Reasons:
12 Monkeys
Fuck me, where to start? They're is so much to the film. First off the acting is first class from Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt and
whatever the female lead Psychiatristis called.
The storyline. Bruce Willis is from the future trying to find out what caused a global disease to nearly wipe out mankind.
All he knows is it has something to do with an army of the twelve monkeys. First he gets sent to the wrong time though and
ends up in a mental institution with Brad Pitt and the Psychiatrist chick. He then gets brought back to present, before
being sent back to 1996 via world war 1. He finds out some stuff about the 12 Monkeys and leaves himself messages for the
future, now with the help of the psychiatrist who believes him. Anyway, it ends with him realising that all the clues he had
in the beggining were actually the messages he left for himself, and that the army of the 12 monkeys was an idea he gave to
Brad Pitt in the institution to release loads of animals from a zoo. This is just when he realises the actual guy he's after
is across the room, and whilst he tries to stop him gets shot himself. Bugger. But then you realise all the seemingly little
insignificant bits are what we should have been focusing on.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The majority of the film makes you think that being in a mental institution wouldn't actually be that bad. You get to spin
people out, act like a knobhead and do pretty much fuck all with your friends. And then it ends on such a downer with Billy
commiting suicide and McMurphy (Nicholson) becoming brain dead as a result of electric shock therapy after trying to kill the
head nurse (she deserved it), and just when they were about to break out! The Chief puts Nicholson out of his misery and then
escapes himself.
Like I said the majority of the film is "feel good". Its surprisingly funny in an especially wrong way (remember you're
laughing at the mentally ill) especially the part where some old guy in a wheel chair starts hitting a punch bag with his
walking stick. The camera pans out to the main group but he carries on in the background for the whole scene. Ace.
Unfortunately they're is always that nagging suspicion that the nurse is going to fuck everything up.
Which she does by constantly riding Billy (the acting for Billy is probably one of the best ever), and driving him to suicide.
Taxi Driver
The legend DeNiro slowly goes insane after getting a job as a taxi driver and not sleeping for the duration of the film, not
to mention the pharmacy worth of medication he consumes. Then comes the cleaning up of the streets. Really it would have been
better if it had ended 2 minutes earlier than it did with DeNiro surrounded by police in the pimp / dealers den after killing
everyone. But it goes for the happy (lame?) ending with him being made a peoples hero for saving this girl.
Oh well, the rest of the film more than makes up for it.
Donnie Darko
I'll describe what I felt each time I watched it.
Predator
Next to T2 this has to be Arnies best film. And as if that wasn't reason enough to watch it this has to be one of the coolest
films ever made. Ok, so the direction, character development and script was never going to win any awards but thats not what
this films about. Its pure, un-adulterated action with some of the funniest one liners in the action genre. This is back when
Arnie was reputable and doing what he does best (i.e. not shitty comedies, "meaty" roles or pretending to be a politician).
Besides the points I've already made why should this be considered the one of the greatest films ever? Well, Predator itself for one thing. He's one double hard mother fucker with an assortment of high tech weapons and the ability to become partially invisible added with the fact he's a pissed off killing machine (though you'd be pissed off if you were that ugly to) makes him a formidable foe. The only thing that spoils it a bit is the inevitable hand to hand combat with Arnie at the end even though you know its coming before the film even starts, but at the end of the day its some good clean all american fighting fun. Did I mention the solid minute of firing from the worlds biggest gun? Thats worth the film price alone.
Its just a shame they ruined it with Predator 2 and AVP.
True Romance
The next best thing to a Tarantino film would have to be a Tarantino script. Which is precisely what started this. The script
was sold to fund, in part, reservoir dogs, and frankly even if Tarantino had directed it I doubt it could have been much better.
Im sure it wouldn't have been shot in the linear chronological order this was however. Aparantly, this was originally part of
a screenplay which was co-written by Tarantino and Avary which was later seperated to become this and Natural Born Killers.
Anyway, the acting is solid with a cast made up of some of the finest actors around. Val Kilmer as Elvis,
the mentor to Clarence was a stroke of genius in terms of both the character and casting. Brad Pitt plays a convincing stoner
and Gary Oldman's Drexyl is unbelievingly real. Dennis Hopper puts in one of, I think, his best performances, particuly in his
scene with Walken, who its always nice to see make an appearance, as it is with Samuel L Jackson's small roll. With such a
strong supporting cast the leads Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette don't really need to do that much but even so they
both put in great performances.
The original ending where Clarence dies would have been a bit of downer so its nice that he survives even if it does contradict the link between this film and reservoir dogs (Alabama was meant to have later met up with Mr White. White is asked "How's Alabama" in one scene).
American Beauty
Bot the story and the acting is fantastic. The story goes through the motions of what is a "normal" middle class family that could be set almost anywhere in the USA
and is focused mainly on the unhappy lead Lester (Spacey) and his decision's to turn his life around and start truely living.
This decision is based mainly on his obsession with his teenage daughters (Birch) best friend Angela (Suvari) and his willing
to impress her. So he starts working out, telling his wife what he truely thinks of their rotting stale relationship, and
like all good human beings should, smoking weed. The realtionship with Angela is very lolita-esque and its no surprise to
spot the many references. Whilst all this is happening the darkly wierd daughter, Jane, meets and falls for the equally wierd
new boy next door. The
complication arises when the boys strict vietnam veteran father believes his son to be having an affair with Lester.
American Beauty is not just a title to the film but a description. I usually hesitate to use that word about anything but thats what this film is: "Beautiful". The direction and camera work is superb altering vastly from the feeling of generic middle class suberbia, to the personal camera shots between Jane (Thora Birch) and Ricky (Wes Bently), to the surreal fantastical camera work particuly over Lesters (Kevin Spacey) lust for Angela (Mena Suvari). Truely a modern masterpiece full of little details, twists and important plot and character development. It makes a change for hollywood to make a truely modern masterpiece instead of churning out the same mass selling bile.