Best of the Letter "J:" Jaws (1975)

For my previous full review of Jaws click here.

By any account, Jaws is a monster movie, a horror film that tries to scare the audience.  I fully believed it should not be a good movie.  And then I watched it.  Jaws is great.  Sure, there's a monster shark, but this is not a brainless film by any stretch.  It's a character drama as well, a tightly written and witty script that provides wonderful commentary on human fear, honor, and stupid politics.

Give Jaws a try.  You'll love it.

This is a great cast.  They are looking at a rather big fish.

Best moment: "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Entertainment: 10/10
Artistic Value: 6/10
Technical Merit: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

Runners up for the letter "J:"

• Jurassic Park
• The Jerk (I guess?  You come up with good runners up for "J.")

Best of the Letter "I:" Inception (2010)

I've already reviewed Inception at some length.  You can find that review here.  Read the review; I had tons of fun discussing how this movie made me ponder reality, our ability to perceive reality, and such.  I'll include my favorite line here: "In no other movie will you find the main characters involved in an alpine shootout, floating weightless in a hotel elevator, plunging off a bridge in a van, and flying across the ocean in a jet, all at the same time!" 

Granted, looking back I may have been a tad over enthusiastic about Inception.  It's still a great film, and certainly the best of the letter "I," but I think anymore I'd probably tone it down to about a 8/10.  After all, there are some rather far-fetched concepts to accept for the plot to work at all.  But if you will simply accept the film as presented you'll have a grand time and get to think a lot to boot.  Thumbs up.

Runners up for the letter I:

• I Confess
• In the Heat of the Night
• The Incredibles 
• It's a Wonderful Life

The Best Christmas Movies Ever

Hollywood has long had a love affair with Christmas.  The "Christmas Movie" is a well-established genre, with more and more of these films running marathons and specials on tv every year, with more in theaters every year as well.  

What follows is my list of the best Christmas movies ever.  To qualify, a movie has to be: 1) about Christmas, or 2) involve Christmas as a major plot element or theme.  There are plenty of others, and many of them are great.  But these are the best, according to my opinionated (and thereby treated as correct in this forum) point of view.

#8: It's a Wonderful Life

Who can resist Jimmy Stewart at Christmas?  "Merry Christmas you old building and loan!"  Overall, not the best movie ever.  But certainly one of the most cheerful and sweetest.  

#7: A Christmas Story

Ralphie and his quest for a Red Rider BB gun are now legendary.  This is one of a very small selection of films that really gets little boys, and how they think, right.  "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."


#6:  Elf

Honestly, this is a modern classic.  This one is all about Will Ferrell, who proves he can carry a movie on his elfish optimism.  A great supporting cast and screenplay certainly also help.  "Buddy the elf, what's your favorite color?"


Hit the jump for the top 5.

Best of the Letter "H:" High Noon (1952)

We're going to get this out of the way right now: you will get utterly sick of the "High Noon Ballad (Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darling)".  This tune plays nearly incessantly throughout the full movie.  On top of being a bit dated, the tune is also rather out of date by today's standards, rating on the "cool song, bro" scale somewhere between "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight" and "The Ballad of Davy Crockett."

Aside from that song, this is a thoroughly wonderful, amazing, spectacular movie.  Few have been as influential on how we think of westerns, with the concept of the lone hero facing off with the gang of misanthropes at (you guessed it) High Noon.

Gary Cooper does his dead level best, starring as well as anyone could as Marshal Will Kane.  He grows increasingly distressed by how the town he protects refuses to help either him or themselves, and his fury is seen, yet remains below the surface.  This is also Grace Kelly's (that is princess Grace of Monaco to you) first starring role in a movie, and it becomes quite evident why she hit the big time after this one.

The themes established are poignant: pacifism vs protecting those you love; honor vs revenge; justice vs injustice; doing what is right even when everyone deserts you.  The themes are laid out, teased out, and the suspense builds.  By the time Frank Miller comes to town the suspense is high and the time is noon.  And then the classic showdown, well-planned action, and perfect denouement play out.

Westerns don't get much more classic or iconic than this, making High Noon the best film you can watch that begins with "H."

Entertainment: 8/10
Artistic Value: 10/10
Technical Merit: 9/10

Overall: 8/10

Runners Up for the Letter "H:"

• Harvey
• Hoosiers
• The Hunt for Red October
• Hotel Rwanda

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

I have to admit something: I read the books and liked them.  I began them on a lark, sort of a "Let's see what all the kids these days are reading" motive, which then became "this author really knows how to tell a story!  ...even if her grammar is BAD!"  But of course I had seen the first movie prior to reading the book.  After loving the book I watched it again, just to see if my impressions had changed.  They had not.  I still thought the first movie was too safe, too formulaic, too by-the-numbers.  It seemed to lack a soul, the exciting edge the book has.

Catching Fire goes a long way toward fixing that.  The major issues in the first are made much better here in the sequel.  The result is a film that has excitement and yet takes the time for real plot development.  The actors do a fine job, though there is nothing too very worthy of mention.  Donald Sutherland's President Snow character is much better used here, becoming a vicious, cunning, despicable kind of guy who projects an image of benevolence.

I didn't find much to complain about (which for those of you who know me, you know how weird that is).  But one thing irritated me rather much.  At one point the director chose to utilize a rotating camera shot, where the audience point of view spins around the characters on screen while they dance.  Unfortunately, the scene is not shot in one take, and the editing of the scene together results in a choppy, jerky, distracting mess.  It just plain didn't work.  Now, if it had been done in one take it might have been great.  As it is, the scene is not very grand.

I still wish the story went in a different direction than it did, but I wished that about the book too.  All in all, this is a sequel that outshines the original.  Add to that the fact the third book seems to lend itself to being adapted to film and I think we've got a good little movie trilogy here.

Entertainment: 7/10
Artistic Value: 6/10
Technical Merit: 5/10

Overall: 6/10

Best of the Letter "G:" The Godfather (1972)

Many people have described The Godfather as the best mob movie ever made.  I disagree.  At its heart, I don't believe The Godfather is about organized crime.  Distilled to its essence, this is a movie about a father and son; how their relationship is strained, tested and reconciled, with the transforming to become like his father.  It is about the effort to protect a family, to care for loved ones, and to make right certain wrongs.  Under normal circumstances these would be noble goals on a path of virtue.  But the circumstances of the Corleone family in The Godfather are anything but normal, which makes the character arch and journey of Michael Corleone one of the great tragedies of American cinema.  And this story -when combined with some of the best acting, writing, and deliberate pacing of all time -makes The Godfather one of the best and most perfect films ever.

Godfather and son

So yeah, it's a family movie.  It's about the mob, killing people, drugs, and very horse's head serious threats.  But at heart The Godfather is a movie about a family.  And this family has love and anger and issues just like any other family.  But this family also deals in death.

This is where The Godfather succeeds so masterfully.  The criminals here are not shallow black-hatted caricatures that simply act evil as a foil to showcase the pure motives of the good guy.  Here we have no "good guy" as we might have expected previously.  Instead, all the bad guys have good in them, while at the same time all of the "good guys" (well, the main characters anyway) have great capacity for evil.

This movie has it all, and does it all exceedingly well.  Never has a film done acting better, the direction is top-notch, and the screenplay is legendary.  The Godfather has very few, if any missteps, and the result is simply wonderful.  This is one of the great dramas and tragedies of our age, especially when combined with part 2.  Don't miss this one!

Entertainment:  9/10
Artistic Value: 10/10
Technical Merit: 10/10

Overall: 10/10


Runners Up:

• The Great Escape
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
• The Goonies (just kidding.  But seriously, goonies never say die.)

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Being a fan of action movies and comic books, I am predisposed to enjoy movies such as Thor 2.  So, naturally, I actually DID find myself enjoying Thor: The Dark World.  There is so much for a comic nerd to love here, and enough action to please those who are just along for the ride.

Of course, that's not to say this is a flawless or exceptional film in any sense.  Thor 2 suffers as a sequel, due to the first being much more well-crafted and executed.  The sequel just doesn't quite have the spark the first did, and the change in the director's chair clearly shows all the way through.

There are a few outright negatives I noticed.  Firstly, the movie was overall poorly edited.  Second, it had more than a tad bit of those "isn't THAT just a little convenient!" moments (such as the fact that it was Jane who finds the Aether by accident, or that the things Erik Selvig was working on could be easily adapted to save the day).  Third, I never quite understood why Thor's desperate plan was all that necessary.  I mean, the movie never convinced me that Asgard really was all that outmatched by the dark elves.  Finally, the end (and I won't spoil anything for you) tried to have a really strong punch, but seemed to lack coherency -raising many questions that contradict or defy explanation.

But hey, on the whole it was very enjoyable and well done.  It had a well-mined seam of humor and it certainly set up further development in the Marvel universe.  Where they are going with the overall story arc of these movies is hinted at throughout the movie, and it all looks to be quite epic.

Final thought: Loki rocks.  He's by far the most interesting character in the film.

Entertainment: 7/10
Artistic Value: 4/10
Technical Merit: 5/10

Overall: 6/10