Favorite Movies

Good Lord there are tons of these. But, I'll go through some top ones for you and you can decide if you ever want to see them or not.

Harry Potter

Perhaps the easiest one for me to name since its pretty easy to explain why I like it. Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone follows the book pretty much to the letter. Yes, there are some variances in it, but it's still so close to the actual plot of the book that you forget the things that are different while you are watching it. The characters are down so well that I could never really see anyone else as Harry, Ron and Harmoine. Great movie all the way around and if you've never read the books but were wondering what they were like check this movie out and see if you'd enjoy the book :-). The book is still better of course, but still...it's really a stupendous movie.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The REAL one, not the show version. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is an excellent movie if you like comedies. It follows a valley girl by the name of Buffy who finds out that she's actually a reincarnated vampire slayer. She meets up with a Guardian who teaches her how to wield stakes and so forth and she goes out hunting vampires in true valley girl fashion. Her secret weapon? Cramps as an early warning system. She ends up meeting up with Luke Perry who is playing a teenage slacker (well meaning, but still a teenage slacker) and he ends up helping her to save the local high school from vampires. This movie is a laugh a minute. Rent it today and find out for yourself.

Military Movies

Yeah I'm lumping them all together because I'm lazy. One of the best comedies about war is in my mind M.A.S.H just because it shows comedy and how people get through the horrors of war. Richard Hooker, the original writer of M.A.S.H., wrote the book talking about his experiences during the Korean war. The movie follows the book almost to the letter and is definitely worth owning. Once I watched the movie I can't really watch the show anymore. The show sort of makes a mockery out of what the movie and book were about and Alan Alda (I spelt his name horrible I know) was no Hawkeye Pierce compared to Donald Sutherland. But, that's just my opinion. Judge for yourself by watching the movie.

Another good military movie that is deadly serious and based on real events is ZULU. I thought, when my husband put this into the VCR that I was going to be bored or something, but I was wrong. The movie is non-stop action and is a historical portrayal of an actual battle between Zulu warriors and the British army where a very small amount of British soldiers fought off about 1000 Zulu warriors just through good old fashioned military discipline. The movie is definitely worth a watch or ten and Michael Caine plays one of the lead roles brilliantly.

Kurt Russel Movies

"Big Trouble in Little China" and "Used Cars" are hysterical. Seriously. In "Big Trouble in Little China" Kurt Russel plays Jack, a trucker, who gets pulled into a situation in Little China. He and his friend Chang have to go and rescue Chang's fiannce from the evil chinese sorcerer. Jack isn't your conventional hero who goes out and can slay a hundred people with a toothpick. He's constantly trying to stay alive and rescue the girls and manages both somehow *laugh*. Pick it up and you won't be disappointed.

Used cars follows this outrageous story of a sleazy used car dealer who wants to become a senator. He ends up in a huge coverup to save the car dealership he works at when his close friend (the owner of the car dealership) gets killed/dies due to the owner across the street (the owner's sleazy brother). To save the car dealership Kurt's character goes out and finds the sleaziest, most cut throat means necessary to undercut the guy across the street. In the meantime the deceased owner's daughter shows up and ends up with the car dealership (I'd tell you how, but that'd wreck some really funny stuff for you) and she ends up in a heap of trouble when someone sets her up and it seems she says she has a "mile of cars" on her lot. She gets nailed with a false advertising suit that would shut down the car dealership and the sleazy guy across the street would end up with the dealership, but Kurt's character comes up with a plan and saves the dealership. If you want to know more rent the movie.

Now if you're going to buy these movies I would DEFINITELY suggest buying them on DVD if for no other reason than Kurt Russel is like the coolest guy when it comes to giving audio commentary with directors during the movie. The commentaries are fun to listen to and Kurt AND John Carpenter or the director from Used Cars get a huge kick out of watching the movies again and laughing about old times. They're just as much fun to listen to and laugh with as the movies themselves. They're worth the money for the DVD trust me.

The Prisoner

This was a TV series that was on a long time ago. My husband introduced me to it when it started to get re-released on DVD a couple of years back. Patrick McGoohan stars as number 6, a prisoner on a island called "The Village". Number 6 used to be a spy for the British government but quits at the beginning in the opening credits. We don't know why. He goes back to his house and is going to go on a long vacation by the brochures he's sticking into his suitcase when he gets gassed by a tall man in a top hat. Next thing we know he's waking up in the Village and he spends the entire series trying to escape.

The series is sort of a head trip. They have stuff in the show that makes you furrow your brow wondering why they would have that in there, the security system is some type of giant bubble that comes up and hits the person and knocks them out, and somehow the guys are always one step ahead of number 6 in figuring out his escape plans. He comes close a couple of times, but never quite manages to get away. He goes through number 2's like water (the second in command guys who are trying to find out the information of why he resigned...but number 6 won't tell them because he doesn't know what side these people work for) and is always trying to find out who number one is.

I'd give away the ending of the series but that would certainly wreck the whole thing for you, that and the ending is one of the things that sparks the most controversy.

Robotech

I have gotten done watching the entire "Robotech" series and I have to say that this is now one of my favorite things to watch. We own the whole saga and at least one or two discs are constantly in our DVD player to watch late at night when we're bored or can't sleep.

The "Macross Saga" follows a flying circus pilot by the name of Rick Hunter as he gets pulled into a war with aliens who are trying to destroy the Earth. It seems simple enough, but trust me it's not a really simple series. This show was created to target college students and it does it quite well. The soundtrack is superb and the characters are so cool that you just get attached to some of them and have to follow the series all the way through to find out what happens to them, good or bad. The action sequences in this animated series can't be beat (and they're complex...the planes are flying around so fast it's like you're actually watching an actual movie...seriously) and they even have a singer in it by the name of "Minmay" who has some great songs on the English version that would rival the Japanese version I'm sure, if not beat it.

There is a love triangle between Lisa Hayes, Rick Hunter and Lynn Minmay that is pretty good although by the end you want to hit them all for being stupid. But, it finally works out. The way the series progresses is actually a surprise but realistic and honestly this is one of my favorite things to watch now.

I have to say that I like the third generation of Robotech the best though. The main characters are not people you would necessarily ever want to hang out with in person just because they are all annoying in their own right, but when the chips are down and all of them are thrown together they just work well together. Sure they have ups and downs, but the interaction between all of the characters is very well done and very real. I would suggest getting the Robotech series to everyone out there.

X-men the Movie and Spiderman

Well first of all "Pryde of the X-men" does a pretty good impression of Kitty and how she used to be when she was first joining the X-men. Now the other people in it were sort of...well odd. Wolverine is suddenly Australian, Cyclops talks like he's a brick or something and so forth, but they even have Lockheed in it! It's pretty good considering the time it was made in and it's a must have for Kitty Pryde fans in my opinion just because it's one of her few animated appearances and is the ONLY animated appearance where she plays a starring role.

X-men the movie was cool. I really liked it. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was classic, they got a good person to play a young teenage (before she went crazy) Rogue and overall I thought they did an excellent job in casting and in characterization. They even got the animosity between Cyke and Wolverine down pat.

And the movie had Kitty in it. Sure it was only for like fifteen seconds, but still...cool. And on the VHS if you buy it there is a scene in the deleted scenes where Jubilee (who looks so much like Jubes it was really cool) and Kitty are questioning Rogue about Wolverine. Classic X-men scenes.

I went to see Spiderman in the theartre and I have to say that I'm wondering if this movie wasn't better than X-men. I can not see another person playing Peter Parker or Jamerson. Both of the characters were so close to perfect I was in awe. Toby McQuire did an AWESOME job in this movie and I can't wait for the sequel. Aunt May looked like everybody's grandma which was cute, although I sort of missed the frail looking Aunt May we knew from the comic book.

The movie kept the humor of Spiderman alive and well with the shots of him learning about his powers and so forth. I laughed so hard watching him make the "hang loose" symbol with his hand and so forth when trying to learn to use his powers for the first time.

If you haven't seen this movie I would suggest renting it and watching it. It's worth the money to see this one.

X-men 2...wow was I disappointed in that movie. It was almost like the movie writers were trying to do way too much at one time in one movie and they just kept making mistakes. I'd nitpick and tell you them all, but I figure that list can wait for another time. I would suggest if you have the extra money to go and rent X-men 2, but if you are tight on money just go and rewatch X-men one or something because I don't think it's worth throwing away good money on.

There are many others and I'm sure I'll expand on this later, but that's about it for now. I'm sure you're bored since I'm not half as in depth as some movie critics, but I just thought I'd share.