harvey: Best Feel-Good Flick
Best Line of All Time: Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. ---Elwood P. Dowd

If everyone sat down and watched this movie together, it would probably end war for all time. 'Nuff said.

#2 The Philadelphia Story: Best Comedy
Normally I’m not a big comedy fan. I know I sound like a punk but I’m just more into witty things that make my mind race than the slapstick crap that Hollywood farts out every year. More “Ah ha!” than “Haha!” I guess. But the dialoque in this film zips along at a breathtaking pace, carried by the effortless deadpan delivery of its leads. Sure, it starts with the terribly impolitic sight of Cary Grant pushing Katharine Hepburn onto the ground, but we quickly learn that Kate can take care of herself. Also showcases the brilliant talents of Virginia Weidler, one of the best child actors of all time.

And the #1 Best Movie of All Time Is . . .

The Man Who Cried
Christina Ricci plays a young Russian Jew who flees to England to escape being killed in the pogroms of 1920s Eurasia. Years later, haunted by the memory of her beloved opera-singing father, she finds herself working as a chorus girl for the Paris Opera. She is befriended by Cate Blanchett, a fun-loving Russian dancer, and soon finds herself drawn to the mysterious Gypsy horse trainer played by Johnny Depp. I love this movie because it is so magically beautiful, it makes me ache. I almost didn’t buy it because once you possess a movie, some of the magic escapes. You never quite want to see it as strongly ever again. Glad to say that in this case, I still love this movie and am swept away by the power of the story again and again.


HONORABLE MENTIONS

Gandhi: The “Hey, I Can Do That!” Award for Most Inspiring Film

As Good As It Gets: The “What’s That, Lassie? Timmy Fell Down the Well and Now It’s Flooding And He’s Going To Die?” Award for Best Acting by An Animal In A Film

Now, Voyager: The Golden Tissue Award for Most Romantic Classic Film

Dead Poets Society: The Barbaric Yawp Award for Most Inspiring Teacher Flick

The Royal Tenenbaums: The Murphy Brown Award for Strongest Family Values on Film

Two Weeks Notice: The “My, She Was Yar” Award for Wittiest Romantic Comedy of the Twenty-First Century

About A Boy: The Santa’s Super Sleigh Award for Best Music In A Film

Drop Dead Gorgeous: The "Oh No She Din't" Award for Naughtiest Satire

Groundhog Day: The Doc Brown Award for Best Alteration of the Time-Space Continuum in Film

The Princess Bride: The Heaving Bosom Award for Best Date Movie

And an additional Honorable Mention to Groundhog Day for Best Delivery of Poetry in Everyday Conversation:

A neighbor grunts a greeting to Bill Murray's character as they pass in the hallway but instead of his customary surly snarl, Bill grabs the guy and exclaims, his voice vibrant with goodwill:

“Winter, slumbering in the open air,
wears upon his face the dream of Spring!”

I have always wanted to grab some grouchy stranger in the middle of February, shake them by the shoulders and shout out some poetry.

But I do not want to be shot.

Well, there's my list. Next time I'll have to tell you my 10 Worst Films of All Time. (Evil chuckle and a diabolical rub of the hands.)