Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #10 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Welcome to the top ten, saucy ones. It's time we kick the lever into overdrive and point the bow of the ship towards lunacy.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? comes to us from director Robert Zemeckis, fresh off his success with the hit time-travel comedy film Back to the Future. Starring is Bob Hoskins, known throughout the internet as that guy who starred in that really, really, really bad Super Mario Bros. movie that was supposed to jump-start a "Nintendo Cinematic Universe", I guess. Hoskins stars as Eddie Valiant, a down-and-out detective recruited by RK Maroon of Maroon Cartoon to snap pictures of Roger Rabbit's wife, Jessica Rabbit, playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme, the guy that owns the home of all toons, "Toontown". Maroon does this due to the recently poor performances of Roger in his cartoons.

When Marvin Acme turns up murdered, seemingly by a toon, everyone points the finger at Roger. Roger goes into hiding in Eddie's office and secretly asks Eddie to clear his name and work the case. Eddie doesn't like working for or with toons, though. A toon that he doesn't remember killed his brother Theodore Valiant by dropping a piano on his head. Something that isn't supposed to be funny, but goddammit it just is. I'm sorry. Throughout the movie, Roger and Eddie duck and avoid the gazing and investigative eyes of Judge Doom, played by Christopher Lloyd. Doom and his band of weasels...literal fucking weasels...harass Valiant and follow him around in an effort to learn of Roger's whereabouts. Doom even reveals the one mixture that can effectively kill a toon, called "Dip". FILM TRIVIA: The ingredients that Eddie's friend names for Dip are actual ingredients used to clean ink off of paper and cellophane, so realistic cartoon killers. Fun stuff. It's also one of the first movies to showcase real life actors and cartoons on screen at the same time in such an integral part of the plot. So much so that it won an Academy Award for its work.

I love Who Framed Roger Rabbit simply because of its lunacy. It's also the only piece of media in the world today, the only piece of film in history, to showcase both Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse on screen at the same time. It was in Warner Bros' contract that Bugs Bunny had to appear on screen for the exact same amount of screentime as Mickey Mouse, a demand that Disney upheld. Daffy Duck and Donald Duck also have a scene together where they duel piano skills. The rest I don't want to spoil. You're just going to have to do the smart thing and watch it. You won't regret it. At least I hope you won't, because it's downright nuts.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: HONORABLE MENTIONS

Now hold on a second there, cowboy (or cowgirl, depending on thine gender), before we get cracking into the top ten of my all-time favorite movies, let's go ahead and name some honorable mentions! Let's face it, I couldn't do "Top 40", "Top 50", or even "Top 60" because two reasons:

• Length: I'd be doing this list until I'm thirty, considering the rate I come and go on the blog. I picked thirty as a decent number that has both the perfect amount of quality and quantity. Of course quality is subjective because what I find to be my favorites probably aren't your favorites.
• Singularity: If I kept increasing the number of movies that I'm ranking as my favorite, the feeling of them being special and unique to me would go way down just to accommodate them all. Pretty soon I'd be ranking one hundred of my favorite movies just because I'm a sucker who can't make up my mind.

So anywho, let's go ahead and give you, let's say fifteen of my runners-up. Now, these are completely unranked. This is not like it's 31-45 or anything. Just fifteen movies that I really considered adding to this list, but I felt either weren't special enough, didn't resonate with me all the well but I still enjoy deeply each time I watch them, have great nostalgic love for, or just plain love showing people or talking about. Plus, since there's fifteen in this one post, I'm going to just quickly summarize them all and why I love them. 1-2 sentences, max.

1. Major League - The infamous 1989 baseball comedy starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Wesley Snipes as a rag-tag team of recruits for the Cleveland Indians as the team's new owner tries desperately to purposefully tank the year to relocate the team to a much nicer city with promises of riches and a new stadium. This movie has got some classic lines, plus I love it for being an R-rated baseball romp. The sequel is passable, but this one's pretty special.
2. The Brady Bunch Movie - Talk about an oddball of a movie choice that I find utterly hilarious. A simple mid-90s take on the classic story of a lovely lady and her man named Brady with six kids under one roof. This movie makes so many in-jokes about the show, and its awkward mashing of this 60s family with the 90s setting makes for so many more points of laughter. Top notch.
3. GoldenEye - The James Bond film from 1995 that spawned one kick-ass video game, my favorite Bond movie of them all. Pierce Brosnan's first outing as the British spy sees him tackle a Russian crime syndicate looking to use an EMP weapon to wipe out the fact they're about to steal boatloads of money from the British government. Pierce Brosnan is a fantastic Bond and Sean Bean makes an equal foe in tone and presence.
4. Full Metal Jacket - The premier Vietnam War movie comes from legendary film director Stanley Kubrick. Known for helping to bring famous army voice R. Lee Ermey to the mainstream as Gunner Sgt. Hartman, Full Metal Jacket is a two-act story, showing the first act as boot camp trainees and the other half is the recruits deployed into Vietnam itself. Some gruesome stuff, in no way a comedy, but still a fun ride nonetheless.
5. Pulp Fiction - Quentin Tarantino's most popular crime movie amongst many people, Pulp Fiction is a magazine style crime movie following the exploits of two mobster hitmen whose lives intertwine with those around them. Told in an out of order manner, Pulp Fiction has so many jokes made from its material, including the birth of the "$5 Milkshake".
6. Jaws - Steven Spielberg's infamous golden-age blockbuster about three guys in a marine water town that go out hunting for a killer shark terrorizing their beaches. The movie starts out really well, but gets even better when the three men, Hooper, Quint and Brody, board Quint's boat Orca and go hunting for the shark themselves.
7. Tommy Boy - Arguably Chris Farley's most popular film that he was (some people will prefer Black Sheep but this one's my favorite). Tommy Boy sees Farley drag SNL co-star and good friend David Spade on a cross-country expedition to sell his dad's thirty-thousand brake pads to keep the company afloat after his father's passing. I mean it's Farley and Spade on a road trip movie, come on.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The first and greatest (in my opinion) movie made out of the franchise by Eastman and Laird, the 1990 comic book movie follows four mutant ninja turtles as they rise from the shadows of the sewers and conquer the imminent threat in New York City, the Foot Clan, and its leader, The Shredder. I love it for its dark and gritty take, similar to the comic books that spawned it.
9. Heavyweights - One of the silliest mid 90s Disney movies out there, Heavyweights follows Gerald Garner as he travels to Camp Hope, a camp designed to help kids lose weight. During his stay, the camp is sold to up-and-coming fitness mogul Tony Perkis, played by Ben Stiller. Soon, they realize Tony is not what he seems and goes to extreme measures to make the kids lose weight. I like it for being a Disney film that's not afraid to make adult jokes or to kind of unsettle you, with the video shown to the parents about what Perkis's camp has been like.
10. Forrest Gump - You know this one, the greatest triumph story from 1994 starring Tom Hanks as the slow-witted, simple-minded yutz known as Forrest Gump. We live Forrest's life with him as we see him inspire Elvis's hip shaking, help Bear Bryant take Alabama to fame and glory, fight the war in Vietnam, meet three US Presidents, found a world-renowned shrimp comany Bubba-Gump Shrimp; all while vying for the attention of his childhood crush, Jenny. Its probably the greatest feel-good story ever made. What else can I say?
11. Watchmen - This one, you probably also have probably heard of. The infamous 2009 adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name, Watchmen follows retired superheroes whose destinies are intertwined and documented when Russian-US relations deteriorate it results in one of them taking matters into their own hands. It's gritty, it's artistic, and it may have infuriated fans for making changes, but I still like it. The three-and-a-half-hour epic complete with the Tales from the Black Freighter comic book tale is awesome.
12. Aliens - You've probably heard me mention this one before. James Cameron's first of two excellent sequels that he's directed, Aliens shows Ellen Ripley suit up, lock and load and charge back to the compound of an Earth colony with a group of space marines to exterminate the alien race that tormented her in Alien. It's action-packed, it's an isolated mood, and it all feels very much like a video game as it progresses. Good stuff.
13. Gran Torino - The sure-as-shit supposed Best Picture Oscar winner from 2008, Gran Torino shows us Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski, a man of Polish decent who just wants to be left alone as he wittles away in a Korean neighborhood. He becomes embroiled in a heated family affair after crooks try to coax his neighbor into stealing his Gran Torino. Emotional, driven, and another great story of triumph and perseverance.
14. National Lampoon's Vacation - One of the original "road trips from hell" movies, Harold Ramis's 1983 romp starring Chevy Chase is the first film to show the Griswold family's misadventures, this time as they try and trek across country to the theme park Walley World. Classic comedic gold full of so many quotable lines, mostly from Chevy Chase himself.
15. My Cousin Vinny - One of the best courtroom dramas out there, mainly because a lot of it is funny too. Ralph Macchio plays William Gambini, as he and his friend Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell Winfield) are incarcerated for a crime they didn't commit. In charge of proving their innocence in a court of law is Joe Pesci as Vincent Gambini, William's cousin. With Marisa Tomei as his girlfriend Mona-Lisa Vito and Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster) as Judge Chamberlain Haller, the entire movie makes for one funny ride. The banter between Vinny and Chamberlain is priceless each and every scene they're in.

Well that was it. My fifteen runners-up. I'll see you guys in the top 10!

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #11 - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

I love stuff from the 1980s, that goes without saying. Quite frankly, you can't get any more 1980s than Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. In fact, a two part retrospect on Bill & Ted movies is how this blog first started.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure follows two high school surfer stoners, Bill S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves). These two dimwit hopeful musicians are in danger of failing history class by their teacher Mr. Ryan, who tells them "If you don't get an A on your final history report, I'm flunking the both of you". Worse news is that if Ted flunks, his father is sending him to Oats Military Academy, thus destroying Bill and Ted's future as a powerhouse of metal. What Bill and Ted don't know is just how influential their music will become, when a good samaritan named Rufus (George Carlin) travels back in time from 2688 AD to give Bill and Ted a time-traveling phone booth to help them complete their history report, else the entirety of the future will crumble when Bill and Ted don't form their band and change the course of time. As Rufus puts it, Bill and Ted's future music "will align the planets and bring forth universal harmony, allowing meaningful communication with all forms of life."

What follows is watching Bill and Ted travel to the Old West, Ancient Greece, Medieval England, Austria, Germany, and even 1863 USA. Rather than study the past, Bill and Ted take it upon themselves to capture or "borrow" rather historical figures from their time periods and bring them to present-day 1988 San Dimas, California. They capture everyone! Billy the Kid, Napoleon Bonaparte, Socrates, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, Beethoven, Sigmund Freud and Abraham Lincoln. At the end of the day, the bring these historical figures to their school and each one gives a speech relating their time period's to San Dimas's. The whole movie even climaxes with Abraham Lincoln telling people in the audience to "Be Excellent to Each Other and PARTY ON, DUDES!" in perhaps one of the greatest speeches Abraham Lincoln ever gave in the entirety of his political career.

Another point of pride in the movie is the soundtrack. It went full-on 80s hair metal with a few pop hits thrown in there and each song in the movie is poignant, notable and welcome. From Big Pig's "I Can't Break Away", Vital Signs' cover of "The Boys and the Girls Are Doing It", and Shark Island's "Father Time" to Robbi Robb's "In Time" and Power Tool's "Two Heads are Better Than One", the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful (wipes away heavy metal tear). Please do yourself a favor and give Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure a watch. You don't have to watch Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, but if you want to, that one's fun too. Just in a different way.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #12 - Ghostbusters

Coming to us is another fabled comedy movie not inspired by an SNL sketch, but written by and starring some of SNL's most famous alumni.

Ghostbusters shows us how the occult can be funny. How three scientists form a business in downtown New York for the sole purpose of hunting and catching ghosts. After their jobs as paranormal studies professors at Columbia University falls through, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) each take it upon themselves to open up a ghost-busting business in New York City, dubbing themselves "Ghostbusters". The movie takes you one a ride as they have a montage of catching ghosts, showing the world that yes indeed ghosts exist and these are the guys to call if you hear or see anything spooky in your house, just as the lyrics to the theme song say. "If there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!" Standard run of the mill ghosts fill their time and manpower...

...but while that's going on, a greater evil manifests itself in the bowels of one New York apartment building on 55 Central Park West. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) finds an evil presence in her refrigerator. Soon, two hell hounds of unspeakable horror come to life: Vinz Clortho, the Keymaster and Zuul, the Gatekeeper. Together, the two will meet and unleash the power of Gozer, the Gozerian. The two hounds possess Dana and Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) and meet up on the roof of 55 Central Park West, allowing Gozer the Gozerian to be revived. With the help of fourth Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), the Ghostbusters walk onto the roof, do battle with evil and vanquish Gozer in his newest form: that of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Obviously, this movie is a classic simply for its star power. Each one of the guys in this movie has gone on to do other great things. I mean, Bill Murray needs no introduction whatsoever. If you don't know who Bill Murray is then you're living under a rock...a very big and dense rock. Harold Ramis would direct National Lampoon's Vacation not just a year before this movie was released. Aykroyd would have a storied career playing several memorable characters, both main and supporting. Ernie Hudson would go on to roughly do the same thing, to the point where you can point him out and say "That's Ernie Hudson!" Then Sigourney Weaver would go on to star in probably one of the greatest sequels ever made in Aliens. Rick Moranis would have one of the most storied comedy careers imaginable before disappearing from the limelight by choice later on in life. Even Annie Potts would go on to voice Bo Peep in the Toy Story movies.

Give Ghostbusters a watch. I love it for its comedy, its science-fiction representation and its somewhat spooky atmosphere. Not "scary" spooky, just "commedically toned" spooky.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #13 - Wayne's World

It's definitely one of the top most quotable movies of all time, and frequently thought of as one of the greatest comedy films ever made, all coming from a simple SNL sketch that showed two guys doing a celebrity talk show in the basement of one of their moms'.

Wayne's World follows Wayne Campbell and his best friend Garth Algar as they put on "Wayne's World", a talk show that they shoot every night in Wayne's mother's basement. The show dictates goofy antics, woman mooning, weird salutes and oddball monologues. The show opens rather notoriously with "WAYNE's WORLD! WAYNE's WORLD! PARTY TIME! EXCELLENT!" as Wayne plays guitar and Garth slaps his knees with his drum sticks.

The movie adapts the SNL sketch by giving it a plot. There's a nefarious TV show executive named Benjamin who wants to purchase the show to sell it to Noah Vanderhoff, a top-rated personality and arcade game entrepenur, responsible for creating "Noah's Arcade". Meanwhile, Wayne and Garth continue doing the show small-time out of Wayne's mother's basement, ignoring the possible spotlight of fame and fortune. They follow it up with a visit to Stan Mikita's Donut shop followed by a trip to the Gasworks. There, Wayne meets the woman of his dreams in Cassandra, the front woman for a small-time Chicago band looking to get signed. Benjamin also makes a move for Cassandra to sign her band in an effort to fall in love with her. Wayne and Garth fall for Ben's shenanigans and sell their show to him in an effort to go full-time, but Wayne botches it due to his distrust of Ben and his crumbling under the spotlight. In the end, Wayne gets the girl, Garth gets his "dream woman" he knows at the coffee shop, and Cassandra gets her record deal. That's of course one of the endings, as the movie gives you three literal endings to pick from.

The whole movie really must be seen to be believed. It really is notorious with good reason. There's so many in jokes and quotable lines that it's not even necessary to have watched the movie. Get a couple guys who love the movie together and you can practically put on a show for your friends, much to their annoyance or delight. I'd like to do a full, in-depth review of this movie, but it's difficult because it's all over the place, and there's so many memorable scenes that it would be hard to collectively cover them all. From Garth's Jimi Hendrix dream in the donut shop to Wayne getting pulled over by the T-1000 during his search for Cassandra, to the three false endings to the movie...including the "Scooby-Doo" ending. The whole movie is just wild and off the rails, and it's truly one of the best comedies ever made. If you haven't watched it, please do so now. Like honestly...stop what you're doing and do so now. Even if you're outdoors, find a cell tower and jack up your cellular plan's data bill just to enjoy it. You won't regret it. I mean, you might regret the bill but you won't regret the movie.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #14 - Spaceballs

Oh man, it's the ultimate Star Wars parody. The fourth best Star Wars film, in my own personal opinion. Lol.

Spaceballs comes to us from the talented and warped mind of Mel Brooks, responsible for several other comedy legends such as Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and later  Robin Hood: Men In Tights. He was also known for Dracula: Dead and Loving It, so take that with a mixed blessing. Don't get me wrong, Dracula: Dead and Loving It has it's moments but it's not on par with his original works. Spaceballs is the most notorious among nerdom, for its farce and crazy representation of interstellar hijinks.

Spaceballs follows the citizens of the planet Druidia as they fend off the onslaught of the race of beings known as the "Spaceballs". The Spaceballs are led by Col. Sanders, and the fiendish leader Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis). They both answer to President Skroob, played by Mel Brooks. The three of them plot to kidnap the daughter of Druidia's own King Roland (Dick Van Patten), Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) in order to extort Planet Druidia's fresh air supply for their own. In response to her kidnapping, King Roland hires the courageous duo of Lone Star (Bill Pullman) and his sidekick, Puke (John Candy) to find her and rescue her and her droid, Dot Matrix (Joan Rivers). The movie features this all-star cast in some of their most memorable performances, John Candy and Bill Pullman especially. Brooks double-stars as Yogurt, the wise Schwartz magi who teaches Lone Star how to utilize it, as well as teaching him about his heritage as a Prince.

The reason this movie resonates with me so well is the fact that it's one of those movies I discovered in junior high school, but I also didn't bother watching it again until high school, then rather religiously in college. It's yet another movie that I can quote backwards and forwards, but not quite all the way. Pretty much all the key scenes. "A hundred thousand space bucks?", "How many assholes we got in this ship, anyway?" and various others. Literally every other character as at least one quotable line. Even King Roland. "I'm breathing...air! AIR!" Just one of those movies that resonates with you so well. I guarantee if you watch it, you're going to get a lot of Star Wars related jokes for sure, but you'll also get science fiction jokes...like when John Hurt reprises his role of Kane from Alien when another alien bursts from his chest..."Oh no! Not again!" Give it a watch.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #15 - Galaxy Quest

Oh man, we've hit the top fifteen. What a strong fifteenth entrant, too!

Galaxy Quest is one of those movies you look at on the store shelf at Blockbuster (if you're old) or scroll through on Netflix (if you're young, or a hip old person) and think "Hmm, wow. This looks cheesy and dumb, I'd better scroll past it". But what you don't realize at that point is just how wrong you are. Galaxy Quest is a parody of Star Trek, the original series with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Not the series itself, no, but of the people who made the series.

Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith, the William Shatner-esque actor who also has William Shatner's monumental ego that many of the Star Trek actors have stated he had. The late, great Alan Rickman plays Alexander Dane, the Leonard Nimoy-esque proud actor who feels dumb that he's stuck being remembered for a sci-fi role. Sigourney Weaver plays Gwen DeMarco, the Nichelle Nichols character who was once an on-screen love interest of Tim Allen's character. The other actors are Tony Schaloub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell. Enrico Collantoni plays the alien Mathasar, who comes to Earth to recruit the cast of this television series from the 80s to negotiate a surrender with the villanous arthropod alien known as Sarris. Even going so far as to build an scale, functioning real-life replica of their starship, the NESA Protector.

The whole movie is a giant farce quest, but not in the way of several farce movies do. This one actually has clever jokes and humor and puts the characters in a fun situation. I mean, it really makes you think. What would happen if aliens visited Earth and demanded that the cast of Star Trek or The Next Generation help them negotiate the surrender of an angry alien race. Patrick Stewart would probably accept death before leaving Earth to do any more interstellar work. William Shatner would spring his wrinkly butt into action, but none of his costars would enjoy going with him. This sort of conception regarding his relations to his costars is well played here. The other costars are completely oblivious to Jason's stories that aliens found him and tried to recruit him in their game. I would love to hear about George Takei, Walter Koenig, and William Shatner dusting off their phasers and getting back into the swing of things. Except, I doubt any of them would remember how to do anything. I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet. Quite a fun movie.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #16 - Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Who here remembers the good times of the early 1980s? No really, because I wouldn't be born for about another decade. Somebody, fill me in.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High is just that all-round 'feel-good' movie. It takes place over the course of one school year at, well, Ridgemont High. The movie follows several characters as their lives are intertwined and they develop from who they are into who they're going to be for the rest of their lives. Several key standouts, like Judge Reinhold as Brad Hamilton is the star fry chef at All-American Burger and dates his high school sweetheart before getting fired and dumped close to the same time. He struggles emotionally as he copes with his new mundane job and works toward trying to finish school on a positive vibe, eventually halting a robbery. The main star is his sister Stacy, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. She struggles with that female coming-of-age want and need for sexual attention, eventually to the point of having seven-second-sex with her potential lover Mark Ratner's good friend Mike Damone and getting knocked up...you know...as all girls...do? Ehhhhhhh, not the best time for a joke. Poor as it was. I won't spoil how that gets resolved, but ain't pretty.

The stand-out character and the one everyone remembers is Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, the stoner-surfer dude who becomes the constant annoyance and chagrin of his US History teacher, Mr. Hand, played by Ray Walston. Mr. Hand keeps track of all of Spicoli's wasted time in class and then on the last school dance of the year, he barges into Spicoli's house and just sits there, getting his wasted time back by studying US History with him in one of the funniest scenes of the movie. This movie isn't just one of Penn's debut acting performances, but remains that way for other now-big-time Hollywood names: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold (as mentioned) but also Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz and even Nicolas Cage as a background character, one of Brad's friends. One of those weird movies where every face is recognizable to us, but to people at the time, nobody would know the careers a lot of these guys would come to have.

The movie is very emotional, being one of those teen dramedies. It's part drama and its part comedy, but the funny bits are insanely funny and the emotional bits are insanely tear-jerking and mind-numbing. You really start to put yourself in these characters' shoes and wonder what it would be like if you ran through these messed up scenarios, or if you're older than that you'll flashback in your mind to the time when high school was simpler than the life you've got now and you'll remember with irony how easy all those "difficult" times were compared to how rough you have it now. Wait... I'm the only one that does that? Shit.

Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #17 - Spider-Man (2002)

Alright, so after that brief little sabbatical, I need to finish my top thirty countdown that I started some time last year. I'm bad about staying dedicated, lol.

What can I say about Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man in 2002? It's one of the most defining comic book movies ever made. I rank it my personal "Top 3" monolith of comic book movies: 1978's Superman, 1989's Batman and this. The art style is very rich and colorful. It's not all dark and gritty like the DC Movies of today. It's on par with it's own Marvel kind; brightly lit and well-defined. One thing I need to say about the story is just how spotless it is. Green Goblin was chosen as the villain of the film since Sam Raimi wanted the father-son-friend relationship triangle between Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker. It becomes a very emotionally driven tale when Harry, oblivious to who either person is, has his back turned while his father fights his best friend. All over a girl, too.

The movie was also responsible for giving me my first Hollywood crush in Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson. So there's that. I mean that red hair? Gee-willikers, Radioactive Man...erm...ahem *clears throat* moving on. She does well, except for the whole thing about being there only as eye candy and a damsel in distress. Her character really isn't given a whole lot to do rather than turn two friends against each other and fall in love with three dudes in one picture. Hard to believe why she ends up single after it all...lol. No really, she gets friendzoned. Peter friendzones her ass out of fear she'll get hurt if they start dating. Shrewd move.

The last thing I'll say, since I want to do a full-review some day, is that a lot of the movie is rather adult in nature, and that's what makes it cool. The comic book movies now are pretty tame and you're not going to find these super heroes fighting real-world problems and defending characters from actual grim situations where you can be on the edge of your seat. They're all overpriced live-action cartoons. Superhero movies like this, Batman, and even the Ben Affleck version of Daredevil were all originally written without being based on any one storyline of a comic book, just the source material as a whole. The screenwriters took this source material and came up with a movie for it. I mean come on; there's a scene where Spider-Man saves Mary Jane from attempted rape in the rain...that's pretty unsettling. Green Goblin even makes a passing glance like he's going to rape her in the "Mary Jane and I are going to have a hell of a time" line that sends Peter into frenzy mode. The whole movie's tone is very patriotic to boot, being released some 8-9 months after 9/11 happened in the United States, so the shot at the end with the American flag is no coincidence. I feel like that's why Spider-Man did so well and still resonates like it does with people like me.

Give it a watch if you haven't. Enjoy this free clip, courtesy of me...courtesy of YouTube.

Top 10 Best Movie Climaxes

In terms of movies, the climax is usually the big payoff we get. For any movie, the more exciting or attention-grabbing the climax, the better the payoff. We sit through a movie, getting to know the characters, in many cases learning their obstacles and relate to them through those very same obstacles, and the climax is the point where the user overcomes the obstacles and becomes a better person in the end. This is called an "arc" in storytelling, and can many times be even more complicated than that.

I'm here to give you my personal top 10 climaxes in movies. These are the endings I felt like did their respective movies justice. In many instances, a good climax can save the movie, but in most cases a really good climax can improve an already outstanding movie. What are we waiting for? Let's dive right in!

#10 - "Superfight II"
MOVIE: Rocky II
Following the climactic end fight to the original Oscar-winning movie Rocky, Rocky and Apollo are beaten to the bone. Apollo clamors for a rematch but Rocky refuses, stating he's retired. Eventually, the movie progresses to show that Rocky is not meant for a world outside of boxing and he agrees to retrain himself and face Apollo in a rematch. Rocky II sees this second Superfight take place. The reason this climax is so good is because of the amount of hype and emotional attachment one feels toward Rocky. You rooted for him all through Rocky and now you want to see him do it again. Only this time, he's suffered even more hardships with Adrian's birth complications and his financial problems. After overcoming two movies worth of hardships, including a grueling fight that nearly blinded him for life, seeing Rocky get a second chance against Apollo and even winning and finally claiming the Heavyweight Championship of the World is truly a treat and its fun to watch. Watching both men fight to climb to their feet only for Rocky to get there while Apollo slumps back over is a great thing to witness, even if its a tad over the top.

#9 - "Django's Massacre"
MOVIE: Django Unchained (2012)
Django Unchained is a movie about revenge. It's two years before the Civil War in the deep south, and a slave named Django is hired by a bounty hunter named King Schultz to help him find and kill the Brittle brothers. From there, Schultz vows to help Django get his wife back from the evil slave owner Calvin Candie. The duo journey to Candieland (lol) posing as slave buyers for "Mandingo fighting" and keep this cover throughout the entire dinner scene. It gets so tense and nail-biting but when it finally blows up it's so jaw-dropping. The kill King Schultz and capture Django back into slavery. Django breaks away from his captors and returns to the Candieland, where he lets loose on the remaining hands in Candie's home. He kills Candie's sister, several of Candie's men, he releases two of Candie's slaves and then cripples Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), leaving him in Candieland just before he blows the whole damn thing up! It's spectacular. If it wasn't for The Crow, I'd call this the ultimate revenge flick, but it's a close second.

#8 - "Battle with the Basilisk"
MOVIE: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
The second Harry Potter movie that was released in 2002 was the best (in my humble opinion). There's a lot of story to cover in Chamber of Secrets and the movie did a great job making sure all the marquee moments in the book were not only represented, but represented well. The whole movie is a murder-mystery story, without the "murder" part, that leads Harry Potter and Ron Weasley into the Chamber of Secrets, a room long-thought rumored by the Hogwarts staff. Harry leaves Ron behind and confronts Tom Riddle, the man who's behind the petrifying of many Hogwarts students. Tom Riddle reveals himself to be a young Lord Voldemort, held in Horcrux form inside his own diary, who then sicks the evil and deadly basilisk on Potter. The battle between this mountainous snake and Harry wielding Gryffindor's sword is classic. It's definitely the highlight of the movie. Being nearly three hours long, the movie can kinda drag at times, but this final battle makes up for any downtime. Solid climax.

#7 - "High-Speed Demolition Derby"
MOVIE: Death Proof (2007)
Another one from our good ol' buddy Tarantino. A high speed crash course along a desolate country highway between three innocent women in a 1970 Dodge Challenger, fending off and taking bumps from a maniacal Kurt Russell in a 1969 Dodge Charger. Two of the coolest muscle cars from America's past and they're bumping and banging at high speeds. The climax goes on for upwards of twenty-or-so minutes. The girls spin out, shoot Kurt Russell in the arm and wound him, and then chase him down and start wrecking and bumping into him. The whole things comes a Twisted Metal style conclusion when both cars crash and spin out on the side of the road. The three girls then take the wounded, delirious Russell and beat the living shit out of him. All for doing nothing more, then acting like a total creep. Yet another great few minutes of revenge, something Tarantino is good at writing a tale about.

#6 - "Attack of the Batwing / Cathedral Fight"
MOVIE: Batman (1989)
An epic battle that ends one of the greatest comic book movies ever made. Jack Nicholson's Joker holds a 200th anniversary parade for Gotham City, and his parade floats are attacked by Batman in his newly debuted aerial vehicle, the Batwing. In this movie, The Batwing was shaped in the motif of Batman's chest emblem and flies like a jet fighter through the night skies of the city. Batman takes the toxic gas-spewing parade floats and takes them up and away from the city out of harm's way, then descends and starts laying out the Joker's goons in gunfire. In an epic final shot, Batman takes flight straight up, then falls down back toward the city to gain momentum for a strafe run on the Joker. In an epic showdown, the Batwing's Star Wars style targeting computer malfunctions and the Joker shoots Batman down. The Batwing has a spectacular crash onto the steps of the Gotham Cathedral. Batman, wounded, then chases the Joker up the steps of the Cathedral and fights with him in the bell-tower. The fight takes them to the balcony, where Batman wraps a grappling hook around Joker's ankles and watches him fall to his death, weighed down by a gargoyle that he got caught on. Epic fight. Great conclusion to a great gothic comic book adventure.

#5 - "It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man"
MOVIE: Ghostbusters (1984)
In one of the greatest comedies of all time, you wouldn't expect such a great story-defining climax. Gozer the Gozerian has been brought back by Vince Clortho and Zuul. It tells the Ghostbusters that it will take the form of whatever they think about. Ray thinks of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and sure enough, the twenty-story-tall marshmallow icon takes shape and stomps through Columbus Circle in downtown Manhattan. Home to such classic lines (most of which from Bill Murray), this is a great, yet hilarious entry in our list. "Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon", "Well there's something you don't see every day" and the always classic response to Stay-Puft flattening a church with his foot: "NOBODY STEPS ON A CHURCH IN MY TOWN!"  While the battle itself isn't very long and mostly doesn't even involve Stay-Puft, the entry of the ghostly food mascot is iconic enough to make the list. I love this part and I look forward to it everytime I watch the movie.

#4 - "Blowing Up Cyberdyne / Battle in the Steel Mill"
MOVIE: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Coming from perhaps the greatest sequel ever made to something, and a rare example where a sequel outshines and outdoes its predecessor, Terminator 2 had a fantastic ending to it that lasts close to an hour. After escaping into the desert with Sarah Connor, John Connor and his protective Terminator cyborg stop at a colleague of Sarah's to stock up on clothes, food and guns before crossing the border. A nightmare Sarah has sparks her to go back into the city to hunt and kill Miles Dyson, the creator of Skynet and eventual reason mankind will be obliterated. She can't bring herself to do it, so in a more competent plan, the trio works together with Dyson to go to Cyberdyne Systems and blow up the lab containing all of his AI research that would lead to the launch of Skynet. They succeed, but Dyson is killed in the blast. Not over yet as the T-1000 reappears. It chases them along a coastal highway in a truly badass chase involving helicotpers, big rigs and smashing (lol). They wind up in a steel mill where yet ANOTHER chase takes place. The damaged T-800 fights the T-1000 a few times, but gets its ass handed to it two of the times. It isn't until the Terminator saves Sarah and John by blowing up the T-1000 with a grenade launcher. Only after all that, does the evidence of Skynet need to be destroyed by tossing the remains into the steel mill, and in the final, most gut-wrenching shot, The Terminator requests that Sarah lower him into the steel to destroy his chip as well. Powerful stuff, and one of the best climaxes to any movie I've seen.

#3 - "Brooklyn Bridge Battle"
MOVIE: Spider-Man (2002)
In one of the greatest comic book movies made in recent years, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man reinvented the wheel and reinvented it well. A mostly original retelling of Spider-Man's origin story, except this one's more personal. The father of Peter Parker's best friend Harry Osborn, Norman, is poisoned in a lab accident and becomes the super villain Green Goblin. By the end of the movie, the Green Goblin learns who Spider-Man is and captures Peter's love interest, leading to a battle at the Brooklyn Bridge. Goblin throws Mary Jane off of the Bridge as well as a cable car full of children. Spidey manages to narrowly save them both, at great risk to himself, before being tethered by Goblin and tossed into a nearby rotting mansion. There, the two have a knockdown, drag-out brawl that sees both of them get beaten up pretty bad. The final battle ends with Norman revealing himself to Peter before attempting to murder him. Peter dodges the runaway glider, watching as it impales Norman against a brick pillar and kills him. The whole story was a more emotional take on the comic book superhero movie, and the emotion swells up and boils over to the point of this climax. The icing on the cake is Harry vowing revenge on Spider-Man, all while he claims Peter is the only family he has left Awkwaaaaard...

#2 - "I Am Your Father"
MOVIE: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Time for the movie twist of all movie twists. The one that's so popular and so parodied, it can't even be considered a twist anymore. Even people who haven't heard of Star Wars know this one. In the battle on Cloud City between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Vader soon easily overpowers Skywalker's inept lightsaber skills and his raw power and slices his hand off, rendering him helpless. Luke fights desperately to crawl away as Vader taunts. Ultimately, get under Luke's skin or even to just reveal a bad truth about himself to bring them together, Vader tells Luke that Obi-Wan lied to him and that Vader never killed his father, but that Vader is his father. Luke screams that it isn't true, but eventually excepts it as Vader tells him to search his feelings. Luke, realizing that its come down to joining Vader or dying, chooses to die and lets go of the antenna he's on, falling into the caverns of the city below. Of course, I won't go into the ending this time around, but it's pretty great.

#1 - "Race to the Future"
MOVIE: Back to the Future (1985)
I consider this to be the greatest film climax of all time, and with good reason. I don't care if you think I'm biased because it just so happens to be my favorite movie ever made. Following the dance that saw Marty McFly reunite his parents and save his own future, there's still one dilemma that remains. That's right, the movie's not over because Marty has yet to get "back to the future". He meets up with Doc Brown and, with awesome music accompaniment, the two walk through the plan one last time before going their separate ways. The entire climax, containing peril, thrills and fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat, down-to-the-wire feels to it all, locks you in place and makes you watch it. Start to finish. I can tell you no matter what I'm doing, if I come across the end of Back to the Future on TV, I'm going to watch it. The entire score plays with the scene perfectly and for that we can thank Alan Silvestri. It's nail-biting, tense, extreme and incredible and it all comes down to the absolute last final moment when the DeLorean makes contact with the wire at the precise moment that lightning strikes the clock tower at 10:04 PM, sending the necessary 1.21 gigawatts into the flux capacitor, and sending Marty and the DeLorean back to 1985. The entire score dies off as the DeLorean vanishes and to cap it all off, Doc Brown runs down the street along the DeLorean's fire trails before celebrating out loud that he's invented something that works and that he's seen it in action, and that he was able to get his friend Marty McFly home.

There you have it, my top ten movie climaxes. Were they all you hoped? Was there some that I'm missing. Feel free to shoot me a direct message somewhere and fill me in. I'd love to learn of new possible entries on this list.

A Review of "Jeepers Creepers"

Somewhere on a desolate Florida highway, two siblings Darry and Trish Jenner are driving home on Spring break when they come across a maniac in a beat-up 1940s truck. The truck blasts its horn behind them, but ultimately leaves them alone and continues past. Later, the two come across the same truck parked at a church. The driver appears to be dumping bodies out of the back down a sewer pipe that leads to the church's basement. Darry and Trish witness the driver doing this, but he catches them looking. He takes off in his truck and chases them. He rams their car repeatedly, but again, ultimately speeds by as they veer off the road. Darry and Trish return to the church while the driver is away and Darry investigates the sewer pipe. Rats cause Trish to mess up and let him slip. Darry winds up in the basement of the church and finds bodies upon bodies sewn together and decorating the ceiling of the basement. Darry, traumatized, returns to the surface and he and Trish flee to a nearby diner. As they exit the car, they witness the driver of the beat-up truck speeding back toward the church and duck inside...

What follows is one of the spookiest and, dare I say, creepiest races with the devil that I've ever seen...

SPOILER WARNING: I strongly recommend watching this movie before reading this review to experience it firsthand. Anything beyond this point is SPOILER material.

Originally titled Here Comes the Boogeyman, Jeepers Creepers is an independent horror movie released in 2001 starring Justin Long as Darry and Gina Philips as his sister, Trish. They play the brother/sister thing very well. You'd think it'd be a couple who goes through all this, as in other horror movies, but director Victor Salva didn't want any sexual tension in the movie. Just a straight up run from the devil. Together, the two of them commit themselves to this journey as they come across something that is most hellish in nature. They come across a violent killing machine dressed as a man, called "The Creeper". The Creeper is a demonic beast with green scaly skin, a tuft of white hair growing out of its neck, sharp teeth, claws and talons and large, leathery bat-like wings. To cover its monster features, it wears tattered clothes, including a long duster and a stetson hat. The Creeper travels by day in its custom built, suped up 1940s truck with rustic color and a cow-catcher in front for ramming purposes. At night, it flies with its wings and stalks people the animalistic way.

The Creeper is said to smell fear and uses the scent of fear to choose its victims, and to only be alive for twenty-three days of every twenty-three years. It is said that its lived for thousands of years and that it replenishes its body parts and failing health by eating the same body parts off of humans. If its leg is mauled, it eats a human leg to replace it. As Jezelle Gay Hartman, the psychic who ends up helping the kids, says: "Whatever it eats becomes a part of it."

The chase intensifies as the movie progresses. After the diner scene in which Jezelle calls Darry on the phone and correctly describes Darry's clothes and wounds, the two kids are escorted home by two Pertwilla County police officers. However, in a truly BADASS scene, the Creeper arrives by landing the cops roofs, throwing one out and decapitating the other after pulling his head through the roof. In another iconic scene, the Creeper eats the tongue out of the severed head and then chases the kids to the house of the spooky cat lady that Jezelle described on the phone. There, the Creeper intervenes, kills the cat lady and the two kids run away again. On the road just outside the cat lady's house, the Creeper taunts them but the kids eventually psyche him out and hit him with their car over and over again, eventually driving off into the night.

The final confrontation takes place at the Poho County Police Station. There, the injured Creeper breaks into the jail, mauls two cellmates to repair his body and stalks the kids through the jail. This is also the introduction of Sgt. Davis Tubbs, played by Brandon Smith. A minor character in this movie but he goes on to star in the third movie, which I reviewed back in September and that can be found here. In this final chase, there's another truly haunting scene where the Creeper toys but avoids cops on a stairwell, eventually ripping a cop's heart out of his back with his teeth. The kids find themselves cornered in an observation room with Creeper hot on their trails. He grabs them and smells their fear, deciding on Darry and letting Trish go. Trish and the police officers corner the Creeper, Trish even trying to beg for it to take her instead of Darry, but it squeals and flies off into the night with Darry, disappearing from Trish's sight. The movie ends with a chilling reveal of Darry's fate in the Creeper's later. His eyes have been torn out and eaten by the Creeper as he gazes through Darry's eye holes at the camera with Darry's own eyes...

The entire movie is shot in a weird filter on the camera, but it serves the movie well. It's night scenes are chillingly shot and the haunting atmosphere of rural Florida at night isolates us as the viewer as we follow these two college students on a whirlwind chase from hell with the thing that will never die. Jezelle, the psychic, warns the kids about the creature and its love of the song old timey jazz song  "Jeepers Creepers", which seems to precede any sort of appearance the Creeper is about to make. Again, as Jezelle puts it: "If you hear that song, you run and I mean run, because that song means something terrible for you." Again, in arguably the best scene of the movie, a similar song "Peekaboo" plays on the radio says the line "Jeepers, where'd you get those peepers?" right before the Creeper attacks the cops. I highly recommend watching the police attack scene on the highway at least if you're not sure about watching the movie.

Jeepers Creepers is very similar in tone to the movie Race With the Devil, which is also one I want to talk about one day. In that movie, two couples witness a girl being sacrificed by a Satanic cult and the cult chases them, popping up at every stop they make. It's what the Creeper does some how. It's a nightmarish chase that won't end with the Creeper appearing at every stop the kids make. Nothing anywhere is safe from it and it absolutely doesn't stop until it gets what it wants. It even includes kick-ass but tense car chases, two of them. First where the Creeper struggles to get around the kids but Darry eventually lets him past. The second, of course, after the Creeper sees them witness him throwing bodies into the church's basement, this time by ramming them and trying to gauge their fear to see if there's either of them it wants.

Jeepers Creepers is either my favorite or my second-favorite horror movie of all time. It's on a constant battle for top spot with Halloween 1978, but I'll watch Jeepers Creepers any day of the week. It's got action, suspense, horror, and thrills. The thing I like the best is just how creepy it is. It's sort of a horror movie, but it's moreso a monster movie. The thing that Jeepers Creepers does best is that it doesn't scare you by showing you what to be afraid of, it scares you by telling you what to be afraid of. The Creeper himself is terrifying to look at, but the dialogue is chilling, the mood is terrifying and the fear that wells up inside you as you wonder what the Creeper is going to do next. Jeepers Creepers is one hell of a spooky thrill-ride, and it leaves you with that unsettling feeling in your spine when you're done watching it of something not feeling right. It makes you double check your surroundings when you're done and wonder if he's really out there somewhere, stalking isolated drivers on a lonely highway...

Give it a watch. You won't regret it.

John Williams is Leaving Star Wars

How's it going my five faithful companions. Haven't posted on here in a while. Figured I'd beat a dead horse and talk about Star Wars real quick. Basically, I didn't want to take up a lot of your time. I just wanted to say it recently came across my Facebook feed that John Williams, renowned composer of many notable film scores, including:

• Jurassic Park
• Superman
• The Indiana Jones films
• E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
• and a hell of a lot of Spielberg movies

...is recording the score for what he is calling his "final Star Wars" film in Star Wars: Episode IX due out in December of 2019. The final entry in the most overhyped manufactured trilogy the saga has to offer will also contain the final bit of Star Wars music written and composed by Williams, who has composed the previous eight episodes to date. Williams wrote the iconic Star Wars main title march, he wrote the even more iconic "Obi-Wan's Theme" which later was rechristened "Theme of the Force" or "The Force's Theme". His theme for Darth Vader was dubbed "The Imperial March" and has become synonymous with evil-doers and baddies across the galaxy. Yoda's theme along with the "Parade of the Ewoks" round out the original trilogy's set of popular motifs that graced the soundtrack recordings.

Perhaps the biggest impact that Williams' Star Wars scores brought us was that from the unlikeliest of places in Episode I, when he composed and wrote a theme for the final lightsaber battle called "Duel of the Fates", which has become just as synonymous with the Star Wars brand as any other piece of music he's written for it. His love theme for Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala "Across the Stars" remains stunningly beautiful to this day, and even his epic grandiose opera powerhouse for Obi-Wan and Anakin's final battle dubbed "Battle of the Heroes" is memorable in its own way.

I feel like Williams fell out of love doing the Star Wars scores after the prequels were done, because George Lucas knew what Williams liked to do and gave Williams free reign to do what he does best which is compose and conduct orchestras for his movies as if they were mighty operas. Lucas knew this even more in the prequels by making sure each movie had its own theme and motif, much like a singer's album would have a lead single. In the newer movies, starting with The Force Awakens and continuing into The Last Jedi, I feel as though Disney simply gave Lucas the blank sheet music and just basically left him alone. Williams had no one to bounce his legendary intellect off of, as he had with George Lucas. For Awakens he had J.J Abrams, who really was more a fanboy than a collaborating director, and for Last Jedi he had Rian Johnson, who was and still is some guy. He probably thought either by choice or fate that for his final Star Wars trilogy, he'd just phone it in and get it over with it. Sure, Awakens had Rey's theme, which is a beautiful piece that sort of pays homage to Hedwig's theme that he wrote for Harry Potter that became the overlay for the entire franchise, but when you listen to it all its triumphant and grand, but there's no signature piece and it all gets overwritten/edited/cut/spliced/replaced in the movies anyway. Even in The Force Awakens, when you listen to the soundtrack and then watch the movies, Williams' work is being overwritten. When Kylo and Rey are fighting for the lightsaber, two very different renditions of the Force theme, the one in the movie is pulled from Star Wars when Luke sees his aunt and uncle's burned corpses. The one that Williams recorded for the scene is on the soundtrack, intact. Such a shame.

Anywho, just thought I'd ramble for a bit. Basically, Episode IX will be the final for a lot of things. It'll be the final film in the sequel trilogy, the final film in the complete episode saga, and really the final film that I give a shit for (lol). I'll go more into that in another post, but for now, thank you Mr. Williams for all the brilliant music you've given us not just for Star Wars, but for other movies and for really becoming the guy when it comes to scoring motion pictures. Congratulations on a historic career and good luck.