Introduce Yourself : Some Stuff About Me: My Favorite Movies and Reasons Why by Christopher Binder

Hi, just thought I'd share my top 10 personal favorite movies (entertainment wise) and personal reasons why I like/enjoy each of them. Some reasons have spoilers in them for some of the movies. 10. The Boxer (1997) My favorite Daniel Day-Lewis movie. I'm sort of partial to the Irish, even though my Grandpa on my mom's side is Scottish. Ryan's Daughter could easily have taken this spot instead (maybe even Rob Roy), but given that my two favorite actors, Day-Lewis and Brian Cox are in it, I couldn't resist. I continue to admire Day-Lewis's total commitment to his art, and training to box for three years prior to filming speaks volumes. Wonderful chemistry between him and Emily Watson. Very solid movie and endlessly watchable. 9. Le Samourai (1967) A French assassin who lives by the Japanese Bushido code? Alain Delon as Jef Costello might just be the coolest cat in the most stylish film I've ever seen. Neither cops nor double crossing employers or his own death rattles him. I admired and appreciated seeing that in action. Delon's role of a life time carries this meticulous and often very tedious film from Jean-Pierre Melville. Such an incredible amount of tension bubbles underneath the surface throughout that hardly anybody could sit still through it all. Except for Mr. Costello. 8. A Fish Called Wanda (1988) Oh man, this is my all time favorite comedy. I could watch this just for Kevin Kline's performance alone (sometimes I do). Very ingenious story by John Cleese that keeps getting more clever and funnier the more it goes on. All the double crossing and continuously sticky situations the different characters have to lie, bluff, cheat, fake, and fight their way through are wonderfully, hilariously entertaining. My favorite is the one that occurs inside Archie's house. Smart, complex comedy at it's finest. 7. L.A. Confidential (1997) It must have been around the mid 2000's when I first saw this on TV one Sunday afternoon. I couldn't believe how many famous Movie and TV stars were in it. But this was before really any of them became famous and well known. All of them inhabit their characters so well and give such good performances, which is a testament to how well written the adapted screenplay is. This is a very complicated, mutilayered film that could be endlessly dissected. Each repeat viewing unveils something new that I may or may not have caught before, which is very stimulating and admirable. Plot twists, moral questions and dilemmas, character relationships and interaction, action sequences, dialogue, period setting, cinematography, editing, I could go on. There's a lot to like here. 6. Titanic (1997) It was probably the same year the film came out but I remember walking through the bookstore with my mom when I came across a large book with a picture of the Titanic displayed on the front. I was immediatly curious and took it and flipped through the pages. Seeing all those wonderfully illustrated (and some real) pictures of the wreck had me hooked so bad that book shot right to the top of my Christmas list that year (I was 8 years old). I was beyond overjoyed when I got it as my final present (I think my brother got a bike or something). Back then I wanted to grow up to be an Underwater Archaeologist and I even ended up meeting Robert Ballard a few years later. The Titanic and shipwrecks in general were my obsession. Titanic arrived in theaters around that same time and I remember having THE worst playground type crush on Kate Winslet. Every time I saw her in the commercials I would blush and get very shy and timid. Finally after it had been out on VHS for awhile my mom decided to let me see the sinking half of the movie since it interested me so much. I honestly thought I was looking through a time portal, everything looked so accuratly reproduced. It was seeing all the people screaming and freezing to death and then seeing all of their ghosts at the very end that shook me up the most though. It was unlike any other movie I had seen at the time. I never became an Underwater Archaeologist because I was no good at math and engineering stuff. Looking back several years later I realized it was the pictures in that book, the visuals, that had fascinated me, not the writing, which is very telling if you believe in destiny. 5. Ben-Hur (1959) The story of a man who loses everything then gets it back and comes home for his revenge. You'd might mistaken this film for The Count of Monte Cristo if you had missed the opening credits. You would be wrong. William Wyler crafts a sensational Biblical epic that ranks up there with David Lean's best. The chariot race alone is a head turner and one of the greatest action sequences ever staged. The scene where a dying Ben-Hur is given water by Christ (whose face is never shown) is easily my favorite in any movie ever. But it's the moment at the end, when Ben-Hur learns forgiveness after hearing it from the crucified Jesus himself, after all he's suffered through, that makes this film everything it is in my book. 4. The Third Man (1949) My all time favorite mystery movie. What a weird, strange, hypnotic soundtrack. The most unique in anything mystery or film noir I've ever heard. What a weird setting for a mystery movie. Post WWII Vienna? Seriously? What weird looking, canted camera angles and compositions. These were my main thoughts the first time I saw the film, and they are all a part of it's brilliance. This film was also my first introduction to the great Orson Wells, whom I had never seen on screen before. That moment when his face is first shown in the light and he looks and smiles at Holly before running away, I just immediatly thought "oh my God this guy just screams movies and filmmaking like no other". He looked so warm and charming and inviting and there was this slightly devilish gleam in his eyes. It felt like you could just walk right up to him in a crowd of people and instantly become good friends. Nobody in movies has ever made such an impression on me in just one moment the way he did. I could tell I was looking at a genius. His cuckoo clock monologue blew me away too. Add Joseph Cotton gorgeous Black and White cinematography, wonderful editing, European architecture, sewer chase sequence, and there's not much more you could ask from a film like this. 3. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) My first introduction to Indiana Jones actually occured late at night in maybe '93 or '94 when I was 4 or 5 years old (although I didn't realize this until several years later). Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had just started playing on TV and I started watching it with the rest of the family. My brother and I kept asking our parents what was going on as we were too young to understand all the adventure craziness going on. When my mom first said the were looking for the Holy Grail, I immediatly misheard her and thought they were looking for a holy "grill", like the one in our frontyard dad cooked stuff on, on some altar in a church somewhere. It wasn't until near the end that mom clarified that it was a cup they were looking for, which I thought was incredibly weird. Why would you call a cup something other than a cup? Very strange. I still have no idea why my parents listened to our pleas to let us stay up that late to see the rest. It was some years later when we were at Disneyland and saw the spectacular stunt reenactment show that I got hooked into the movies. Dad finally showed Raiders for us and I kept wanting to know when they were going to get to the parts in the stunt reenactments. I didn't think they were as cool on the TV but I still enjoyed it a lot. My dad was himself an archaeologist who had gone on digs in Israel in the 90s and would send us post cards of stuff he had found while over there. He even planted ancient coins in our backyard and gave us a metal detector for Christmas so we could go find them (some are still buried there). So I guess because of all that I developed a personal connection with Indiana Jones and "Raiders" in that it was fun to go treasure hunting and fight bad guys along the way. That thrill of finding something hidden and the danger that can go along with it. My dad, and by direct extension Indiana Jones, epitomized all of that for me. 2. Alien (1979) This one was a toss up along with "Raiders". Three and two here could almost be interchangable. Anyway, simply put, I love this movie. I love the claustrophobia of the sets, that all the interiors of the spaceships are real and not CGI. The production design is so wonderful to look at as the camera moves around. I love the design of the alien itself (whom I've lovingly come to call D!*^head the past few years) and the fact that you never know where it is until it's too late. I love that bleeds acid to a crew in space can't kill it by any conventional means (seriously, how original an idea is that?). I love Jonesy the cat. I love the music, the models, and the editing when they land on the planet. The last supper scene has got to be in the top 2 or 3 horror scenes ever made. This is my favorite movie to play late at night over and over again with all the lights turned off. I once wrote a ten page analysis paper about it in college. I love this movie. 1. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) It must've been '96 I think or early '97. I was in the backseat of the car and I think I was talking about something with mom, who was driving up front. I remember her asking me about Star Wars and I was like huh? Is that like Star Trek or something? I remember her mentioning Han Solo and I was like who? Is he like Mr. Sulu? I was a Trekkie before I got into Star Wars. Some years before I was born they had had a Star Trek marathon on TV in the 80s and my dad had taped all the episodes they showed. So I used to watch them on that tape with dad growing up. But yeah so we borrowed a copy of A New Hope from some family friends on VHS and I saw it for the first time on a TV screen not much bigger than computer screens are now. I can't remember if it was seeing Han and Chewie firing their blasters on the back cover or the giant star destroyer going on and on during the first shot, but either way, the obsession was born. It took hold and grew more and more as the movie went on. Seeing a lightsaber turn on for the first time and hearing the sound it makes, the first time seeing what it looks like to go as fast as the speed of light, seeing two suns set at the same time on an alien desert planet with music playing in the background, the sound a blaster makes when its fired, rescuing a princess aboard a giant spacestaion that can blow up a planet, then turn around and have to blow it up before it blows you up, that thrill of anticipation that things are going to get awesomer and awesomer the more the movie goes on, and being right about it. Seeing all the strange aliens in the cantina for the first time, Han playing it cool with Greedo until he gets him, being introduced to the music, the Force, Darth Vader, C3PO, R2D2, the Millenium Falcon, Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, X Wings, Tie Fighters etc. No film before or since has had so many truly interesting/fasinating/thrilling/awesome elements in it that had such a profound and lasting effect on me. And no other film has or probably ever will be able to surpass the sheer level of entertainment I experienced that night the first time I ever saw Star Wars when I was a kid.