E Y E W A N N A B E

Who's The Man is usually a forgotten jem...which is a shame.  It's a great comedy and a time capsule of nineties hip hop.  Yo! MTV Raps hosts Dr. Dre and Ed Lover star as two HORRIBLE barbers with a demeanor like Abbott and Costello.  They end up becoming cops then go out trying to solve the murder of their mentor.

The movie has EVERYONE!  Run DMC as COPS!  Ice-T and KRS One as drug dealers!  Guru as a bad guy (RIP Guru!).  Phife Dawg from Tribe, Kris Kross, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Heavy D, Humpty Hump, Busta Rhymes and Leaders of the New School, House of Pain, Cypress Hill's B-Real, Naughty by Nature (in concert rapping Hip Hop Hurray!), Bow-Legged Lou and a cameo by the rest of Full Force, Kid Capri, Queen Latifah, and Salt n Pepa!  Plus a great cast like Colin Quinn, Bill Bellamy, Karen Duffy, Jim Moody, Vinny Pastore, and an AWESOME performance by Denis Leary.

The soundtrack featured the first-ever Notorious BIG song 'Party and Bullshit!'

But beyond the great cast the movie is actually VERY funny.  VERY FUNNY.  Dre and Lover have a great rapport through years on YO! MTV Raps and it translates beautifully.  There are some great fucking lines...like when they are at the police academy and the trainer asks, "What is the main purpose of a police officer?" Ed Lover responds, "To harass black people!"  CLASSIC!  Who's the Man is really a unsung gem that most people haven't seen.  Obviously it is not for most people...if you aren't a fan of nineties rap you may enjoy it less...but the comedy itself should stand on its own merits.

TOMORROW: Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and I won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit.

John Carpenter + "Rowdy" Roddy Piper = BRILLIANT!

John Carpenter's low budget sci-fi flick about a drifter in a shantytown who finds out that aliens are already living among us is...AWESOME.  The fact that you can see them with the super-treated Oakley sunglasses is ever betterer.

But the best?  One of the best fight scenes of all time...an all-out brawl between Piper and Keith David...8 and 1/2 minutes of the two beating the shit out of each other.  And I mean BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER.  It's not kung-fu...it's not a quick fight...it is literally these two FUCKING FIGHTING!  It is one of the best fight scenes ever put into a movie!

Carpenter had some awesome flick in the eighties...Starman, Escape From New York, and the awesome Big Trouble In Little China...and They Live is no exception.  Roddy Piper is awesome in this movie...and the fact that he is still acting today (Just saw him recently in an episode of Always Sunny) is a testament to his acting ability.  Sure he's a WWF icon..but in They Live the man is a GOD!

TOMORROW: You fucked me! You fucked me! You might as well kiss me 'cause you're fucking me!

True Romance has it all.  A killer cast.  A Quentin Tarantino script.  Brad Pitt as a stoner!  The director is...well...he's Tony Scott.  One can only guess what Tarantino would have done with his own script...BUT...selling this script and Natural Born Killers paved the way for him to direct the awesome Reservoir Dogs.  But Reservoir Dogs isn't on this list...True Romance is.

You want a cast?  How about Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, and Samuel L. Jackson.  Val Kilmer as ELVIS!  Yeah...rock on.

You want Tarantino dialogue?  How about:

"Hi. How are you? My name's Elliot, and I'm with the Cub Scouts of America. We're... we're selling uncut cocaine to get to the jamboree."
"Now I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of titties."
" I mean look at her. It looks like she fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."
"I always said, if I had to fuck a guy... I mean had to, if my life depended on it... I'd fuck Elvis."

Then there's the scene between Dennis Hopper and Christoper Walken...as Hopper insult Walken about his Italian hertiage.  It's a fucking monster scene...Hopper knows he's fucked so he goes on to talk about how Sicilians are descended from black people and that Walken's mobster is really a moolie.  It doesn't go over well...and the scene is really the show-stealer of the whole fucking film.

There isn't a dull moment in the film...and it continues to build and build until the hugely bloody Mexican standoff at the end.

Did I mention Brad Pitt as a stoner?  To this day it is one of my favorite Pitt roles...even though he really isn't in the movie much.

The script is probably one of Tarantino's best and it is a shame that he didn't get to direct it.  It is still one awesome fucking film and one that is watchable time after mother fucking time.

TOMORROW:  Ahhhh...durka durka durka.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I first saw District B13.  It was a French karate movie...in French...that KICKED ASS.  Actually it is not karate but parkour...which has really entered into the American mindset since this film.  But B13, starring Parkour's creator David Belle is one hell of an incredible martial arts flick.

The first twenty minutes alone is mind-numbing...in an incredible way.  When a gang leader and his men show up to confront Belle and get back their stolen drugs...Belle takes off and actually uses the ENTIRE BUILDING as his playground/weapon.  The man is just ... there are no words.  There are NO WORDS.  To watch him as he bounces off walls, doors, down poles, into windows...it's stuff that Jackie Chan wishes he could do...back in his prime!

Belle is joined by Cyril Rafaelli - who also showed off his Parkour skills in Live Free or Die Hard.  Together the two have to stop a bomb going off in the ghetto.  That's the plot...and who cares about the plot.  Because really it is just an excuse to watch these two guys kick major ass.

There's a sequel that actually came out on DVD just two weeks ago...but the problem with that film is that there is probably too much plot...maybe 10 more minutes of plot.  That's wasting time!  Here the plot is secondary to the incredible action.  The jaw will drop several times watching this incredible flick...

Director Pierre Morel has also gone onto great things like Liam Neeson's Taken and an upcoming brand new Dune movie!

TOMORROW:  I always said, if I had to fuck a guy... I mean had to, if my life depended on it... I'd fuck Elvis.

With my top 25 films of all time list out of the way I'm going to move onto a list that is just as important...my favorite cult films.  These are films I can watch over and over again - most are films rarely seen though a few have found mainstream success.  This list was actually much harder to come up with and there are some movies (Blazing Saddles, Zaitochi, Tommy Boy, Disorderlies, Addams Family, Billy Madison...the list goes on!) that didn't make the top 25.  How?  I don't know...there's just way too many great cult movies.  Without further adieu...

What more can you say about a film about two garbage men who end up with the dead body of a politician and, along with a crazy Vietnam vet, try to get rid of the body?  Yes...Men at Work is that film.  Look at your cast!  Charlie Sheen (Hot Shots Part Deux), writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez (The Mighty Ducks 3), Dean Cameron (Summer School's Chainsaw!), Keith David (Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London), and the beautiful Leslie Hope (Jack Bauer's dead wife from 24!).

Yes we've seen Carlos Estevez and Emilio Estevez in the same films before (like Young Guns!) but what better to have them featured together in the same film!  The two of them partnered up with Keith David - who really had his best performance to date (yes - even better then Platoon...but not as good as Requiem for a Dream).  And the movie is an action/comedy about garbagemen!  How is that not amazing?!?!?

Great quotes from the flick:
"There are several sacred things in this world that you don't ever mess with. One of them happens to be another man's fries."
"Looks like somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy!"
"What does a phrenologist feel and interpret?" "The size of Walt's asshole."

If you want to see a better done Weekend at Bernie's with the Estevez boys as garbagemen well look no further - Men at Work has EVERYTHING and holds a very high place on the bottom of my top 25.

TOMORROW: You go up the stairs, I'll take the elevator. For once it's not broken.

Any haters who hate on Citizen Kane can suck it.  My wife hates the movie so yeah...she can suck it too.  The fact of the matter is that Orson Welles made the best movie ever.  Not only that but the man invented most of the camera angles that we see today.  Miniatures and matte paintings...the man just started special effects in films as we see them.  Welles was a genius.  He was a genius who was stiffled all through his life past this film.  He made some great films but was always stopped by the old studio system.  But he did make one film that was the most amazing ever...Citizen Kane.

Beyond the camera and effects there is the award winning screenplay.  There is the story that mirrors newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst's life.  It so mirrored Hearst's life that the millionaire wanted the film KILLED, every copy burned, and never shown to the public.  Hearst went bankrupt...it is probably the only reason that didn't happen.

Welles brought many of his Mercury Theater actors from New York with him to Hollywood.  This includes the AMAZING Joseph Cotton who also kicked some major ass in this film.

I forgot to mention makeup...which I'll do as part of the plot.  The film starts off with one word 'Rosebud'.  It is really brings out the plot to the first...The Usual Suspects like trick ending.  The film is actually about a newspaper reporter who sets out to find out what newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane's last word meant.  On the way we learn about Kane as the man he is through many flashbacks.  Welles KILLS as Kane - the man wrote, directed, and starred in this film and his acting is just ...it is too good for words.  They also used makeup on this film never seen before.  Kane was transformed in the film from a good looking skinny twenty-something to an old, fat sixty-something later in the film.  Up till that point no one ever made a transformation like that on film...something that makeup artists can do so easily today.  The scary thing?  As Welles got older ...he got fatter.  The makeup artists were almost looking into the future when they created old, fat Kane.

What is Rosebud?  How did Kane become this famous, rich man?  Why did he really never succeed even with everything that he had? 

The film is just pure genius...everything from the what-is-it beginning to the down-low ending when you find out not only what Rosebud is.  It really isn't important what Rosebud is...but what Rosebud MEANS.  And when you realize that you realize the journey you've just went through.  There's no better film...then the absolutely perfect Citizen Kane.

TOMORROW starts my top 25 favorite cult films starting with this awesome flick: Looks like somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy!

I'm not going to bother seperating these films.  I'm not going to list The Godfather part II as my third favorite film and The Godfather as my second.  There's no reason - both films are amazing, both films go together perfectly, so together they BOTH for my second favorite film.

It's Francis Ford Coppola showing off that he is amazing filmmaker no matter how bad his following films were (Apocolypse Now is...okay.  The Outsiders is decent.  The Godfather III?  HORRID).  The cast was amazing...he had to fight to get "nobody" Al Pacino in the role.  The studio didn't want this no name kid being in the movie!  Talia Shire, Robert de Niro, James Caan, Marlon Brando, Abe Vigoda, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, John Cazale...and an amazing supporting cast. 

The Godfather I and II are just perfect.  It really is.  It's a period piece film that always makes you feel like it was filmed in the fourties or fifties.  The acting is perfect, the storyline of this family just draws you in.  Brando just fucking KILLS IT in this movie.  Forget Streetcar, forget Waterfront, forget Wild One...it is Vito Corleone that brings Brando's finest performance. 

A lone gripe?  Growing up my mom had a version called The Godfather Epic Saga.  It put the film in chronological order (starting with de Niro, moving to Godfather I, then all the rest of the footage in Vegas from Godfather II) plus a CRAPLOAD of additional scenes.  This version has yet to be released on DVD.  There was a later version that also included Godfather III...but who the hell wants to watch Godfather III???

The Godfather was actually first A NOVEL.  Mario Puzo, the author, worked with Coppola on the screenplay.  That helped because the film is a VERY faithful adaptation of the book.  If you've never read The Godfather it is a page turner - while being one of my fave films the novel is actually one of my favorite books as well.

There's not much else I can say about The Godfather.  If you haven't watched it you are fricking retarded.  If you have...you know its brilliance.  There's only one better film ever created...but that film tops The Godfather in every way.  How is a perfect film beaten in every way?  Well...that's tomorrow.

TOMORROW: You don't care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love 'em so much that they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms. Something to be played your way, according to your rules.

Amelie is a comedy.  It's a romantic comedy.  It's even a chick flick.  The only thing it can also claim is being the best comedy ever made. 

It's just a perfect film.  Even though I don't speak French...and it means I have to read the subtitles the entire time...it doesn't matter.  Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had finished the screenplay to Amelie and was then offered...the Alien sequel Alien Resurrection.  This had come right after his sci-fi hit The City of Lost Children.

Jeunet accepted the film for the payday.  He then had the clout of a Hollywood movie behind him and some money.  Though Alien Resurrection was ho-hum, he was able to go make Amelie.

Starring Audrey Tautou, the film follows a girl named Amelie who has led a bit of a sheltered life.  This sheltered life has made Amelie a bit...eccentric.  This eccentric life leads her one day to do a good deed for a person she never met, and the person never knows that Amelie actually helped her.  It works, the person feels good, and Amelie feels good as well.  She decides to become a do-gooder on a regular basis, though no one knows that Amelie is actually pulling the strings.  In the middle she actually sees a guy who she thinks is interesting and he is sort of folded into the plot as Amelie struggles to help herself try to accept this guy...if she can do it at all.

The movie makes you smile.  It makes you laugh.  It's whimsical.  It's the type of movie that also can't be overdone.  I would never want to see 10 more Amelie films.  Or knockoff films.  Amelie creates, defines, and remains the sole occupant in its own fabulous genre.  In a cinema world of many great comedies - Amelie is perfect.

TOMORROW:  He's better at this than I've ever been at anything in my life. He's better at this than you'll ever be, at anything. My son has a gift. He has a gift, and when you acknowledge that, then maybe we will have something to talk about.

Empire is simply put the BEST SCI-FI FILM EVER MADE.  It builds on the first film and has everything that Jedi and the prequels did not have.  In the prequels you had Padme and Anakin trying so hard to 'be in love'...but Han and Leia did it without all the lovie dovie crap.  When she finally tells Han she loves him, he looks back and says "I know" and then his dumbass gets frozen...TELL ME THAT SHIT ISN'T LOVE!  And Han fucking Solo made the shit look good.  He was awesome, he was a suave motherfucker!

Star Wars was good...but under Irvin Kershner's direction (the director actually taught one of George Lucas's classes at USC) he made Star Wars PHENOM.  Problem with Star Wars is George Lucas directing.  Sure he didn't direct Jedi...but did he really not?  Word is he did direct alot of the film even though his name is not on it.

The Falcon doesn't work and Solo and his crew are chased by the Empire.  Luke finally gets some real Jedi training from a little guy who just looks...REAL.  Forget that CGI Yoda bouncing around.  The Yoda says "Size doesn't matter" and he just looks real.  Acts real.  I believe him when he lifts up the X-Wing.

Vader is pissed in this movie.  He'll just kill any fucking officer who isn't doing his job.  Why?  Because of the ending...when we learn that Vader is Luke's father!  That's some shit right there.  And the fact that there "is another" who could become the last Jedi?  Who is it!  Yeah...turns out to be Leia...which sucks...but we didn't know that shit in Empire!  We were just like "Yeaaaaah boy!  Let's get our Jedi on!"

We got Mr. Colt 45 himself being a slick motherfucker.  He got to be suave and slick and really out for himself.  You liked Lando but you didn't...and that was okay.  Billy Dee rocked as Lando.

Special effects rocked.  I'm sorry but ILM made that shit POP in this film.  NO CGI FUCKING NEEDED.  Shit just looked hype because they put time into it.

I can't imagine a more perfect sci-fi film out there.  There are plenty in my top 100 including Metropolis, The Matrix, and Ice Pirates (well..I kid about the last one).  Nothing really comes close to ESB.  It just is a perfect film.  I could talk about the movie all day and never, ever get tired of it.  I could WATCH the film all day and still laugh, smile, and be in awe.  Because Empire kicks ass...and it always will.  It makes every single Star Wars film since (the exception being the first film) seem like it was written by a retarded 6 year old.  Even then - I think that is really taking it out on special people.   

TOMORROW:  I had two heart attacks, an abortion, did crack... while I was pregnant. Other than that, I'm fine.