Your Favorite(s) Movie....and why?

[Michael Wisniewski]

My current favorite movie is Strictly Ballroom and I just can't figure out why, but everytime I catch on IFC or something I'll sit through the whole thing again.

Spirited Away really good anime, could be trimmed just a tiny bit in some places but loved the otherworldiness of the whole thing.

Tremors - totally fun film can't get enough of the worms
Arrival - nice sci-fi suspense, I like the paranoid feeling
Army of Darkness - Ash + boomstick that's all you gotta say
LOTR - Just love Tolkien - read all the books like a hundred times sat through the extended versions + appendices like 6 times already
Revenge of the Nerds - One the best campy and cheezy movies
Real Genius - Pure wacky/zaniness/insanity
Hackers - yeah loved this film, just this side of a campy comic book, who cares if everybody's computer screens are projection LCD screens - it's got Angelina in it!
Sneakers - love adventure type Robert Redford films, he just has this way of telling stories simply and in a straight forward entertaining manner - also likes Spy Games
Indiana Jones - I don't really need to explain why do I?
Spider Man - Raimi at his best
Uzumaki - hard to explain why, just have to see it
Kill Bill - well I've got a million kung fu movies in my head, but this one did a great job of putting it all in one movie, can't wait for part II

And of course a ton more ...

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Raimi at his best?

[Rob Lohman]

Just so you guys know. Heat is going to get a special edition
treatment on DVD (finally!). It should be out as a 2 disc set
somewhere in the summertime (let it please have dts).

[J. Clayton Stansberry]

Rob,

Good news! I love that movie, sweet. I can't wait, especially if it includes new dts sound!

[Joe Gioielli]

My tase in film goes all over the board, My dvd collection runs from Henry V to Emmanual in Space. But when it comes to the films I watch whenever they are avaliable, that I have seen so many times I have lost count, it comes down to three.

Fight Club-not for the camra angles or the lighting. As an old Red, I guess I'm still waiting for the revoloution.

Shawshank Redemption-Make kaput that which makes you kaput, use the systtem to destroy it.

The Shipping News-Ending line of the film, "There are still so many things I don't know. If a piece of string can unleash the wind, or a drowned man can come back to life, then I believe a broken man can heal." Even better than the book.

[Michael Wisniewski]

<<<-- Raimi at his best? -->>>

Yeah him too, I always get him and Zemeckis mixed up, I don't know why :-)

[Nicholi Brossia]

I used to work at Blockbuster and got tired of watching the super popular Hollywood flicks, so I began dabbling in the ones that didn't get rented very much. I've since become a big fan of smaller budget, independant, lesser-know, even controversial films. In my opinion, these films don't have the funds for fancy equipment and state-of-the-art graphics, so they have to compensate with creativity and a great story. I think this characteristic shines through in the movies I chose as my favorites, among many others.

- American History X - Fortunately, I saw this movie in the theater on the day of release, two days before it was pulled for being too violent. Easily the most powerful movie I've ever seen, even beyond Schindler's List in my opinion.

- Melena - This is an Italian film about a beautiful woman that is living in a new town, taking care of her father, while coping with the death of her husband, as told through the eyes of a young boy. I know I didn't do the film any justice with my description, but I really liked it.

- The Straight Story - An actual David Lynch movie that wasn't weird. This is a story about a man from Iowa that hears of his brother's illness. He can't legally drive, so he hops on his riding lawnmower and trucks it up to Wisconsin, meeting a variety of people on the way.

- The Blair Witch Project - I'm sure I just lost all credibility with many of the other critics out there, but in my opinion, this movie was pure genius, mainly because of marketing. Most people complain about two things with this movie, you don't get to see the witch, and "well, I saw it after everybody found out it wasn't real." I have an extremely vivid imagination, so not seeing the witch actually made this movie better for me. And, yes I did see it on premiere night when everyone thought it was real, but even now I'll still get completely sucked into that movie at any scene. Ultimately, even if you hated that movie, you have to admit that the website was pure genius.

Of course, I don't want you folks thinking that I'm some kind of artsy-fartsy film guy, so here's a brief list of all the greatest movies ever made:
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Airplane, Back To School, Benny and Joon, Better Off Dead, Beverly Hills Cop, The Breaks, A Bug's Life, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, A Christmas Story, Dances With Wolves, Dark City, Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, Dumb and Dumber, Edward Scissorhands, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Field of Dreams, Finding Nemo, Fools Rush In, Groundhog Day, Half Baked, Home Alone, Hot Shots, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!, Johnny Stechino, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Lethal Weapon (all 4), Loaded Weapon 1, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Memento, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Naked Gun (all 3), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Office Space, The Other Sister, PeeWee's Big Adventure, The Princess Bride, Rad, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, See Spot Run, The Shawshank Redemption, Snatch, Soul Food, Spaceballs, Spies Like Us, Spy Hard, Star (BMW Films), Stir of Echos, Swingers, There's Something About Mary, Thunderheart, Top Secret, Toy Story, Transformers: The Movie, Tremors, UHF, The Wood, Wrongfully Accused.
... okay, I need to stop before I get too excited :).

[Heath McKnight]

Didn't like most of Jim Carrey's comedies, other than I thought DUMB AND DUMBER was funny...

I thought AMERICAN HISTORY X was good, but not really powerful. The real juicey stuff was what the director was doing (and still is) behind the scenes.

I really liked THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, mostly because it was more real than any other film. My friend and I both used to camp in the middle of nowhere (me in the Colorado Rockies, he in rural New Jersey), and we can relate to being lost. And mostly, we always know when people are lost how the loved ones feel. That movie showed them talking about how their family was probably looking for them, along with others. Eerie...You never quite know what's happening when someone is lost, but I always think they're helpless. That painted a different picture.

heath

[Jason Casey]

Don't forget about Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Very low budget, almost indie, yet an amazing film.

[Rob Lohman]

American History X is great film indeed, to bad that it has a very
bad DVD, again. I have it on the shelf though. I've been a bit
absent in this thread because it is hard to vote for my (all time)
favorite movies. Actually it's getting harder every week. If you
check my bio on the wrangler page (see the link in my signature
after my name) I list some. I'm both an avid fan of big hollywood
productions (I just loved the cinematography of Pearl Harbor)
and the unknown ones like F---ing Amal [no, that isn't porn]
which probably almost no-one knows (like Delicatessen, Bound
and Withnail & I for example).

I'm a movie (yes I choose this word explicitly over film) fan and
love to see all kind of movies. My image of what I'm liking is
shifting slowly constantly. And thus my favorites as well. Ofcourse
there are quite a lot of movies that I really like.

To list some (in alphabetic order):
- 12 monkeys (*)
- Amelie (*)
- American History X
- Armageddon
- Avalon (*)
- Beach, the
- Bound (*)
- Cruel Intentions
- Dark City (*)
- El Mariachi
- Fight Club
- F---ing Amal (*)
- Godfather, the (yes part 1, not 2)
- Green Mile, the
- Heat
- Leon (*)
- Matrix, the
- Nightmare before Christmas, the (*)
- Meet Joe Black
- O Brother Where Art Thou
- October Sky
- Pulp Fiction
- Reservoir Dogs
- Se7en
- Sixth Sense, the
- Snatch (*)

* = lesser known movies

[Chris Sorensen]

Some I love that haven't been mentioned:

Amadeus
Dog Day Afternoon
Unforgiven

[Nicholi Brossia]

Everyone is naming really good movies that I haven't seen in a while.
Rob, are you talking about Leon: The Professional? If so, I take it you've seen the real version.

[Nicholi Brossia]

I just realized that you're from The Netherlands, which means you've seen the real version. Here in American, 24 minutes (the scenes when Leon takes Mathilda on a couple jobs) of the film were banned and didn't show up until years after when the special edition dvd came out. The original version was called "The Professional" and the later, full version was "Leon: The Professional." I'm guessing we're talking about the same movie, only you actually got to see the originally intended cut, as well as title.

[Rob Lohman]

I'm indeed talking about the movie. I've seen the original version
as intended indeed. The funny thing is, is that I actually have the
DVD as a region 1 NTSC disc. It is the uncut international version,
ofcourse. The US disc has a better picture (anamorphic) and some,
is dual layer (thus better bitrate) and is actually longer then the
European version. Go figure.

[Dylan Couper]

I've seen both versions, and actually prefer the US version. The overall pace seems to be smoother.
This is also one of my top favorite movies, but I forgot to list it earlier.