Nostromo's Top 50 Cocktail Party

Wolfgang's glorious U-boat picture starring Jürgen Prochnow as Captain Henrich. after doing some research following my enjoyment of the film, perhaps the greatest praise i can give comes not from me but from real-life submarine sailors. Those bastards love watching these kind of films, but Das Boot is the one they revere most. Flash to 1942 as the German fleet is engaged in The Battle of the Atlantic to hassle and devestate British shipping routes. Business is good, until the British improve their shipping escorts with Destroyer class ships. I was always drawn to history when i was a student, and this is a film that taps into my marvel and appreciation for such. a story of how military sailors and crewman must make the best they can operating under the ideologies of their government.

A coffin-dragging gunslinger strolls into a town caught between two feuding factions. The racist Rojos vs. the Mexican banditos. With Franco Nero as Django set firmly in the middle. It's just pure fun and continues to inspire filmmakers today. Italian exploitation at its finest, ears are cut off, prostitues fight in the mud, & bodies are mangled. Welcome to Spaghetti-land in all its brilliance!

dedicating this pick to SexyCelebrity (gong), as well as the arthouse hipsters, if i haven't scared them off already! ;) we're in China in the 1920's, with 19 year old Songlian. she is pushed into a marriage with the Lord of a powerful family, named Chen Zuoqian. he's already got 3 wives, making Songlian his 4th. each night Chen chooses which wife to spend his night with, and his choice brings privileges. So the wives are constantly scheming and backstabbing for their Chen's attention. Concubines! gotta love em. it's also one of the most gorgeously-filmed movies i've seen. and it strikes on a natural truth, many women over time will always be drawn to men of status and wealth. that's just the way things work, bc who doesn't want a life of pleasure and nice things? yet Songlian attempts to overcome thousands of years of historic oppression of women in her position... where women are little more than collectibles for rich and powerful men.
An exotic adventure. Now somebody post the gong

Sci-Fi action time. Ripley awakens after 57 years in cryogenic sleep as her vessel is recovered after drifting across the galaxy. Once she returns, naturally nobody believes her wacko tales about an alien species. Yet news arrives that a colony on the planet LV-426 has been wiped out and all communication is lost. Enter the space marines along with the talented Mrs Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo.

The story follows an ex-Insurance investigator named Leonard Shelby, a man who loses his memory after his wife is raped and murdered. He attempts to put his past back together piece-by-piece like a jig-saw puzzle. It's a mindbender and Nolan's finest moment to date, for me.. based on the short story written by his brother. Now... where was I?

A story about an assasin in Hong Kong named Jeffrey Chow, aka Mickey Mouse. He takes one final job before retiring so he can look after his girl, Jenny, who lost her eyesight. But Chow's employers betray him and he ends up joining forces with the inspector trailing him, Inspector Lee. It's an excellent entry from John Woo, who drew inspiration from the French police thrillers starring Alain Delon. a pulsing action film with a heart

the story follows a Spanish caravan of 16th century conquistadors exploring the jungle rivers of South America in search of el Dorado, 'the City of Gold.' after the expedition struggles over mountains, through mud, and various terrain challenges, the noble leader throws in the towel and elects a small band of men and women to go deeper into the jungle. Only two of these men have leadership capability, Ursua, more of a gentleman... and Lope del Aguirre, a ruthless and ambitious soldier. It's the Klaus Kinski show, his bizarre enchantment is what drives the film and the story onwards. I will always admire his character's delusions and belief in a seemingly unattainable goal... el Dorado, the City of Gold. He's so sure it's out there, somewhere. We can't even be sure he didn't find it, in the end, bc he survives as the credits roll

i'd be lying to myself, and the MoFo Gods would strike me down, if i didn't put this in my Top 50. Rodent has seen Young Guns a lot, Sexy has seen Mannequin a lot, i'm not sure if i've seen Curse of the Black Pearl that many times, but it's possible. So much so that if i were to put it in right now, i'd probably be able to recite every line even though i've only watched it once in the last 3 years or so. that shows how many times i watched it when i was younger. I'll be the first to admit that a little of Jack Sparrow goes a long way. The sequels got gradually worse over time from Dead Man's Chest to At World's End to On Stranger Tides. But Curse of the Black Pearl is still a movie i believe in. If I could I might cut a scene or two here and there, but overall it is a movie i enjoy every single time i put it in.

I've mentioned several times that this is my favorite Bond film, and it's the truth. In a way it is probably the movie that really started to move the Bond series into a pure modern action film type feel. However i think Pierce Brosnan's turn as Bond brings a perfect balance. He's not bodybuilder Bond, he's got charm and finesse. It's my favorite individual Bond performance. 007 squares off against Xenia Onatopp, who uses pleasure as her ultimate weapon. and i love her for it! Famke Janssen is HOT! in all the right ways. I love the pacing of this film and also all the players. Sean Bean as Alec Trevelyan, Robbie Coltrane as Valentin, Gottfried John as General Ourumov, Alan Cumming as Boris, & Izabella Scorupco as Natalya. This is the style Bond i dig. it also likely helps that i spent an infinite amount of hours in my childhood playing GoldenEye multiplayer the video game on Nintendo64 with my friends. it's still a great multiplayer game with awesome-goofy-ass 90's graphics

A story about two brothers from different worlds, Charlie (Tom Cruise) and Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman). Charlie is an auto dealer and hustler at war with his own life, Raymond is autistic and lives in a world purely his own. Dustin Hoffman delivers an excellent performance and reportedly, Hoffman fought very hard for this movie's production even after several directors bowed out. And Hoffman maintained this film's authenticity right on til the end. It won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor (Hoffman), Best Director (Levinson), and Best Screenplay (Bass & Morrow). But even if this movie hadn't won all these awards, it would still remain a great film, for me